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
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
deepest things of Philosophy and of the most inward principles of nature and of the seminall resolutions and exhalations of any properties whatsoever At length to shew an emptiness in the air it is convenient more deeply to search into the thingliness or nature of its rarefying and condensing For first of all whatsoever I have hitherto spoken concerning the rarefying of the air that I confess hath been done for the capacity of the common sort else to speak properly although the air may seem to be pressed together and to be enlarged in the space of place yet rarefying it self doth not belong to the air its self that is that the very body of the air may be made thinner than it self in the same manner wherein a vapour is made of water Because I have already divers times shewn that a vapour is a Cloud of the atomes of the water rent a sunder from each other by the middle parts of the air interposing and that therefore the water in the vapour doth also alwayes remain water neither that it suffers any thing besides the extension of it self and division into atomes made by its seperater For if the body of the air be therefore made thin this should be either as it should be changed into another body more slender thin and simple than it self which is to feign a new and unheard of Element actually cold thinner than the others and more simple than the air Or the air should be made thin by the seperation of the atomes and the interposing of another unknown body and then the body coming between should admit of degrees of thinness And therefore the rarefying it self should not be so much referred unto the air as unto the unknown body coming between Nevertheless rarefying is not of the air but in the air and that not onely by reason of admitted smoaks as in the Handicraft operation of a dish but through a naked quality of heat as is manifest by the Instrument meating out the qualities of the encompassing air therefore as oft as rarefying doth appear in the air it must needes by all meanes happen through an increase of the Magnall Which sounds that a vacuum being increased in the air the pores of the air are enlarged and extended and so so far is it that by reason of heat the air by it self and in its own body doth sustain a rarefying and that the body of the Element is changed that rather it is coagulated at least is pressed together and that the little holes of the vacuum do extend themselves or that the Magnall it self is multiplied in the air Wherefore there is also an improper speech while we signifie the air to be tarified by it self when as rather it is thickned or pressed together by it self but the Magnall that is co-bred with it is therefore extended But from what hath been said before is deducted that the body of the air is under cold brought unto its just extention And again that which followes from thence is that cold is naturall or pleasant to the air But that the Magnall is contracted under cold But as oft as the Magnall is straightned the wayes or passages of the Stars to us are straightned And hence it is plainly to be seen why the Land of promise is very hot that is why in the more hot Zone there are the more happy confanguinities or neernesses of alliance of the Heaven with the earth the more plentifull fruits and the more savoury ones Therefore the Magnall is like light and is easily made and easily brought to nothing For that which is in it self the vacuum of the air is almost nothing in respect of bodies For it came forth from nothing also it may be reduced to nothing But not but against the will of the air because it hath need of this vacuum Alas how nigh to nothing is all nature which began of nothing In the aforesaid Instrument meating out the encompassing air by the heat or cold of the Sun the place of the air is seen to be greater or lesse but we perceive that at the rarefying of the thing contained the air is expelled whose breathing place if it then be shut up for want of air a sucking is felt Therefore by more fully looking into the matter the vacuum or Magnall of the air is increased and lessened but the Air is not rarefied So also the condensing or pressing together of the Air is not in respect of its body but onely of its Magnall or Sheath CHAP. XVI An Irregular Meteor 1. The Mysteries of the Rain-bow and the Images of the Sun 2. That before the floud there was no Rain-bow 3. That the Rain-bow was given for a signe of the Covenant yet that the cause thereof is not yet known 4. Yet the Rain-bow doth daily bring its own Covenant to remembrance 5. The Mystery of the Covenant is as yet under the Rain-bow 6. In what thing the Rain-bow doth denote the end of the World 7. The dotages or toyes of the Schooles concerning the Rain-bow 8. Things required of the Schooles 9. That the Rain-bow hath not its Colours immediately in a Cloud but in a place 10. That the Rain-bow is of the nature of Light 11. The existence of Colours immediately in place is proved 12. The Object of the sight is immediately in Place the object of hearing is immediately in the body of the Mean 13. Creatures of neutrality do subsist immediately in place without a body 14. Paracelsus concerning the Rain bow is refuted 15. The frequenoy of a Miraole doth not reduce that miracle into the number of nature 16. Some supernaturall things are ordinary 17. An Atheisticall and childish opinion of the Schooles concerning Thunder and Lightning 18. Wonderfull sights or visions in high mountains 19. The spirit all noyse or cracking is the Blas of the evill spirit 20. A Historie of Thunder 21. The noyse of Thunder how it putrifieth 22. Outward Salt preserveth I Have said that Meteors do consist of their matter Gas and their efficient cause Blas as well the Motive as the altering But the Rain-bow is irregular a divine Mysterie in its originall I judge the same thing of the Parelia or Image of the Sun whereby two or three Suns do appear at noon-day alike equally clear or lightsome But for Thunder it doth not alike include a Mysterie and monstrous token We being admonished by the holy Scriptures do believe by faith that the Rain-bow was given for a sign of the Covenant between God and mortall men that the World should no more hence forward perish by waters For first I draw from thence that the Rain-bow was never seen before the Floud Otherwise mortalls had justly complained For we have oftentimes already seen the Rain-bow and yet the World hath perished by a deluge what safety dost thou therefore promise us by an accustomed Rain-bow this Covenant is suspected by us it takes not away our fear The Rain-bow was therefore new to the World when it
there collected but also the Fabrick of hurtful Images is there Stamped Because they can no where be more readily framed than from the Soul the Inmate of those parts For there is none but feels Horrours Fears Tremblings Anger 's Wroths Sorrows Sighs and every Perturbation of concupiscible Affects to arise and be stirred about the mouth of his Stomack For if a Gun be unexpectedly discharged who doth not there feel a sudden leaping of some fear Who in the next place is there who being ready to sit down at a Table and endowed with a notable appetite of eating doth not perceive if at sometime a sorrowful Message be brought unto him that all sharpness of eating is presently suspended Therefore the Faculties do there flourish whose Effects are there felt For I have oft-times seen Women in whom sudden Fear at another time also in whom notable Grief had raised up the Falling-sickness Elsewhere also in whom a lingering and continued Sorrow had moved a Hypochondrial Madness yea and elsewhere had caused the Scrophulus or Kings-Evil So a Fear of the Plague doth very often create the Plague Even as a sudden fear of Death hath sometime killed the Character of the Gout Pride also hath often made men mad I have also known others who having suffered Reproach and not being able to revenge the same have suddenly fallen into an Apepsia or Unconcoction into the straights of an Asthma and into Beatings Perplexities of Anguishes and Oppressions of the Heart Others who from a suddain sense of Reproach or Contempt have presently rushed into an Apoplexie And likewise I have known those that have been wearied with long Grief have violently rushed into a Dropsie Jaundise and Tumors of the Spleen Likewise very many of both Sexes who from sudden Anger have departed into an Apoplexie but others who have gone into divers head-long Griefs of Contractures The Fabricks of which Diseases are manifestly felt about the Orifice of the Stomack For therefore a certain small Feaver as it were a Diarie or Daily one doth precede the Fits of the Gout under which a Character springs up which is dismissed from the Stomack into the Joynts that it may tyrannize in the same place An Apoplexie therefore whether it break forth from an Inordinate Life or next from Anger or Grief yet at leastwise it alwaies ariseth from the stomack and is darted into the Head For the Jaundise doth in no other place more flourish than in the Court of the Stomack whence it stirs up its Anguishes and Sighs denoting that there the Game of its Cruelty is played Wherefore also I have taught before that how much soever Vulnerary Potions may restrain the framing of corrupt Pus and fear of Accidents in the utmost part of the Foot yet not that therefore Vulnerary Drinks do enjoy a larger Priviledge otherwise than other Medicines do For they do not materially hasten unto the remote Wound when as the while other Medicines are ignorant of a passage to the Spleen in favour of a Quartan Ague Which things the School of Medicine hath not hitherto known although they are the Foundations of Medicinal Art Because they are those things which do not onely respect the virtue or force of Medicines and the Expedition Application and Appropriation of these But notwithstanding besides the manner of acting and hope from thence resulting they declare the principal efficient of Diseases The Ignorance therefore of which thing alone hath caused a sloath and drowsiness in the Physitian but in the sick Despair together with a sorrowfull apprehension of Griefs and Discommodities and at length alas for grief have brought forth so many Widdows with mournful Orphans unto the fowl disgrace or base esteem of Medicinal Affaires But so far as it respecteth the choice of Medicines it hath listed me to wander thorow the rancks of Minerals Vegetables and Animals and to take them in their own simple Integrity as they sprang forth from Nature and those again diversly to agitate and so to divide them into Salt Sulphur or Fatness and Mercury or a seminal Juice And first of all the natural endowed Virtues or Faculties of things which the Divine Goodness hath given from a Gift for the Sick do for the most part want the testimony of tasts so that even by that same sign alone they do bewray that they are endowedly instilled by God for the use of Mortals neither that they do clearly appear but unto those to whom God hath given his gifts of the Holy Spirit and hitherto he hath withdrawn them from the knowledge of unworthy Physitians who to the little ones and ignorant ones of this World doth reveal those things which he hath hidden from the great ones For there are Gifts dispersed in the Exercise of Simples by which they ascend unto the largnesse of a general kind So indeed as things appropriated and specifical are acknowledged to be directed by God unto the every way Curing of any kind of Diseases For the Stone for broken Bones is of a late Invention which owes its Name unto the Cure of a broken Bone But it is unconquered by Fires nor Calcinable but notable in its unsavoury taste being untamed by the Stomack Yet it is a wonder how much it shews its self Victor as well about the Bowels and inward Wounds as in the outmost parts about the Fractures of Bones From hence First of all it plainly appears That on the Digestion and care of the Stomack do the Cares and Governments of the Sixth Digestion depend throughout its whole 2. That there is no necessity for a Medicine to be derived unto the place affected 3. That a Medicine onely by touching at the Archeus of the Stomack is able to Cure remote Diseases in the Body 4. That there is no need that for to Cure the Agent doth touch the remote Patient 5. That as the Stone for broken Bones or the Stone of Crabs doth finish its Cure in the Stomack after the same manner also do Purgative Medicines and all other Medicines whatsoever operate CHAP. LXXIV The Squadron of Diseases according to their Occasional Causes A Primary A Secondary Diseasie Being in an inordinate Archeus For whether it be Primarily raised up from the Idea of a Man or doth immediately arise from the Idea of the Archeus it always at length Retires into the Inne of the Archeus Things Received Things cast in by Witches Things inspired by Endemicks Things received by violent Invaders Things taken In Drink  In Meat  In Poyson  In Medicine  Things Heteroclital or of an irregular kind The Torture of the Night  An unequal Strength  Barrennesse Things Retained Things left or Excrements in the 1 2 3 or 6 Digestion Things transchanged in the 1 2 3 or 6 Digestion Things transmitted from one Digestion into another Mention is made of these by the Antients under the name of an Abstracted Quality or Relation of Terms and so they are onely acknowledged by way of a
it is certain That the Heaven hath received no other Law since Transgression because the Earth alone hath undertaken all the Curse on it self For from hence I have sufficiently demonstrated elsewhere That the Heaven is free from our sins neither that it playes the part of a revenger of iniquities But if some places are subject unto Death and certain Diseases that is not to be attributed unto the circulation or whirling of the Heavens blind influxes of the Stars But it is altogether proper unto the dispositions of the Earth For although Eastern Provinces may seem the more fruitful or happy that is not to be attributed to the Heaven Seeing that in a circle every part subjected under the same circle is alike Oriental or Easterly Otherwise a Circle should not want a Beginning End and Extremity of parts Therefore there is an inbred goodness in the soil and the fertility of the ground is holpen by the continual cherishment of the Stars and a perpetual familiarity of visitation Truly under the circle of the Sun Climates have an ordinary and equal heat and so that as many fruits as by ripening do ascend unto a degree of perfection by reason of heat are there more happy the which otherwise through want of heat are not alike perfect But the heat of the Sun hath respect unto Fruits but not to Long Life which is of no less length of continuance in Cold Mountanous and Northern places than else where under the Hot or Torrid Zone Surely the favours of the Soyl do not depend on the Stars as neither the prolongations of Life The Stars are daily wheeled about and do daily almost equally affect the Climates of the Earth which are under them but they do every Year receive their Winter and Summer according to the access and recess of the Sun In the mean time the Tracts of the more adjoyning Lands do far vary from each other They are therefore the particular gifts of the Soyl but not of the Heaven which therefore keep a stable goodness as it were Provincial to the same Tracts of Land In the holy Scriptures indeed The Land of Promise floweth with Milk and Honey being fruitful in Wine Corn Pulse and rich fruits of the Tree And likewise scarce requiring dunging and the toyles of Labour And then I see other Coasts of the World to owe and pay the Tribute of the Land of Promise For from both the Poles continual Rains do steep the Earth that the promised Soyl may without the trouble of Rains take unto it self its due Water and that Aegypt may repay the favours of the Soyl of Heaven with a double usury of fruits For Seas and Rivers strivingly hasten unto those places with a speedy course Yea and from beyond the Tropick of Capricorne Nilus brings down his melted Snows through Aegypt unto the Mediterranean Sea as it were a Yearly Tribute of Nature that may water the more fruitful Countries if not with Rain at leastwise with Dew and the blackish cloudy Waters of Nile and that the Vapours being lifted up from the Sea throughout the Soyl it may most plentifully repay a plentiful Dew round about And so that the whole World seemeth readily to serve those more fruitful Regions Under the Aequinoctial Line it Rains many times every Day because the Tributary Waters do not reach thither But they are supped up in the Countries which God in times past appointed unto his own People but now unto Barbarians by reason of Transgressions fore-monished of by the Prophets He therefore blessed the Land of Promise for the People of Israel from the beginning but for Reasons foreknown to himself from Eternity and the which he fixed stable into Nature Yea he not onely appointed the Tribute of the whole World unto these Lands but unto most of them he added Reasons Idea's Seeds and Gifts whereof the more intemperate Climate are destitute Nor all that for any other ends than because it so well pleased him for his hidden Judgements But these things do not make for the consideration of long Life for in Is-land Men are found to be of a Longer Continuance of Life than in Palestina Phaenicia Aegypt c. Oftentimes also in Mountainous and rough Hills Older Men are met withal than in a pleasant Champion To wit that we may know that the Prince of Life hath granted a long continuance of Life unto so miserable places and to a singular tract of Land which he hath denied unto whatsoever the most pleasant and wealthy Countries Nature therefore is subject unto the Soyl even for a stability of Life For we measure a Diseasie and short Life from Endemicks Doth happily an Endemical Being breath out of the Lands wherein Life is prolonged No surely And it is sufficient that a place doth want malignity that a continuance of Life may be attained so far as is from the nature of the Place Lastly Fountains are either without Savour or Mineral they not being those which may have positively a long continuance of Life But as being those which unsensibly mow down the daily Superfluities or growths of oily Dregs and in this respect Life is not untimely taken away by and by Neither also doth much and a sweet temperature of Air prevail hereunto For truly in the rough Hills of the Forrest of Arden of Scotland and Spain in our Champion a longer Life doth for the most part occur than in Aquitane For Hieres is a Valley nigh Apulia environed with Mountaines being fruitful in the sweetest Fruits where the most sweet Station of the Spring is almost continued Yet having Inhabitants of a shorter Life being deformed with a pale Countenance so that it hath crept into a Proverb of those that were Sick and Recovering Thou seemest to us to be a Stranger come from Hieres For the pleasantnesse of Fruits takes up the suspition of a Mineral Endemick Also not onely Mountainous Colds do extend the Life but Old Age is frequent among the Aethiopians Let therefore those places be fit for Long Life which being not polluted by any Endemicks have moreover not unwholsome Waters nor the which are infamous for a stormy Wind. CHAP. CIV The Radical Moisture THe Schooles with one Voice promote the Radical Moysture of Life For they declame That from it and in it we live and that that onely being consumed we die For they who together with Aristotle attribute all things to heat as to an active Principle do not say That the Radical moisture is the Beginning as neither the Inn of Life unless they derive the Primateship on Heat in the moisture But the moisture hath more pleased others From whence they being sore afraid through the sloath of a diligent search least they should erre they will have our Life to depend on and be prolonged as well by moisture as by heat without distinction And so they denominate it not indeed heat but composedly Radical heat or the first-born moisture That indeed the first-born or original
Moreover it is without controversie in the Church of God that the Cedar in Libanus in the Temple in the Figure of the Ark in the cleansing of the Leprosie and in the feast of the building of Tabernacles did represent the Mother of God the Virgin Queen of Heaven an incorruptible Vessel a Tree which brought forth for us Eternal Life in the Flesh the Patroness I say of the Poor and Mine But the place of the Cedar in Libanus exceeding the coldest folding door of the Air covered with Snowes denotes the unspotted Integrity of the God-bearing Virgin And so if the Tree denotes the holy Virgin especially conjoyntly with so many mysteries it s no wonder that the Cedar doth signifie the Tree of this Life also in the world For indeed there was in the dayes of David an aged Cedar in Libanus because it was that which by reason of its excellent taleness was from that time worthy of a mystical sense Wherefore either it being there planted after the Floud doth as yet hitherto continue the same in number safe or a good while before and perhaps from the cradles of the World according to the Vision of the Dream Which thing after what manner soever it may be taken at least-wise it shews that the Cedar despiseth the discommodities of Old Age But he is not from a Cedar his Parent planted after the Floud because that Parent also of the Cedar was preserved under the Deluge and much more easily afterwards than that which remains from the daies of David even until this time Let those laugh that will at that age of the Cedar in Libanus and let them say that Modern ones were raised up by a new Branch or by Seed falling down But that being supposed at this day also new ones had dayly come forth into a great Wood where notwithstanding no new Cedar growes But moreover from thence I gather that the same Cedar in number doth now persist which was even before the Floud yea even from the Creation of the World Because it was given for a Mark of resemblance to the blessed Virgin But moreover for our Magistery the Fruit of the Cedar is not to be taken for that the end thereof is not for a simple Being in the appointment of the Properties of the Cedar but only for a propagation of the Species which contradicteth long Life from the Foundation The Wood Cetim it self therefore is to be taken which is so much exalted in the holy Scripture Therefore not the Bark not the Fruit not the Root nor the Leaves are the ultimate end whither Nature hath had respect for long Life And so that the Cedar perhaps also is herein distinct from the Tree of Life in Eden A matter therefore of a Tree which knowes not how to die is found whose unputrifiable Wood and by reason of its many Properties being in a mystical Sense designed to the holy Virgin is that which brings forth Life to the World that it may redeem Death But the preparation thereof is the most exceeding difficult of all those things which fall under the Labour of Wisdom For this Cause indeed Monarchs want a long Life because there is none which hath known how to prepare it For none who is truly a Phylosopher is a Minstrel neither doth he follow Princes and flatter them for because he stands in need of nothing he despiseth whatsoever a Prince can give The Tree of Life therefore alone refresheth the decayed Faculties and for some time detaineth the Life in its flowing But the difficulty of preparing it consisteth in this that the Wood ought to be resolved without a dissolution of its Faculties by a luke-warmth such as is that of the Sun in March even unto its first Being In which Being only is granted unto it a fermental Power of preserving and seasoning with an ingress unto the first constitutives of us and of insinuaring it self into the familiarity of the Spirits implanted throughout all the Organs But there is in the Juice of this kind of resolving the entire Virtue of the Cedar to wit a vital one together with every seminal and formal Property of long Life For the whole lump of the Wood is dissolved into a Juice which being otherwise distilled is transchanged and made a certain new Creature the which Aqua Vitae being distilled out of Graines or Ales doth also prove likewise the Oyl that is distilled out of Woods yea out of the very Oyl of Olives it self The practise thereof is this Resolve the pieces of the Wood Cetim with a like weight of the Liquor Alkahest in a sealed Glass under a nourishing luke-warmth and within seven dayes thou shalt see the whole Wood to have passed over into a milky Liquor But presently about the fifteenth day a twofold Oyl distinctly swims a top the which is increased even for a Month and is more clearly separated But then let the Oyl be separated from the Water by manual Operation Then distil thou the Water in a Bath and the Liquor Alkahest remains in the bottom in its own original weight but let the Oyl be nourished with the Water for full three months space with a slow luke-warmth and the whole Oyl assumes the Nature of a Salt and shall thorowly mingle it self with the Water and it is the first Being of the Cedar But as yet a few things concerning the length of Life because I being an old Man do pursue these things and I my self am about to die My Mind breathed some unheard of thing within but I as unprofitable for this Life shall be buried Because the Spirit the Porter withdrew the Bottle by the command of him before whom the whole World is as a Mushrom Let the praise be to him who hath given and who hath taken away that which was his own The Schools therefore may deservedly upbraid me Thou miserable Man a Man of small note a Man of great ambition an old Man hast paradoxally come to late that with thy Song in the commendation of Cedar thou shouldst over-spread the World with mists The Histories and Virtues of Plants are known to our Herbarists But thou that thou maiest vaunt of an unheard of devise concerning long Life as a Paradoxal Man proceedest to be mad with thy Cedar Go to if there be so great Power in the Cedar for Life why are not all Kings long-lived From whence dost thou as a new guest come produce thy Learning and experience whereby thou wilt be believed For as a Lawier blusheth to speak without Law so doth a Physitian without Experience For thou canst not deny but that the decoctions of the Leaves Kernels Wood Bark Root or Rosin of Cedar had long since produced a continued Life But nothing of these things is manifest by our Herbarists Thou there fore dost deter or fright us away through an hidden manner of preparation and by a crabbed Style of a smoak-selling Art desirest to involve a feigned mistery of Cedar Which thing the Alkahestical
is hitherto unknown by those who have had respect only unto the contingencies of nature I rather believe that so many apparitions to Saints were not in vain and shewn unto them without their scope or purpose I therefore believe that the beginnings of the venereal plague was drawn and planted into nature from a dart of divine anger violently cast and no otherwise than as at the pouring out of the phials the third person of mortals shall at some time perish Not indeed that I will have the plague of lust to be accounted altogether miraculous in its beginning because it began from a hainous offence For I know as in nature it now hath so also that in its beginning it found a ferment and root therein And moreover a certain Layick and holy man being wont at some hard questions to receive dreaming visions and oft-times also through the abstraction of his minde intellectual notions or knowledges perhaps from too much curiosity narrowly searched into these questions 1. Why that venereal plague had broke out in the fore-past age and not before since that in the fore-past daies of Pagans any wicked impudent wantonnesse was never wanting 2. From whence if not from the Indians it came into Europe 3. What may be the cause of its continuation and mitigation and changing if it were come from God For Miracles do seldome pass over by way of contagion and unlesse a command be delivered obtain their cause in nature But neither is God wont to punish the guiltlesse even as the Lues veneris oft-times infecteth the innocent The Layick said that he saw in an intellectual vision an horse which flowed almost all abroad with a stinking ulcer which disease being proper to the horse kinde our countrey-men call Den-worm but the French Le Farein whence horses do by degrees perish with a corrupt mattery rottennesse but he saw this horse as it were designed for meat to dogs having his whole back vitiated also about the vessel of nature neither had he any other answer besides that vision wherefore he said that he supposed that at the siege of Naples where this cursed contagion at first arose some one through an horrible sin had carnal copulation with such a horse-beast At leastwise from thence I conjecture the rarity of a disease not before seen because I cannot easily believe that ever such a sin was in the like terms committed from the beginning of the world and it is a disease like unto the Lues Venerea and akin and familiar unto the nature of the horse And therefore it might God the avenger so permitting it have naturally transplanted its own ferment into the family of man although it was before divinely threatned That the Mares contagion I say might have mixed in the act of lust not to be spoken of it then propagating the Gonorrhea or running of the Reines the Cancer and venereous Baboes c. even so as at this day the Pox it self is attracted from a filthy whore even into the testicles of a man But I cease to be the more curious as oft as a thing being known is of no use unlesse happily thou hadst rather meditate from hence that horses thus ulcerous are cured by the remedy of the Pox and on the other hand this by Quicksilver most exactly prepared At least wise the consideration of the Lues serveth for a degenerate and at this day multitiplyed plague and many of which are threatned in the holy Scriptures under the coming of Antichrist I adde That it is infamous and hath infected every corner of the world it hâ—â—h also manifestly shewn by the effect that it is a common satisfactory punishment of the flesh and creeping unto a further and as yet a commonly unknown mark For indeed at its first beginning it not only stood a good while unknown but also its healing was unsuccessefully attâ—mpted and at this day is commonly unknown whence it follows that the life of mortals being enraged by uncertain and cruel medicines â—â— now humbled even before the youth of every one which weaknesse promiseth a certâ—â—â— lasting continuance of perpetuity and in abstinent persons unto the fourth period of generation at least yea although a large company of men have never contracted the Pox Neverthelesse since the Lues is scarce ever well cured and the reliques therof have remained surely there do those survive who having experienced the rashnesse oâ— Physitians are made far more weak then themselves were For there is a radical part oâ— poyson which hath remained in their possession besides the horrid tortures of oyntments perfumes and salivations and it must needs be that in that respect their successors are diminished with a notable weaknesse For the Lues is not indeed a disease consisting of a matter whereof but onely a poysonous ferment is affixed to the solid or liquid parts of our body like an odour And so the which is singular to the Pox it incorporates it self not onely with the constitutive parts but also with the excrements or with the matters of other diseases which it toucheth at because it affecteth them and is co-mixed with them and since it is easier to defile a matter with poyson which is newly appointed for an excrement then a part as yet alive and so also for this cause resisting Hence it comes to passe that whosoever have the manifest or hidden beginnings of any diseases whatsoever they do easily contract the Foul disease and therefore also it transplants it self into various masks of diseases by an association for in many it produceth ulcers and wheals in others it gnaws rottenesses in the bones it stirs up hard swellings also it causeth Buboes about the groyn phlegmones or inflamed apostemes and corrupt mattery apostemes as also wounds stubborne in curing elsewhere also it hath brought forth palsies gowty fits the jaundise or dropsie c. For that thing deceived Paracelsus he thinking that the Pox was not a disease in it self because it adhered to other diseases For a curse now coming upon nature impure from its original doth not proceed by an accustomed generation but it findes its own body pre-disposed in the body of other diseases so that the likenesse of conception nativity subsistence and effects in a strange body to wit that of man do produce a likenesse of the rise of the Pox as of other diseases because they in a like manner issue from the fall Diseases therefore that from the rise of the Pox are become degenerate for the future those do for the most part imitate the right or customary manner of some poyson neither hath any one sufficiently searched into the causes of these wherefore indeed most diseases have become contagious more cruel more frequent and more slow and difficult of flight than in times past For the Pest is undoubtedly more frequent then it was wont to be it catcheth hold on us upon the least occasion it cruelly infects us and is the more readily dispersed because it is