no longer coagulating even as otherwise under growth was wont to be done it wholly exhales without a residence lee or dreg or remainder of Reliques That therefore is the conclusion of the Venal blood that for the end of its Tragedy it is at length wholly expelled by way of an Exhalation through an unsensible transpiration after that it hath undergone the Offices of moystening Therefore while as that Liquor being now co-mixed through the innermost Parts and the Dgestion having thorowly performed its Office doth by way of effluxing exhale it cannot but have assumed the disposition of an Excrement From whence it alike unavoydably follows That the vital Spirit inhering in and conjoyned to the Bowels and also the implanted Powers of the same are by a continual and necessitated Fumigation blunted alienated and at length extinguished This therefore is the containing and natural Cause of short Life Therefore the whole consideration of long Life is conversant about the conserving of the vital Powers For it is not sufficient that venal Blood be present with all the Members to be delightfully nourished with their desired venal Blood Neither again doth it suffice that the implanted Spirit be thus far sufficiently refreshed from the inflowing Spirit by a continued substituting of Nourishment For nothing is done in the Stage of Life unless the seminal Powers the vital Characters I say be preserved from the destruction already mentioned For otherwise the Spirits are reduced unto nakedness and are lessened from whence our dayes are of necessity abbreviated For truly it by degrees looseth the Character of the Powers or Gifts of the Seed and is made a Spirit like unto that which is not soulified or like unto a Gas For although in Figures and Engines a perpetual Motion doth not fail because there is not required in the Powers moving a subsequential proportion of a greater unto a less that it may move some other thing Yet surely this hath not place in things which shall not move themselves nor are of ability to grow or be strengthed by moving And therefore they are things unworthy to be considered in seminal things For truly natural Generations which are constant even unto the Worlds End shall be sufficient to wit that the Species and Strengths of these do continue entire and that they do beget a Seed from them which is never diminished By consequence also if a Man of forty Years old doth generate one in times past like unto himself his Life of forty Years shall be able to be continued being co-equalized in Vigour unto himself being a young Man if the vice of a broken Thred doth not from elsewhere rush on it as I have said Therefore we must diligently search into whether the Reliques of the Tree of Life or its surrogated Substitutions are to be hoped for in Nature to wit by which whatsoever doth at length vanish out of us may be unto those Powers instead of a nourishing warmth nor may any longer through its sorrowful Fumigation bear before it the condition of an Excrement But it listeth us to acknowledge the quality of our aforesaid Fumigation not only in the Odours of some Sweats but especially because Wall-Lice Lice Gnats and the like Insects proceed from thence indeed the meer off-springs of filthiness and stink First of all it hath seemed to me an unprofitable Question Whether the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Life thereof have ceased or indeed whether they do remain even unto this Day and in what place Whether Enoch Elias and John do there even till now live happy under the fellowship of Angels without the Discommodities of old Age and Infirmities It is sufficient for me that the Tree of Life began from the Creation that it was in Nature but not fabulous or parabolical It sufficeth that that Tree was and should be unknown to Mortals and so also that the impossible obtainment thereof deprives us of hope In the mean time I search into a succeeding Plant although inferiour by many numbers Yea there is no doubt but that if there be any Plant in this Vale of Miseries which resembles the Faculties of that primitive Tree a Place may contribute its Parts unto long Life as well in respect of the Plant as of the Man using it For that the same Plant is ennobled through the Variety of its native Soile and that our Life is prolonged by places of the better nourishable Juice and through the Drink of the more sweet Air Climates themselves do afford me Credit For neither is it to be believed that that thing happens altogether from the favour of the Heaven for that in the same degree of distance from the Aequator and altogether in the same Circuit of Heaven the Parts subjacent to the East do bring forth more noble Fruits than those which decline more toward the West And moreover much Variety is oftentimes planted nigh under the same Circle both which Parts notwithstanding the same aspect of Heaven doth sometimes dayly affect with the same Motion For Paracelsus promoting it a hope is raised up in some Physitians for long Life For every one promiseth himself to have been an obtainer of long Life by his Writings if he had not described his Medicines in so great darkness of Words Wherefore most do diligently search to have his obscure Novelties of Names signified unto them Also others deservedly suspecting his every where simple and curtail'd Description heartily wish for a more manifest method of operating But none the Vaile being uncovered hath attempted to dig unto the bottom of the Matter and Basis of the Truth promised For every one either derides or despairs or being too credulous admires all things with a bending Nose Yet if these are better than those because they have not cut off the way of the hope from themselves None notwithstanding hath chosen a middle way to wit of doubting and diligently searching how much of truth the things promised may contain For indeed Paracelsus promiseth that he could attain extream Old Age by his Elixir of Propriety and boasts that it was granted him from heaven to designe or chuse the Condition and Hour of his Death but vain are his boastings of long Life his knowledge and choice of Death who the while dies in the 47th Year of his Age. In the mean time his own followers are astonished and wonder by what Disease or chance the true partaker or obtainer of that Stone which maketh Gold was snatched away being as yet in his flourishing Age and who with Hercules Club slew thousands of the more grievous Diseases up and down as it were by mowing them down with a Sithe Truly I make no Apology for any I willingly confess that I have profited much by his Writings and that he was able by Remedies ascending unto a resembling mark of Unity to heale the Leprosie Astâ—hma Consumption of the Lungs Palsey Falling-sicknesse Stone Dropsie Gowt Cancer and such like commonly uncurable Diseases Yet I have gathered
first appeared for a sign of the Covenant Wherefore mortalls were amazed at that unwonted Being and being otherwise incredulous gave credit Secondly From hence I learn that the Rain-bow was given for a meer sign wherefore neither that it hath even to this day any reason of a cause with relation to any effect Thirdly seeing now the World before the floud had been about two thousand years old and yet there had been causes in nature which to this day the Schooles do attribute to the Rain-bow yet there was no Rain-bow Surely that convinceth of the falshood of those causes Whence at length in the fourth place it followes That unless the Rainbow be also at this day for a sign of the Covenant and for the sake of its first appointment it otherwise appeares for a frustrated purpose Therefore also the Rain-bow doth now and then remember us of the Covenant once stricken that we may believe and alway be mindfull that God the avenger on sinners sometimes sent the waters that they might destroy every soul living on the Earth that the same God might be a conscious or fellow-knowing revenger and Judge of our sin For all flesh had corrupted its way by luxurie which ought to be choaked by waters By the Rain-bow therefore God will alway have us mindefull of threatned punishments who by this sign doth signifie that he is the continuall President or chief Ruler the Revenger of nature But that the Rainbow might signifie that the World should be no more drowned with waters it was meet that it should bear before it not indeed a certain unwonted spectacle in the air without difference to any other thing but the mystery of the promised Covenant ought to lay hid in the Rainbow which might declare the promlse and belief of the thing promised by a signe Surely I seem to my self to admire with Noah three colours in the Rainbow and the pleasing splendours of three Sulphurs shining forth in co-burnt Mineralls And so the Colours do give testimony that the Earth being the womb of Mineralls is at length to satisfie the wrath of God by the extream melting of the burning of her Sulphurs Therefore the Rainbow doth not henceforth presage water but fire I wonder at the Schooles who will not hearken to the truth of the holy Scriptures delivered but that they even to this day proceed to make young men drunk with heathenish toyes or dotages For they hand forth that the Rainbow consisteth of a twofold Cloud to wit one being deeper and thicker but the other being thinner and moreover extended over that other that in manner of a Glasse it may resemble the Sun from the contrary part Verily it is a vain devise like unto an old Wives Dream For I have sometimes kicked the lower part of a Rainbow with my feet and have touched it with my hands and that not onely in Cloudy Mountains but in an open and Sunnie-field And so I have certainly known by my eyes hands and feet the falshood of that supposition Seeing that not so much as a simple Cloud was in the place of the Rainbow For neither although in the morning I did cleave the Rainbow and drew it by the colours of the Rainbow have I perceived any thing which is not every where on every side in the neighbouring Air. Yea therefore were not the colours of the Rainbow troubled nor suffered confusion The Schooles ought at least to declare why it should have alwayes the figure of a Bow or Semi-circle but never the resemblance of a Glasse Why if it be the Image of the Sun reflex doth it not shine in the middle of it self seeing the Parelia shines like the Sun with an undistinct and ruddie light Why should those two Clowds be alwayes folded together with the equall form of a Bow and variety of Colours Why doth not the Glasse that is against the Sun represent those Colours if that double Cloud be in the room of a Glasse Why doth not that doubled Cloud at least in its more outward and conjoyned part change the wandring Latitude of the Clouds if its hollow part be pierced with an abounding light of the Sun declining or going down Why doth a Rainbow also appear the Sun being hid under the Clouds and no where shining Why doth the Sun I say paint out alwayes those uniform and various Colours and so neerly placed together and not one onely Colour according to the simplicity of its own light Wherefore do many Rainbowes now and then appear together in one field For truly in so vast a Circle of the Air of the Horizon the reflexion falls not in one or two miles but the Cloud opposite to the Sun hath not its reflexion directly unless on the opposite part answering to it self in the Horizon but not on the part near to its side Lastly it is absurd that the upper and thinner Cloud which is void of Colour and which the light of the Sun doth easily pierce should fashion Colours in the other thicker Cloud which neither the Sun nor either of those Clouds have in themselves Surely I have very much admired at these vain positions of the Schooles while as I should handle a Rainbow with my hand and should see no Cloud at all round about Wherefore I have noted that the Rainbow by a peculiar priviledge hath its Colours immediately in a place but in the Air by the place mediating And so I have taken notice that those Colours and the figure of the Rainbow in their manner of existing are of the nature of light That is the Winde blowing the Colours which are immediately in a medium or mean do walk together with the mean and are dispersed according as the mean in which they are is but the Colours or Lights which are immediately in place are not changed although the Air or Mean in which they appear may change its place and flow So neither the winde blowing doth the Rainbow perish or walk For from hence it is that the object of sight is at one onely instant brought to the Eye but the object of hearing because it is not immediately in place but in an Air placed doth presuppose a durance of time and motion Wherefore the Rainbow not onely is not in a Cloud but moreover not indeed in the Air but immediately in place but in the Air immediately to wit as this is in a place For so the light of the Sun doth the more swiftly strike it self in an instant even unto the Earth because it is immediately in place but in the Air mediately to wit as this is in a place But that the Sun is the cause of the Rainbow that I believe is naturall but that a Bow immediately in place is appointed to be so coloured by the Sun but in no wise in the Air that hath the force of a sign For the Schooles have hitherto been ignorant that Light and Colours can subsist unless they do inherit or stick in some certain
digestion which thing if it be rightly considered it will now plainly appear that a Cautery is not to be imprinted for the purging out of a malignant humour neither that a bad or evil humour doth exist but only for the diminishing of the abundance of Blood and so from a beholding of an exesse of a good humor only Whence it follows that it is not convenient for Young Folks not for those that are become lean again not for such as are brought low by any disease as neither for those that live orderly and least of all for religious abstashing Persons But they have not yet distinguished whether corrupt pus in an issue be only of the venal Blood or of one of the four feigned humours or indeed of a co-mixture of the four If the first should be true then the Pus should not be from an ill humour but from the best of the four humours and so an Issue shall be made void and the best Pus or the effect of an Issue shall be worst of all feeing it was not but the corruptive of the best of all But if they had rather devise to wit that the Blood is not at first evil but becomes evil while it is seperated from its other fellows At leastwise the three remaining ones shall in that severing be as yet more bad than the bloud and upon every event an Issue shall not be made but for an evil end that it might corrupt the good and guiltless Blood But if they will have the corrupt Pus to be made of the four humours being co-mixt then a Cautery errs in its end seeing a Cautery prevails not to purge out hurtful humours but to corrupt the good ones which are by nature not erring sent daily unto it self for Nourishment In the next place a Cautery shall not be to be reckoned as a preventing of a Catarrh or else the matter of a Catarrhe should not be a vapour nor also Phlegm but venal Blood it self which the Issue in it self corrupteth For corrupt pus is not made of Phlegm but only of venal Blood as hath been sufficiently instructed in the Schools Therefore by the essence of corrupt pus being well searched into in its matter efficient cause the ends of Cauteries the purgings out of Catarrhs and evil humours do cease For indeed any sumptom of wounds being taken away in Cauteries and a supposed health it must needs be that a loosing or seuering of that which held together doth produce snotty matter in the Issue and that that doth not flow from elsewhere but that it is generated in the part it self Also the Archeus daily dispenseth so much of the venal Blood to the parts proportionally as they have need of for their own nourishment Therefore the Pus or corrupt matter is venal Blood vitiated in that part wherein the Wound is and an effect of digestion vitiated in the same place Therefore to have vitiated the entireness continuation or holding together and digestion of the parts next to have converted the venal Blood into corrupt Snotty matter is reputed the very same thing in the Schools as to have gone to prevent Catarrhs or Rheums or thorow the hole of a Cautery to have extracted from the Head from whence they originally fetch all Rheums an excrementous humor which otherwise had threatned to fall down on a noble part whether in the mean time there be an agreement between the Head and the Wounded part or not for it is all one so the Skin be deteined Wounded whether that excrementous humour be Blood or be made snotty pus or liquid Sanies is all one so by the thred-bare words of Catarrhe prevention derivation revulsion and an Issue the world be circumvented For I behold a small Infant of a Year old now breeding Teeth and to suffer a Fever froath of the Mouth and Spittle without ceasing And aâ—â—ength that there are wringings of the Bowels and Stools of Yellow-Green-coloured excrements At least that Tooth is a part of the Head wherefore the Flux shall be a Rheum of the Head But what consent is there of a Tooth about to break forth or a swollen Gum with a Bowel Or what power thereof is there of begetting or sending away that Catarrhe out of the Stomack of a little Infant unto his Head And from thence into the Ileos By what right shall a vapour dropped or stilled out of the Stomack be made Cankered Choler in the Head Hath perhaps the shop of Choler now wandred from the beginning of Life unto the Head Could a Cautery if an Infant were for undergoing it suck unto it a leeky Flux into it self And by a few small drops of corrupt matter recompence or Ballance the leeky Choler of some pounds Why doth the Stomack of a small Infant frame a Catarrhe by reason of the pain of his Tooth Why is it sent into a Bowell and not unto the paining Tooth Doth not the reader yet see that a Flux is not a Rheum But that the Archeus wheresoever yee will have it being enraged is ready in the Bowels to transchange the nourishable juyce into excrements which by the Schools are reckoned Choler Phlegme c. If therefore the Flux be not a Rheume and the Archeus being wroth can transchange any thing into a troublesom Liquor if the Gum be but afflicted shall not he be able on every side to unload himself by the appointed emunctories And not to wait for the Skin to be opened by a Caustick Alass hath cruel dullness caused the Schools to be cruel towards their mortal kinsfolks For neither do they consider that in Women and those that are somewhat fat or gross there is in the fleshly membrane about the ordinary places of a Cautery a meer grease to the thickness of two fingers at least for which persons notwithstanding the more frequent Cauteries and those the more profitable ones are perswaded wherefore also the bottom of the Issue shall scarce be in the middle of the grease therefore there is not a passage whereby the evil banished feigned humour of a Rheume may rush down out of the Brain or between the Scull and Skin thorow the middle of the fat But what is that solitary humour in the next place which for its offence being banished from the sending part descending thorow the Substance of the grease unmixed doth degenerate into corrupt Pus If it be an exhalation of vapours out of the Stomack why shall it not be more frequent to younger and hot Stomacks than to weak old and cold ones In what sort shall that water that droppeth out of a vapour put on the form of Snotty matter How shall it hasten thorow the Brain Coats and Scull to find a hole made by a Cautery that it may flow down thither only and be purged Why doth not the vapour fly first an hundred times into the Air before it reach to the place appointed it by the alluring Cautery How shall the Water which climbeth
the assisting and co-operating Work-man of all Diseases an angry Parent and revenger For he saith that the unknown Star Zedo is the immediate and containing cause of the Dropsie So he affirmeth that to the Consumption Gout Apoplexie c. doth belong their own peculiar yet unnamed Star and unto every Epilepsie or falling Evil it s own proper constellation But in his Paramires he affirms the three first things to be the immediate causes of all Diseases that is all things confused Let him explain and excuse him that will for I have not dedicated my life to the interpreting of others dreams Therefore have I seriously searched into Nature and the particular kindes of Diseases and it hath happened unto me no otherwise than as to all others before me until that the Doctrines of all Authors being cast off I had seriously implored the Divine Grace For then I suddenly knew that unto every Disease hath happened its own matter which may nourish a Vulcan proper to it self within the which although he doth sometimes imitate the courses of the Stars yet that the enforcing cause thereof did not depend on the Stars For all Seeds do possess as it were their own Common-wealth especially their own vital light whereby of their own proper vertue they do shew forth a proportionable resemblance of the Stars Be it a ridiculous thing that the Consumption or Dropsie although they may be stirred up more severely and mildly under diverse starry positions are caused or made by the motion and light of the Stars the which do after another manner generate by a manifest occasion through so clear a collection of filths and the which being removed Health doth also follow without leave of the Stars The exposition of which Doctrine by me thou shalt read in the Book of the Plague and elsewhere But the matters of Diseases with their seminary Vulcans from the first even unto the last I have prosecuted with all their duplicity and interchangeable courses in respect of humane life The Almighty grant that so much as he hath bestowed on me I may nakedly refer unto his Honour and the profit of my Neighbour and that he may bestow another more able than my self on the world For Paracelsus hath framed divers Books concerning long life to have chosen death for himself that he would by a Divine priviledge have comforted his own old Age by his Elixiâ— of propriety but not by Remedies prescribed by him for long life who died in the 47th year of his Age. So great boasting therefore and unconstancy of this Man have hitherto made me a little careful In the mean time many difficulties have long since held me in doubt about the three first things until that I having obtained help from God knew that Woods and Herbs were to be distilled without any Dead head For I did long ago wonder that out of the coal of Honey no ashes and by consequence neither the salt of ashes could be had Which things afterwards I willingly through an universal resolving of a Body beheld For it was sufficient for Paracelsus to have forsaken all things involved under doubting who in a slender draught had drunk down anothers Invention and had not yet converted it into nourishment and making it his own of robbery hath he striving to flie unto a Monarchy slipped out of his Nest before he had sufficient feathers For he snatching unto himself the glory of the Invention hath well pleased himself in dispersingly repeating one and the same thing often although in the mean time he made little progress in things of his own For it is a ridiculous thing and like a Fable that Sulphur should be distilled sublimed reverberated calcined resolved in us and that from hence divers Diseases should be caused only indeed by the boldness of the Man without a Pledge or Surety of greater authority than himself For he knew not nor durst to draw Diseases into an open profession or publishment he being not yet sully committed hereunto by his Inventer It is also a childish dream that salt is distilled sublimed calcined circulated and doth undergo other torments in us or that Mercury doth sustain these strict examinations in us and for every interchangeable course of variations that it doth of it self alone bring forth other Diseases pains and defects and that others again be infolded with its other two fellow beginnings or masked with divers degrees and doses They are also trifles that Mercury by reason of the highest circulation of its subtilty might be the cause of all sudden death which we have known to be constituted by its causes to cure and prevent For first of all eight ounces of venal blood are daily blown away in nourishing without a Dead head pain and defect yea without feeling while they pass thorow and whereby they pass thorow But whatsoever hath once been dedicated unto expulsion in the shew of Water Mercury or Sweat or whatsoever hath been once reckoned unfit for nourishing or the offices of nourishment being now once performed is designed for scattering or blowing away that is never afterwards distilled sublimed calcined or circulated in us For the works of Nature are too serious because they do ultimately respect God For Nature doth not play at Ball that it should again receive excrements into favour being once rent from the commerce of Life It never returns into the same point because it proceeds and never keeps Holy-day In the next place if any watry liquor be a hundred times re-distilled it shall not therefore be the sharper or subtiler but rather by degrees the Seed of its middle life being worn out it passeth more and more unto the simplicity of an Element For rain water which now falleth down from above is not more subtile or fine than that which rained in the beginning of its Creation But if any watry thing should exhale by our luke-warmth and should obtain a sharpness through dreamed returns that should not be the fault of subtilizing of Mercury but of an adjunct Surely I wonder that so great a Chymist hath not known that the venal blood is not circulated nor that it doth bear the circles of subtilizings in us and that it doth not persevere in us above one only course of the Moon and the which tribute of feeble blood a Woman doth therefore pay Because she is she which ought to abound with very much blood as well for an increase of the Young as for the sucking of Milk But that Paracelsus might the better overshadow his own Fiction he supposeth that one of the three first things being separated doth presently assume from a Microcosmical Nature an actuality in that which is casual to any and one Being of those which are infinite a thousand Seeds whereof being collected into one it did contain and therefore that by reason of a monstrous and strange Nativity a hostile thing is for that very cause in us and is made the cause of Diseases And so that there are
void to wit after a twofold manner without form because it was spoiled of naturall endowed vertues as well in its own body as in the places of its retirances which thou shalt thus behold For although the Air do flow under the Blas of the windes yet light because it is immediately in place and mediately in the Air remaineth stable For if light may be thought to flow together with the Air even at every instant in the flowing of the Air light should be generated anew Thou mayst know that the light is in very deed a Being without a shining light For I keep a Flint in my possession which if I shall expose to the Air the Sun existing above the Horizon for the space of three or four pauses at least neither also is it materiall whether the day shall be clear or clowdy and from thence shall bring it into a dark place it keepeth the conceived light of the Sun perhaps for some such like space And that is done as oft as the aforesaid enlightning is repeated And so from hence it is manifest that light is a Being subsisting immediately in place nor having another Being of inherency besides the placed essence of it self seperable from a shining Creature And so if it depart from the Air into a stone that it might also passe from the Air into the next Air if its immediate existence were in the Air and not in place For truly it is alike to light to wander out of place its immediate subject into the Air or into the Flint in that is only the difference that the essence of light doth not subsist in the Air besides the continuall warmth or nourishing of shining as neither doth the flame without a combustible smoak But if it hath the Flint a fit retaining place for it self as it comes to passe when fire possesseth Iron it remaineth therein for some time For hence it comes to passe that the sight doth at one instant perceive its object because as well light as colour is immediately in place but in the Body of the Mean as it were by accident and secondarily For seeing place is its subject it findes not resistance in transparent placed Bodies but in one onely moment light is shaken from the eight Sphear even on the Earth But Sound or the object of hearing is immediately in the Case of the Mean and walketh without the flowing of the Air from subject into subject Although the Schooles in this thing are made half deaf But an Odour or smell is not dispersed without that which is odourable which is the Gas of a thing which is dispersed thorow the emptinesses or Magnall of the Air. And the Magnall is a Case or Sheath wherein every Gas is reduced into its first matter of water Therefore not onely lights and colours do inhabit in places as it were immediate guests but Ferments Reasons and therefore they are placed by the Creator the Word that they may be the Roots of successive seeds even to the end of the VVorld Therefore Mineralls are not promiscuous every where but certain Mineralls in set years and places For Suevia is as rich in Copper as Cyprus in times past could be Therefore cold is guiltless as heat is vain to the constitutions of their seeds For places which have wanted Mines in times past will at sometime in their day their seed being ripe restore Usuries not unlike to the more rich ones because the Roots or Ferments of Mineralls do sit immediately in place and do breath without disdain for fulness of dayes The which when it hath compleated a seed then the Gas environing the water in the same place receiveth a seed from the place which afterwards begets the Sulphur of the water with childe condenseth the water and by degrees transplants it into a Minerall water For it oft-times happeneth that a digger of Metalls in Mines breaking great Stones asunder the Wall cleaves or gapes and affords a chink from whence a small quantity of water of a whitish-green colour hath sprung which hath presently grown together like to liquid Sope I call it Bur and afterwards its greenish paleness being changed it waxeth yellow or growes white or becomes more fully green For thus that is seen which else without the wound of the stone comes to passe within because that juyce is perfected by an inward efficient Therefore the first life of a metallick seed is in the Buttery or Cellar of the place plainly unknown to man But when as the seed comes forth to light cloathed with a Liquor and Gas hath begun to defile the Sulphur of the water there is the middle life of the seed But the last life is when it now waxeth hard But the last life of the metallick seed is the first life of the Metalls or at leastwise very nearly conjoyned to it But while that Masse doth breath Sulphur and shuts up its Mercury within then I say is the middle life of Metalls But their last life is when it hath attained a fixedness and the proper stability of a vein Wherefore there is a more manifest progress of a life and seed in Metallick Bodies than in the two fellow Monarchies For that Metalls do not require a figure nor their whole Body so exquisite or exact yea if the Image of seeds in things that have life do flow forth from their own Father or begetter surely the typicall Images of Mineralls are to be fetched from the Cellers or Store-houses of divine Bounty Hence also the seeds of Mineralls are not defiled with the filthiness and wantonness of their begetters nor therefore do they offer themselves as monstrous But because they are undefiled therefore they are of famous power in healing Mineralls therefore are to be spoiled of the possession of their last life no more than other things if we do expect obedience from them in healing Else they will bring a feeble help and will bewail that they have come in vain because they have attained the ends of their appointments but are directed for the leaders of whoredoms and Riots I will repeat what I have said above in Eden our Archeus was able fully to subdue all the Archeusses as well of poysons as nourishments into his own increase without any weariness of himself or re-acting of the same poysons or nourishments To wit he could take away every impression of the middle life and overcome it without difficulty For the Archeus was immediately governed by the immortall Soul and so also therefore was not capable of suffering For God not onely made not death in Paradise but moreover neither was there created a Medicine of destruction that is a poyson for man in the Earth But man being straightway cast out into the Earth this Earth clasped Thistles and Thorns that is although our Archeus being Conquerour doth subdue the Archeusses of meats to himself yet the surviving Reliques of strange properties do remain For the last life indeed of meates departeth the middle life
in its essence by the Divine Goodnesse And the mind hath an eternal permanency henceforward not from its own essence but from the essence of eternity freely given unto it and kept with it Therefore from elsewhere and from that which is infinitely more powerful than it self Therefore it is sufficient that the mind is a spiritual vital Substance and a lightsome creature And seeing there are many general kinds and species of vital lights that light of the mind differs from other vital lights in this that it is a spiritual and immortal substance but that the other vital lights are not formal substances although they are substantial forms and therefore by death they depart or return into nothing no otherwise than as the flame of a candle But the Mind differs from the Angels that it is after the likenesse and image of the eternal God for the mind hath that light and lightsome substance from the gift of Creation seeing it self is that vital light but an Angel is not a light it self noâ— hath it an internal light natural or proper to it self but is the glasse of an uncreated light And so in that it faileth of the perfection of a true divine Image For else seeing an Angel is an incorporeal spirit if it were lightsome of it self it should more perfectly express the image of God than man Moreover whatsoever God more loveth that thing is more noble for that very cause but God hath loved man more than the Angel who to redeem the Angelical nature was not made in the Figure of the evil Spirit even as the thrice glorious Lamb the Saviour of the world took on him the nature of a servant that he might redeem man Neither also doth that withstand these things That the least in the Kingdome of Heaven is greater than John For the Son of man is not lesse in dignity and essence than an Angel although he be also made a little lesse oâ— lower than an Angel because the Son of man in his condition of living was diminished a little lesse than the Angels while he was made man so also was John therefore also an Angel doth alwayes remain a ministring Spirit but he is no where read to be the friend or Son of the Father the delights of the Son of man and the Temple of the Holy Spirit wherein the thrice glorious Trinity hath made its Mansion For that is the famous or royal Prerogative of the Image of God which the eternal Light imprinteth on every man that commeth into this world In the year 1610. after a long wearinesse of contemplation that I might obtain some knowledge of my mind and because I then as yet thought that the knowing of ones own self was a certain compleating of Wisdome I having by chance slidden into a dream being snatched out of the paths of reason did seem to be in a Hall dark enough on my leâ—â— hand was a Table whereon there was a Bottle wherein there was a little Liquour and the voice of the Liquor said unto me Wilt thou have Honours and Riches I was amazed at the unwonted voice I walked about weighing with my self what that should denote in the mean time on my right hand a chink was seen in the wall through which a certain light with an unwonted splendour dazled mine eyes which made me unmindful of the Liquor of its voice and former counsel because I saw that which exceeds a cogitation or thought expressible by word and then that chink presently dispersed I returning thence unto the Bottle again but sorrowful brought this away with me But I did endeavour to taste down the Liquor and with long pains I opened the Bottle and being sore stricken with dread I awaked out of my sleep But the foregoing and great desire of knowing my Soul remained with which desire I breathed for 23 full years For at length in the year 1633. in the vexatious afflictions of Fortunes yet with the rest or quiet of my life given me to drink from the safety of an innocent life I saw in a Vision my mind in an humane shape but there was a light whose whole homogeneal body was actively seeing a spiritual Substance Chrystalline shining with a proper splendour or a splendour of its own but in another Cloudy part it was rouled up as it were in the husk of it self which whether it had any splendour of it self I could not discern by reason of the superlative brightnesse of the Chrystal spirit conâ—eined within Yet that I easily observed that there was not a sexual note or mark of the sex but in the husk But the Seal of the Chrystal was an unutterable light so reflex that the Chrystal it self was made incomprehensible and that not by a denial otherwise than because it cannot onely not be expressed in word but moreover because thou knowest not the essence or thinglinesse of the thing which thou feest And then I knew that that light was the same which I had seen for twenty three years before thorow the chink I likewise from thence comprehended the vanity of my long desire For howsoever beautiful the Vision was yet my mind obtained not any perfection to it self thereby for I knew that my mind in the dreaming Vision had acted as it were the person of a third neither that the representation was worthy of so great a wish But as to that which hath respect unto the Image of God I could never conceive any thing not indeed in the abstracted meditation of understanding which would not by the same endeavour bear some figure before it under which it should stand in the Considerer For whether I shall conceive the thing in imagining it by its own Idea or shape or whether the understanding doth transchange it self into the thing understood A conceipt hath alwayes stood under some shape or figure For neither could I consider the thinglinesse of the immortal mind with an individual existence deprived of all figure neither but that it at least would answer to an humane shape For as oft as the soul being separated doth see another soul Angel or evil Spirit that is made with a knowledge that these things are present with it while it distinguisheth the soul of Peter from that of John For truly such a distinction doth happen onely by a proper vision of the soul which vision of the Soul includeth an external interchangeable to urse and therefore also a figural one For truly an Angel is so in a place that at once he is not elsewhere wherein as well a local as a figural circumscription is of necessity included And then the Body of man as such cannot give unto it self a humane shape therefore it hath need of an Engraver which might be shut up within the matter of the seed and that had descended into it from elsewhere yet that Engraver for as much as it was of a material condition it hath of it self no more power of figuring than the Masse of the Body
proper unto no nourishment which was unto that Apple so that it not only begat Seed in our first Parents a few hours after but also Dispositions to obtain by request a sensitive Soul from the Creator And that which otherwise happens in the Young in set Terms of Dayes and is perfected by certain degrees of Digestions that was presently compleated in the very vital Archeus of our first Parents And the Text doth insinuate that peculiar thing to be in the Apple because In the same day wherein he should eate of the Apple he should die the Death Because the Apple although it should anticipate or forestal the term of Dayes yet it should require a certaine term of Motion that after it should be turned into vital Blood it should also be endowed with a sensitive Soul For they who in the very point of Creation were formed into a Man and a Woman and not into Children in a short space also grew old or decayed on the same day into the maturity of Seeds and every necessity of Death and properties of second Causes For in a straight way all this falls perpendicularly or point blank on the post of the foundation of my Position on which the giddy or unconstant businesse of our Mortality is whirled about even unto this Day But at least-wise seeing Eve was made of the Rib of the Man that very thing doth insinuate a mark of Chastity and forbidden Copulation of the Flesh Because it is that which besides Whoredom contained Incest which thing was not hid from Adam Of which notwithstanding the Almighty after the fall of sin seemed to dispense withal granting Matrimony Therefore through occasion hereof it remaines diligently to search into whether the Act of Lust were compleated in Paradise Many will have Paradise to be free from filthiness because the Text saith Chap. 4. But Adam knew Eve his Wife who conceived and brought forth Cain saying I have possessed a Man by God But let these men pardon me For the contrary appeareth from the very Text. First of all The Text cited doth convince of nothing but that the ravishment of true Virginity because it is bloody doth not admit of Conception as a Companion And therefore Cain was not Conceived at the first turn but out of Paradise For otherwise 1. On the same day ye shall dye the death according to the truth of the Position denoteth that in the same place the filthiness was committed 2. The Woman is not called the Wife of Adam before the Fall as she is immediately after But the name of a Wife is not given not indeed unto Matrimony confirmed but onely unto it being finished 3. It was said onely to the Man Thou mayest not eat of this Tree Therefore it is read concerning the banishment of the Man to be made in the singular number Not indeed but that both Sexes sinned but because the Man had singularly deserved to be banished for his Whoredom 4. Therefore it is said Lest he stretch forth his hand unto the Tree of Life do eat of it and live for ever But it is not said least the Husband and Wife do eat 5. Adam at the first sight of the Beasts knew their Essences and Properties and also put right Names upon them But the Woman being seen he at first called her Wo-man because she was taken from Man But after the Fall he called her Hevah or The Mother of all living Because he at the first sight of her as yet knew not neither as yet had she that property from the Man and she learned it because she put it not on and stirred it not up but by sin For why had he changed the Essential Name of the Woman if she had not also changed her whole Nature 6. And next He with-drew her unto the Shrubs rather to commit his filthiness than for a cover of his shame For truly he might have covered his shame with Fig-leaves and have neglected his hiding through the Shrubs if he had not also had the signes of chastity corrupted 7. For truly if my Position be true That Death was caused onely through the Luxury of the Flesh His banishment followed not but after the act of filthiness 8. For he who but presently before knew not that he was naked After what manner did he presently know his Wife to be the Mother of all living unless he had committed something And Lastly The Text which saith unto the Serpent I will put enmities between the Seed of the Woman and thy Seed doth clearly denote that the Woman that before wanted Seed and altogether all the tickling thereof had now Seed However it is at least-wise I cannot but remarkeably admire the excellency of the Text which hath no where made even any deaf mention of the Concupiscence of the flesh but it every where covers the fowlness of the Flesh with the greatest silence by the obtained knowledge of the shame and involves an induced necessity of Death and a necessary requirance of Regeneration in the highest Mystery Determining that at length the fullness of dayes being compleated evil shall be spread out of the North over all the Inhabitants of the Earth The which I will by and by manifest Finally Nature being now degenerate it hath pleased the Almighty to raise up the Fall of Adam by Regeneration or a being born again And although he hath not restored unto us the antient clearness of Understanding and exquisite speculative knowledge of the Mind yet hath he raised up our dignity far higher For truly the Understanding being reduced by Grace into the obedience of Faith proceedeth in a humble resignation unto the victorious reward of Love whereby we are supported and constrained And the least abiding of that Love is far more glorious than the whole unoccupied life of Adam in Paradise For before the Fall Faith was unknown the race of Virtues especially also the superexcellency of Divine Love and they lived onely in the happiness of the purity of Innocency And therefore God by the permission of his fore-knowledge and ordination hath bound the unequality of blessednesse issuing or springing up from the new Birth with a certain excellency of Riches Because the Tribulations of his Life are not worthy to be compared unto the great or vast things which the goodness of God hath prepared for us that are renewed For I had rather know those things which God hath revealed by his onely begotten Son the Saviour of the World than to have known the faculties of Living Creatures and Herbs with a clear Understanding It being abundantly sufficient for me to have an Humanity in God whereby he hath adopted us for the Sons of God and made us far more like himself than Adam was in his greatest felicity CHAP. XCIII The Position is Demonstrated 1. A first Prooof of the Position 2. A second 3. The Divine manner of generating cannot be conceived by man 4. A conjecture from a like thing 5. A Repetition of Demonstrations 6.
perceived because if they should be sensible verily they should not be spiritual and meerly abstracted For indeed although it may seem to us that we understand nothing by a total sequestration of Discourses and abstraction from all Things which may fall under Sense under the Mind and Understanding and that under the Beginning of Contemplations Yet the Soul in the mean time acts after its own un-sensible manner and spiritual Efficacy the which I have thus understood For he that confesseth doth oftentimes not feel the Effects of Contrition and he greatly bewailes that his unsensibleness yet being asked whether he would Sin Perhaps he would answer he had rather die The unsensible Operation therefore of the Soul in confessing is an Effect of a supernatural Faith Because the Actions of the Understanding are the Clients of another and uncessant Magistrate For therefore mystical Men do teach That the Soul doth more operate in Faith alone without Discourse and Cogitation and in operating doth also more profit than he that Prays with many Words and by Discourse stirs up Compunctions in himself But he is happy unto whom it is granted to perceive those unsensible Operations of the Soul and issuingly to reflect the same upon the Operations or Powers of the sensitive Soul Because they do for the most part leave their Footsteps afterwards on the Life and for the future do stir up the Memory operating with Grace in Faith The Libertines of the Christians and first Atheists do deride the similitude of God in us as feigned or that we are framed after the Image of God But the other Atheists of the second and third rank do not only grant that we are created after the Image of God but do feign an Identity or Sameliness in us with the vast uncreated Deity and that neither doth man differ any otherwise there-from in his Substance than as a Part from the whole or that which had a Beginning with that which was not Principiated but not in Essence and internal Property The which besides Blasphemy hath very many Absurdities or blockishnesses For truly whatsoever began for that very Cause it is a Creature but it includes an Imperfection in God that he could create any thing out of himself coequal unto himself in Substance Because it is manifest from Phylosophy that all the Parts of an Infinite are of necessity Infinite Therefore a Creature cannot be more infinite in Substance than as it was in Duration co-like to the Eternal And much less is the Soul a part of the Substance of God or essentially like unto him the which in Power Greatness Duration Glory Wisdom c. in it self and of it self is a meer nothing If therefore it were not made from God much less from it self but of nothing Therefore they greatly erre who believe that the Thingliness or Essence of the divine Image is seated in the Soul by way of Identity of Substance Seeing they differ from each other by way of an Infinite yea it should of its own free accord be again dissolved into nothing unless it were conserved in its Essence by the divine goodness Truly the Souls of the damned could wish to be dissolved into their former Nothing which divine Justice keeps in their Being Indeed the Soul hath henceforeward an eternal Permanency from an internal Eternity freely bestowed on it and preserved in it It is sufficient therefore that the Mind is a spiritual vital and lightsome Substance And seeing there are many kindes and species of vital Lights that Light of the Mind differs from other vital Lights in that that it is a spiritual Substance but that other vital Lights are not formal Substances although they are substantial Forms and therefore also they are by Death reduced into nothing no otherwise than as the Flame of a Candle But the Mind differs from the Angels because it is after the Image and Similitude of the eternal God The Soul therefore hath that Light and Substance of Light from the Gift of Creation Seeing that it self is that vital Light But an Angel is not a Light it self neither hath he a natural or proper and internal Light but is the Glass of an uncreated Light and so that therein he fails of the perfection of a true Divine Image Otherwise an Angel seeing he is an incorporeal Spirit if he should be lightsome of himself he should more perfectly express the Image of God than Man Moreover whatsoever God more loveth that is more noble But God hath loved Man more than the Angel For neither for the redeeming of the Angelical nature was he made the Figure of the evil Spirit even as the thrice glorious Lamb the Saviour of the World took on him the Nature of a Servant For neither doth that hinder these things that the least in the Kigdom of Heaven is greater than John For the Son of Man is not less than the Angel although he were diminished a little less than the Angel For in his condition of living while he was made Man he was diminished a little less than the Angel For therefore an Angel alwayes remains a ministring Spirit but he is no where read to be the Friend or Son of the Father the Delights of the Son the Temple of the holy Spirit wherein the Thrice-glorious Trinity makes its aboad that indeed is the prerogative of the Divine Image which the eternal Light doth imprint on every Man that cometh into this World But moreover in the year 1610 after a long weariness of Contemplation that I might obtain some knowledge of my Soul by chance sliding into a Sleep and being snatched out of the use of Reason I seemed to be in a Hall dark enough on my left Hand was a Table whereon was a Bottle wherein was a little Liquor and the Voice of the Liquor said unto me Wilt thou have Honours and Riches I was amazed at the unwonted Voice I walked up and down delibreating with my self what that might denote Straightway on my right hand there was a Chink in the Wall through which a certain Light dazled mine Eyes which made me unmindful of the Liquor Voice and former Counsel because I saw that which exceeded a Cogitation expressible by Word that Chink forthwith dispersed I from thence returned sorrowful unto the Bottle took this Bottle away with me but I endeavoured to taste down the Liquor and with much Labour I opened the Vial and being smitten with Horrour I awaked out of my Sleep But a great desire of knowing my Soul remained in which desire I breathed for 23 full years At length in the year 1633 in the sorrowful or troublesome Afflictions of Fortunes I saw my Soul in a Vision But there was somewhat a more Light in a humane Shape the whole whereof was homogeneal or simple in kinde actively Seeing being a spiritual Chrystaline and shining Substance But it was contained in another cloudy Part as it were the Husk of it self the which whether it gave forth a Splendour
But if it listeth us to enquire into the cause hereof It is certain that Eve after the eating of the forbidden Apple made her self subject to the itch of Lust stirred up and admitted the Man unto copulations and from hence that the conceived humane Nature was corrupted and remaining degenerate thenceforward Through the Cause of which corruption Posterity are deprived of an incomparable purity From whence there is place for conjecture that Eve did by the Member through which she became subject unto many Miseries testifie among posterity a successive fault of her fall and bloody defilement in Nature For the part wherein the Image of God ought to be conceived by the holy Spirit became a sink of filths and testifies the abuse and fault of an unobliterable sin and therefore also suffers Because In sorrow shalt thou bring forth thy Sons in manner of bruit beasts because henceforward thou shalt conceive after the manner of bruits For so that Curse hath entred into Nature and shall there remain And by the same Law also a necessity of Menstrues For before sin the Young going forth the Womb being shut had not caused pain Wherefore it is lawful to argue from the Premises That the incomparable Virgin-Mother of God the Ark of the Covenant never admitted into her any corruption and by consequence was never subject to Menstrues as neither to have suffered womanish discomodities Because she was she who by the good pleasure of God hath the Moon and the Properties of the Moon subjected under her feet Unto Whom next unto God be Honour and Praise CHAP. CIX Life IF I must at length Phylosophize of Long Life I must first look into what Life is and then what the Life of Man what immortal and Adamical Life is afterwards what a Sensitive and Short Life is what a Diseasie what a Healthy Life what the Life of the World and what Eternal Life is To which end it is convenient to repeat some Lessons from my Premises First of all therefore Life is a Light and formal Beginning whereby a thing acts what it is commanded to act But this Light is given by the Creator as being infused at one onely Instant even as Fire is Struck out of a Flint it is enclosed under the Identity and Unity of a Form and is distinguished by general Kindes and Species But it is not a fiery combustive Light a consumer of the radical moisture It is as well Vital in the Fish as in the Lyon and as well in the Poppy as in Pepper Neither also doth heat fail in us by reason of a consumption of the radical moisture Neither on the other hand doth moisture fail through a defect of heat but onely through a diminishment and extinguishment alone of the vital Powers and also of the Light The Fire Light Life Forms Magnal Place c. are neither Creatures not Substances as neither comprehended in the Catalogue of Accidents Neither therefore do I distinguish the Form in vital things from their Life the mind of Man being on both sides excepted To wit there is a certain Life which is mute or dumb and scarce appeareth such as is met with in Minerals The which notwithstanding do declare that they live and perform their Offices by their Marks and remarkable Signs of vital Faculties And then there is another Life which is a little more unfolded or manifest Such as is in the Seeds of things tending to the period of their Species In the next place a Third Life is seen in Plants increasing themselves and bringing forth off-spring by a successive multiplying Next a Fourth Life is manifest in bruit Beasts by Motion Sense and a voluntary Choice with some kind of Discourse of Imagination At length the Last Life is now obscured in the Immortal Mind and Substance and is after some sort unfolded by the sensitive Soul its Vicaresse The Life therefore is not the Balsam not the Mummy not in the next place the Spirit of the Arterial Blood although this Spirit be the Conserver of the Body Because the Life is not a Matter yea nor a Substance but the very expresse Form of the Thing it self Moreover I being about to speak of the Immortal Life of Men I will follow the Text For indeed because the punishment of the broken Precept was Death For Death came not from God but from the condition of a Law I say the Almighty made not Death as neither a Medicine of Destruction in the Earth And that must be understood onely in respect of Men For neither ought the whole Nature and Condition of the Universe to be bespattered for the Sin of Adam so as that Bruits are made subject to Death through the corruption or deviation of our kind For truly even before Sin Bruits ought to dye to wit some whereof the Lord of things had substituted for meat and fodder to others For they ought naturally to dye every annihilable Life and Form whereof were onely one and the same thing Indeed it was of necessity that those Forms should perish whatsoever do obtain their first or chief antecedent and subsequent dispositions from a corporal wedlock of the Seeds The Death therefore of Bruits was not worthy of the word Death which included an extinguishment and annihilating of a Light but not a separation of the same with a preservation of the Light separated Therefore it was the great God his good pleasure that he made Man into the nearest Image of the Divine Majesty as a living Soul nor subject unto death Therefore neither is it said that God made Death It is therefore believed that Adam before transgression was Immortal from the goodness of the Creator Therefore I knew that Adam indeed was Immortal before the transpression of a Law Yet that it was not natural unto him from the root of Life but for the Tree of Life's sake For otherwise the planting of this Tree in Paradise had been vain if Man could not have suffered the successive alterations and calamities of Ages That Tree therefore was created for the powers and necessities of Renovation renewing of Youth yea and prevention of Old Age For although the Body by Creation was not capable of being wounded nor subject unto Diseases yet it had by little and little felt the successive changes of Ages if its vigor had not been continued by the Tree of Life For neither is it to be believed that the Lord of things the Saviour of the World was of a worse constitution than our first Parent But that the Redeemer of the World died and so felt the Calamities of Ages that in his thirty second year he was reckoned fifty years of Age. That happened not from his Nature nor from the root of his Life For Death as also the rottenness of Dayes had no right over him but out of his infinite goodness whereby he had appointed himself a Surety for our Sins he would subject himself to miseries and so also to Death in his most glorious
excel as for long Life For so the Sweat of some Persons smells of the Goat or Rank but that of others doth not far differ from a Fragrancy That one thing I say in long Life is only to be procured least the nourishable Humor after that it hath ceased from its Offices being dismissed by transpiration looseth its Grace through defect whereof I have described a short Life For I have taught elsewhere that a Sow or a Goose being nourished only by Fishes do yield Fleshes which tastingly resemble the detestable Grease of Fishes Wherefore let the Medicine of the Tree of Life be an odoriferous Balsam Spicie grateful to Nature seasoning the Blood with an excelling goodness and a nourishment now applyed after the manner of a Dew Even so that through the vigour of its uncorruptibleness its balsamical Faculty may be continued even unto the utmost Limits of its exhalation out of the Body Wherefore we must beware of this one only thing that the fire do not alter this Fruit by a seperating distillation but that a proper division of that which is heterogeneal be appointed as being sequestred into its bottoms for a greater subtilizing of Purity and Simplicity and sealing of its Virtues For in Eden the Stomack subdued the Food from a proper vigour or force for all things willingly obeyed the Stomack without the strife of a middle Life it being that which they through the decision of the Stomack kept after some sort sase even until the deluge of Waters till that through a succession of Years and Propagations all things by degrees went to ruine Then the seminal Being was no longer drawn out of Meats after that the term of Life was restrained unto 120 and afterwards unto 80 Years For the Being of Essence which before was fetcht out of Meats bewrayed it self no longer because the Stomack had enough to do only to draw forth the Being of Nourishment From hence it is manifest that although the Tree of Life was present with us from Eden yet that it will not profit us as it did the first of the Fathers By consequence also that the Balsam of our vital Tree is not so profitable unto Persons of ripe years as unto Children For he that hath almost run out the stage of Life every such one perceives an help according to a Model or after a small manner Seeing all things in Nature are received after the manner of the Persons and place receiving and of circumstances For the Friends of Job wept with him seven dayes and nights without eating drinking and difference of health The which is now at this day scarce possible for any mortal Man to do Therefore the strengths of such a life should more profit by our Tree than I an old Man who almost worn out with the offences and labours of Chymistry and the injuries of Tribulations and Persecutions So we Bees do not provide Honey for our selves Whereunto is added that Eden was of it self a preserver of Long Life through the wholesomness of the place but that but a few Paces from thence there was the command of Death Corruption and Infirmities For if Credit be to be given to Histories there are also places at this day whereunto a Life of three hindred years is ordinary For where long-lived Persons are born they are also nourished But there are other places near at hand where a renewed tyranny of interchanges shortens the Life for so some Provincial Diseases are accustomed Therefore mountainous Places which have not the Gas of Minerals as the Forrest of Arden Asturia or the Pyrenean Mountains c. nor those subjected unto the natural Moisture of Lakes because the bountiful Communications of the Stars do reflect and breath a pure Air and do make for Long Life Even as also a plain Field which knowes not the Incitements of the Throat adds as much to long Life as fulness is an enemy to long Life for the stuffings of Meats do weary the miserable Powers to wit that they being as it were worn out with labour die or go to ruine before their time which things being thus revolved with my self for full three dayes space from whence a Medicine for long Life was to be fetched Opobalsamum notably smiled on me not indeed that of Peru or the Gums of Capaida of Brasile But the true Aegyptian opobalsamum noted in the Scriptures and primitive it being the Queen-tear of a low Shrub scarce saleable to Kings For I confess I have worthily attributed very much perfection to this Being And although there were enough of it to be found yet it doth as yet decline from the perfection of the Tree of Life because that Shrub is so frail or mortal And while I variously wandred in Nature that I might view the Tree of Life at length without the day and beyond the beginning of the night I saw in a dream the whole Face of the Earth even as it stood forsaken and empty or void at the beginning of the Creation then afterwards how it was while as it being fresh waxed on every side green with its Plants Again also as it lay hid under the Floud For I saw all the Species of Plants to be kept under the Waters Yet presently after the Floud that they all did enter into the way of interchanges enjoyned to them which was to be continued by their Species and Seeds I saw I say in the top of Mount Libanus the Cedars to have remained whole under the Deluge by the Word of the most Glorious God and that they in a certain number did as yet there remain And presently afterwards I returned to my self But I afterwards considered at leisure that the Ark which ought to save Mankind from destruction was commanded to be framed of the incorrupitble Wood Cetim For the World had endured perhaps 1652 Years but Noah proceeded slowly in its building for an hundred solary years And therefore he took Wood and Rafters which were not to undergo any dammage in all that time A leprous Person being separated from the People coming to the Priest bare the Wood Cetim in his hand that he might be cleansed In the feast of the building of Tabernacles every Hebrew carried Cedar and Branches of Myrrh that God might be mindful in the rain of the whole Earth that he appointed the manners of the Times and the Stars I therefore understood by the Cedar long Life likewise the blessings of the Times or Seasons and of the Stars and also that in a mystical sense cleansing was denoted but that in this Age it was also to be obtained For other vital things do soon wither with Old Age but the one only Cedar in number by a famous mistery through the uncorrupted substance of its Wood and its vegetative Faculty surviving promiseth long Life because it containeth it For the folding Doors of the Temple of Salomon were commanded to be framed of the Wood Cetim with Gold as it were a more vile covering or involvement