be by somewhat stayed But seeing it tends infallibly to the Centre and there is stopped because there is no lower place whereto it may descend there it is compelled to subsist and collect it self Hence some have said That the Centre of the Earth is most precious because in it all the influences are united which meeting there have an infinite potency not onely because they continually flow thither but because they proceed from Bodies infinite incorruptible and indeficient in vertue The ancient Poets who involved their Conceits in Fables divide the Earth into three parts assigning the Heaven to Jupiter as first-born of Saturn though some attribute the primogeniture 's right to Neptune and the election of the superiour Kingdom to Jupiter for certain Sophistical Reasons impertinent to my purpose Neptune they make the Lord of the Sea and that by lot To Pluto as the youngest Son they assign the Earth for Heritage who is yet thought the richest of the three Brethren because in his Dominion all the Treasures of the World are contained yea he seems to make his two Brothers Tributaries in those things they possess as best This Son they call The King of Hell and to him they give the Elysian Fields as a delightful place where the blessed Souls shall follow his Court after death Divines also assert That Hell and the torture of Souls is in this place adduced by this Argument That seeing the Nature of the Stars is fiery and all their influences concur there must needs be incredible burnings there Again That place is infernal because none is more inferiour But that Souls should be here tormented and that the heat of this place should be so vehement as they say is a Solaecism in Reason and a Contradiction to Philosophical Axionis for besides that Souls possesse no place according to their own confessions and that being devested of the earthy part and corporeal prison they would naturally elevate themselves and ascend by vertue of their spiritual levity which participates more of a fiery then any other quality they cannot but with violence be detained in this subterraneous place seeing they are light nor yet being simple suffer under the action of Fire which cannot act on its like Why therefore they should assert That they descend to this place to be tormented I see no reason unless that the burthen of their sins wherewith they are implicated should detrude and depress them compelling and forcing them to the Centre of the Earth or else that sin hath got them under its Dominion and hath incorporated it self therewith by some unknown kinde of composition and so make them passible and subject not to the simple and natural action of Fire but to some other violent created one destined by God to that effect and perhaps the vertue of the Fire we speak of is by divine Power doubled for this action which may be proved by Holy Writ But I will not rashly cherish any particular Opinion or separate my self from the Orthodox Faith in the defence whereof I will not onely spend my Life but Industry by God's assistance yet I say in my Transient that I may further recede from my intended Discourse That they conclude strangely that say Vehement burnings arise in this place because the influences of the Stars concur there whereunto I would yet yield if they can evince That the heaâ—of the Stars burns and consumes like ouâ— Culinary Fire and doth not enlivenâ— conserve and nourish for if it were such as they imagine not onely the Earth but the whole Universe had been long since burnt to ashes Those influence indeed in old Demogorgon's bowels calefie but not with a mortal and destructive but with a vital heat which there implants an uniform Vertue which by mediation of heat dilates it self through the whole Body of the Earth being the first moving cause of Generations But we must not here conceive That it is onely the external heat that comes from the Sun which calefies the Earth and causes Generation for in Winter-time when the Sun is furthest distant the Earth hath abundance of heat in it as experience shews in Fountains Cisterns and profound Cells so that in the coldest Winter-Season Metals are cocted and indurated yea it is credible that they are then most of all ingrossed because the heat of the Centre is kept in and retained because of the frigidity of the ambient Air. The Suns approach and more perpendicular Aspect is not the sole cause of vegetation in the Spring for if so then doubtless as its Ascent were more sublime Vegetations would augment more proportionably to the encrease of the heat of the Rayes but the contrary is observed But because every like attracts its like and the recess of the one causes the recess of the other The Sun by the magnetical Vertue of its Rayes attracts and revokes the heat of the Central Sun detruded by the rigid cold of the ambient into the interiour parts of the Earth which returning to the surface thereof affects all things with a vegetative faculty It is not therefore the external heat of the Celestial Sun but rather the innate heat of the Central Sun that calefies the profundity of the Earth for heat is twofold the one acts by reverberation which is external the other by influx and penetration which is internal whereof I now speak whose Nature is to enliven augment and conserve by the sustentation of radical moisture contained in this Fire which I made mention of in the precedent Chapter But that now we may prove this Central Fire not to be so intense as to torment and burn let us consider how the Stars do not by their influences cause heat solely but work other effects for Saturn is cold and dry Jupiter hot and moist the Sun hot and dry Mars hot and dry Venus cold and moist the Moon moist and cold and Mercury all in all participating of all qualities alike Whence we may gather That all the influences are temperate equally consisting of heat cold moisture and siccity which thus meeting in moderation cannot make the place where they meet immoderate The Vapour then or Spirit that comes from the Centre participates of these four and hence all the qualities of simples have their origine whereof some calefie because in them heat is predominant others dry because siccity superabounds others moisten or refrigerate according to the degree of their moisture or cold but on the other side Stars project many other qualities besides these into the Centre for they give Beings to those sapours colours and odours which we taste see and feel in sublunary things I say therefore That the Stars calefie the Centre of the Earth and that the Universal Spirit dwelling there participates of this heat and because it is natural to heat to separate that separative vertue which divides the pure from the impure the subtile from the gross and the light from the heavy and the sweet from the bitter descends with
whence all things were first generated Thales Milesius whom the Greeks surnamed the wise perceiving the matter patient said That Water was the first matter which Heraclitus attributed to the Sea and Moses more illuminated then both saith That before the heaven and earth were created the Spirit of the Lord moved on the face of the waters calling Fire because of its noble and pure essence The Spirit of God In saying therefore That Fire is the first principle of beings I transgress not the limits of Reason and Verity for it is without doubt the first Operator and the last Destroyer and Changer of forms whose cause it is even till it hath brought them to their period and first matter beyond which there is no progress but onely a transformation as I shall by and by declare by comparison with visible and familiar beings the first active potency which begins to operate in the production of man is the agitation or motion of heat which imitating the action of fire whose Nature is chiefly separative draws Sperm from the whole Body wherein Man's seed is potentially included and cocts and digests it thereby rendring it apt for expulsion and afterwards for Generation and Augmentation which Generation and Augmentation is alwayes helped by Fire which is the sole Actor so that if it should attain the end of its exaltation being inflamed by the Sulphur of Excrements and impurity of Aliments it would absume the radical Moisture which is the Seat and Preserver of Life which done the fire remits not of its power and action till by resolution and corruption it brings the Body to Ashes which nothing can do but fire But that we may make this more palpable and finde out the first matter by the knowledge of the last let us impose a Body on a common Fire and we shall see that what is inflammable in it will be totally consumed and redacted to a few Ashes which Ashes also will participate of a fiery Nature and for their last subject and matter turn into a certain Salt whose sole Parent and Multiplier Fire must needs be And though these should be further turned yet Salt would alwayes be left in whose internals we may finde Fire which is delighted with its like And by this means Alchymists finde that there is something in Salt that is incombustible or secret Elementary Fire which hath the same actions with primitive Fire upon which account they call it the Balsam of the Body because it contains that that gives life as also that conserves and augments it which is nothing else but a moist vapour accompanied with moderate heat Johannes Fontanus in his Philosophical Narrations En son Romant Philosophique shews That he was not ignorant of this Secret where he brings in Nature speaking thus Aucuns disent que feu n'engendre De son naturel fo rs que cendre Mais leur reverence sauvee Nature est dans le feu autee Et si prover je le vou loye Le sel a Tesmoing je prendoye Some dare t' affirm that fire can generate Nothing but ashes but those seem to relate The truth thereof who say that in fires brest All Natures operations are imprest And if hereof a proof you do require Salt gives you proof enough what is in fire And that it participates of moisture is plain enough from its easie resolution as also its fulness of heat is demonstrable from its ready congelation from which we may observe That Fire acts and is united with Fire as in liquefaction Air acts and is joyned with Air for how in one subject could the dry imbibe the moist if there were no innate heat seeing driness as it proceeds from heat doth naturally imbibe moisture And hence we may easily understand That the Demogorgon or central Fire cannot be destitute of moisture on which it may act and thence elevate a vapour mixed of two qualities which I call The Spirit of the World but many Philosophers Mercury of Merries because all other proceed from this naturally but this elevated vapour is not yet a Body but a mean betwixt a Body and a Spirit participating of both Natures which whilst it remains in that state can generate nothing It is therefore necessary That it either assume or form a Body which it thus doth This subtile vapour proceeding from dry and moist principles when it is elevated penetrates the spungyness of the Earth wherein it is gradually turned into Mercurial Water by the occurse of the ambient Air and of the Earth it self whose surface is far distant from its Centre where the Fire resides whence this heat arises After the like manner as we see in an Alembick where the vapour or Spirit to be distilled runs out But this vapour and its water partaking of two principles heat and moisture it is ingrossed and by moderate and continued coction condensed The principal cause and mean of which action is innate Fire which contains this very vapour and by its continual action stimulates and compels it to imbibe this moisture and to coagulate this Water not in all parts with a like solidity and hardness nor yet altogether but first with a mucilaginous and different solidity Now that which Nature assayes to do in the information of Idea's is to begin their induration and solidity which must necessarily hold on in Natures way which is a progress from one extream to another by intermediate disposition And Nature thus continuing its digestion this Mucilage stays of whose grosser matter Metals are generated in the veins of the Earth or cavities of Rocks which differ not in substance being produced by one and the same seed but onely in accidents which they take from the diversities of the places and matrixes where they are generated But the more subtile part of this vapour ascends to the surface of the Earth where it stays by compulsion and being in continual agitation though it can neither regrede nor ascend higher and finding no solid matter to carry it with it it is compelled to continue Natures intention and therefore serves for the Generation and Corporification of individuals But that what I have said may be better understood let us take some one individual and let us see how it is produced for this will ascertain us that the Spirit of the World assumes a Body and shew us how it is incorporated An Acorn may be long enough set or sown in the Earth and consume without germination unless some Agent be neer it that may deduce its occult potency naturally within it into act And whence can any one imagine this action to proceed unless from the central Fire issuing out of Demogorgon's brest Which Fire attracted and fomented by the Solar Rayes will redouble its force vertue and efficacy Does not then this germination derive its original from Natures Fire which elevating and multiplying its vapour excites the innate heat of the Acorn which is of its own side resolved into a vapour by the mediation
needs no proof but appears sufficiently manifest from the natural and sometimes the immature end of Animals Vegetables and Minerals which we see every day by their corruption when the Body being dead the Spirit must undergo the same fortune that is the vertue that enlivened it is annihilated but because the prime Opificer would be admirable in all his works of his meer goodness and love to Mankinde who from the beginning he predestinated to be the Instrument of his Glory and to whom he subjected whatever was admirable in the Creation for his Commodity I say he gave certain expedient Remedies whereby he might not onely purifie and perfect the things created but also preserve and arm himself against the assaults of mortal corruption Knowing then that the two parts of Man were one created in another to wit the Spirit in the Body and that the Body would be continually infected by corruption and by sensuality drawn and allured to intemperance which infers the true corruption and weakning of all the members he foresaw that the Spirit inhabiting like a Guest in the Body could not be exempted from its contagious depravation and we ordinarily see That Men given to excess of intemperance and sensuality accustom themselves to ill manners and take liberty in all corruption both of Minde and Spirit neither regarding Love nor Fear to God Honor or Respect to the World nor Piety to themselves nor Charity towards their Neighbours So that it is impossible if they be thus bound to inquinations in death but their Spirits must undergo punishment as they have participated of pleasure Seeing moreover all mankinde by the fall of our first Parent obnoxious to death and thence every Man inevitably to incur total destruction and perdition he mitigated or rather redintegrated this Misery by an admirable Remedy far exceeding our capacity for knowing Man by his Spirit and his Body to participate of Heaven and of Earth the Remedy also he made to partake of Heaven and Earth which is competible solely to our onely Lord Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Christ who descended from Heaven into the Earth and by a mystery incomprehensible by us and common sense was miraculously made Man without the abdication of his God-head because our health could not come from Earth alone corruption reigning there but it was necessary that the Water should come from above where the Fountain of purity is he therefore came down that he might dwell in us and with us and conclude us within the terms of justice and temperance regenerating us to newness of life by the mutation of our Spirit and Body and mortifying in us our corruptions and sins and restoring us to the study of purity of vertue which could not have been effected save by him alone the extream of both Natures for he is God-Man that he might conjoyn superiour with inferiour things which were dis-joyned by the incomparable distance of life and death purity and corruption The Earth doubtlesly received this inestimable treasure far exceeding its merit by a medium that cannot be comprehended from which he again ascended into Heaven by the Water of purification and Fire of the Spirit without accidents and corporal passions though he deposed not his Body but retained it incorruptible and glorious having acquired immortality by death who shall again descend from his Fathers right-Hand into the Earth after the Universal conflagration to renew the World and make a Separation betwixt the good destined to life and the evil condemned to death See now how well the Omnipotent Father the Father of all compassions consulted for Mans good to whose Body joyned with his Soul he gave an equal Preserver whom he sent from Heaven that he might be born on Earth and whom by the light of Nature we ought to seek Seeing Man was therefore endued with Reason and Judgement that he might acknowledge and comprehend his great gifts but Man created heavenly for the indagation of this benefit as too forgetful of his birth lays out that noble and divine Light within him in searching out frivolous and transitory vanities and not in the pursuit of solid wisdom and verity Briefly he had rather follow the inclination of his Terrestrial Geniture then Divine and Celestial Wisdom which he neglects as a thing indifferent and casually sent to him from above Wherefore the Root of Mankinde is as it were extinguished before it grow out except some few who have had better Stars and more favourable Aspects in their Nativity they desiring the possession of transitory goods more then the attainment of Divine and precious Gifts which our fecund Mother Nature hath publickly and in all places fixed for the conservation of life hurt rather then helped by their abundance immerged in mortal corruption And it is apparent That those that are of a higher Spirit though they look upon the fulgour and splendor of those Mundane Riches as no way despicable yet they will not rest in this surface but seek to Divine Vertue occluded in the Centre which hath indeed been cause of great errors both in Medicine and Philosophy to such as destitute of true light groape at and in the dark pass by both Recalling then my mind to the clear light by whose guidance we may attain that salutary and best remedy which God ordained particularly for the conservation of mankinde and for the obtaining of Celestial benediction I shall endeavor with all humility and requisite sincerity not as a Divine but as a Disciple of Wisdoms followers to adumbrate my conceptions in a rude style which the lovers of verity may accept gratefully if they finde them rational and pleasing I say then that all understanding communicated to any man from man alone is uncertain and confused because man is ordinarily loaden with ignorance and slow resolutions but that which he receives from the univerial Light is clear and immoveable For to know absolutely is to understand a thing by its first causes and there is no certitude in second causes till we come to their original wherefore we cannot know the Nature of a Species unless we foreknow its Genus neither can we know the Nature of Microcosmes which are almost infinite unless we first find out the Nature of the Macrocosme that gives them being Man likewise cannot be known without the precedent cognition of the world whose effigies he is nor yet the great world unless we know whence and how it was made For how shall one know a man whose principle is nothing but a small deformed mucilage or how shall a man know him that is born unless he know those that begot him and here I mean not the second but the first Parents to wit heaven and earth and unless a man understand the first creation of these how shall he know them as an Embryo in a womb which is nothing but the congregation of a certain humour which is afterwards formed to the example of its parents and so in progress till it become perfect so
Fundamenta Chymica OR A SVRE GVIDE into the high and rare Mysteries OF ALCHYMIE BY L. C. Philomedico Chymicus LONDON Printed by WILLIAM GODBID for William Barlow without Aldersgate 1658. To the worshipful and truly worthy Patriot of his Family and Country WILLAM PITT of Hartly-Westpel in Hampshire Esq Robert Turner of Holshot wisheth Felicity Honoured Sir SEpius memini ipse perpendi I have often involved in my Minde the Worthiness of the Famous AUSONIAN PRINCES in their promotion of ARTS and LEARNING by their Favourable Aspects in Candidly accepting the Dedications of generally all AUTHORS and STUDENTS in Liberal SCIENCES which is no small Encouragement unto them Seldome do we see the Title of a Germane DEDICATION but it is directed Aliquo serenissimo Principi c. And this Sir I hope will be a sufficient Advocate for me to present this small Piece to your VVorthy Patronage and I am encouraged thereunto through my sensibility Generositatis Benignitatisque tuis nostratibus You remain the standing Pillar of your Noble Family and the Honour of your Country for which you have your Neighbours Prayers and Praise and for my part my Mite is small Hanc igitur meae in te habeas qualemcúnque sit gratitudinis observantiae Testimonium Sir This is a Piece of Hermetical Philosophy which is well seasoned with Salt and I doubt not will at least help you away with the tediousness of some vacant Hours 't is a Translation and if I have erred in Grammar I submit to your Censure beseeching the ALL-Eternal to endow you and yours with all Felicity internal external and eternal for which I am your dayly Orator as I am Revera LONDON 22 Decemb. 1656. Your most humble Servant Robert Turner To the Reader Whose Studies are seasoned with Salt WHEN the rude dark Chaos and indigesta moles lay tumbling in darkness and rowling amongst the undivided waters when the Spirit of the Great Eternal Elohim moved above the Face thereof it seemed good to his Great creating power to make a Witness of his Glorious Majesty by framing the spatious Vniverse then did he pronounce a fiat Lux Let there be Light and no sooner was his will declared but Light immediately like a ready swift-wing'd Herald soon proclaim'd his Embassage to the as-yet unseparated Fire Air Earth and Water and they as dutiful Subjects yield ready Obedience to his Glorious Commands and Light speedily muzzles up darkness and presents the Creator with a new baptized morning His sacred Power further intending to manifest his Glory commands a divorce between the Earth and Water and as a mighty Monarch doth his conquered Enemy or stubborn Rebel so he with another fiat makes that terrible boundless fathomless Element the Sea become his Prisoner and confines her swelling waves to their bounds and borders banishing them from one end of the World to the other to run up and down in an unsettled motion that though her brinish Mountains swell never so high yet further then his great fiat permits they never dare approach Then after he had vanquished this terrible to poor mortals apprehension adversary he soon bespreads the Earth with a green robe embroyder'd with such variety of glorious flowers as the greatest Potentate on the earth with all his Glory could never attain to the like array Moreover did his refulgent Majesty yet further illustrate the beams of his glorious might in bedecking the bespangled azure skies with those powerful Creatures the Sun Moon and Stars which he set for times and seasons days months and yeers and to divide betwixt day and night to omit the ready obedience the Sea Air and Earth yielded in bringing forth fishes birds and beasts immediately at his command Whither now doth my wandring Muse soar What royal Potentate or princely Guest should now be expected to this glorious Entertainment Not the Mighty Angels that excel in strength but the great Deity call'd a triune Council commanded the Earth also to bring forth an Epitomy of all his voluminous works the Manual of his glory Man a naked puling Creature born without Sword or Shield yet into his Soul did the All-eternal breath the Image of Himself crown'd him glory made him little lower then the Angels made him Commander of Earths Empire gave him an os sublime a lofty countenance to view the Stars and learn to know their powerful influence upon the inferiour World Now doth the wise Philosopher he who is a true contemplator of the divine Wisdom by a threefold operation and threesold matter make his creation and erect the fabrick of his world with his Salt Sulphur and Mercury The Mercury Sulphur of the Philosophers hath much been written on more then needs talk'd on but the third and chief principle was as yet unsupplied Here Reader it is fully discussed and to the intelligent and deserving will be a great revealed Secret despised by fools crack'd on by bragging knaves who indeed like degenerate bastards unframe the frame blot the manual and deface the Glorious Image of the Almighty Some seek to fill the insatiate Gulf of their unfathom'd wills in vain pleasure Another seeks to mount the slippery stairs of staggering honor and to make a perpetuity of his off-spring Another digs in the Earth and is shipwrack'd with covetous dunghil-passions The actions of all these are not a whit tinctured with the true Salt of the Philosophers for therein is no such thing Many indeed there are to whom the Philosophers Study seems ridiculous because their unseasoned brains cannot apprehend the great mystery thereof to them I will not bestow time to say a word nor here tell you the Vertues of Salt yet you see our natural vulger common Salt will preserve dead flesh from putrefaction What then will the true-prepar'd Philosophical Salt do It is not meet to tell you here but if you are worthy of it the Book will and Paracelsus told you already Let me intreat you to take notice by the way that when you finde any mention made of heaven earth soul spirits or our heaven c. these are not meant the celestial heaven or natural earth but terms used by the Philosophers to obscure their sayings from the wicked spoken with all due and holy reverence to the divine Majesty of whose glorious Attributes the true Philosophers and Astrologers are as tender as CL assical John can be yet this I thought good to mention being cautious lest any spark of my flint should touch the wild-fire of his beacons but that my Salt may rather preserve the hopes of my intelligent Reader to dive through his Studies to his crown'd haven with which desire I conclude 22 Decemb. 1656. R. T. To the Reader THis little Treatise Secrets doth unfold More rich more precious then the Indian Gold Here is the path which who doth rightly tread To health wealth it will him safely lead Salt seasoning all things Light illuminating The universal Spirit vivificating O happy Souls who first
in dispensing of specifical forms and Archeus in exciting vital heat which Iliastus and Archeus are as it were two Instruments whereby â—he informs conserves and augments all things Here note That by Iliastus we mean a general Steward that affords matter for all generation and by Archeus natural or radical heat which digests this matter and acts upon it This Demogorgon then is he by whom as by his Instrument God produces all things in and under Heaven so that he containing his Iliastus and Archeus does with singular providence unknown to vulgar Philosophers and therefore masked under the supplement of occult causes form and generate then nourish and preserve all things exercising the office of a good Housholder or Steward who hath his Cellar in the bowels of the Earth and thence draws Life and vigour for his Family The Earth therefore which is the Receptacle of Celestial Influences and Vertues contains iâ— it the Fountain of this vital Spirit froâ— whose Rivulets Animals Minerals anâ— Vegetables derive Life which communicates to them sense essence anâ— vegetation as it findes their matter disposed for motion and hence such things as are compounded of a more ducible Mass and fit for such motion become sensitive and vegetable and able to generate things like themselves because they are indued with Life for Plants and the like whose Spirits are not cohibited in too crass and hard matter encrease and multiply grenerating things like themselves by seed and plantation but not like Animals but Minerals whose Life is neither sensitive nor vegetive but onely essential because their composition being too hard and gross too straightly captivates their Spirit that they cannot produce any thing like themselves unless they be first purged from their gross impurity and reduced to the subtilty of their first matter about which Aurelius Augurellus that excellent Poet and Philosopher writes thus Lib. 1. Chrysop Haec inter variant quae nec primordia rerum Exlant quaeque frui vitali sorte negantur Ut media quaecunque sedent lellure metella Quique latent miro grati fulgore lapilla Nullo namque genus sobolemve auger putantur Semine sed cunctos aevi torpere per annos Verum haec ipsa etiam secreto vivere quivis Sentiat vitae divino munere fungi Haec oriri eadem si contemplabitur etsi Augeri ex sese penitus increscere cernet Vt mox e rariis patefactis nosse licebit Quod si non sobolem educunt non caetera vertunt In semet causa est quod multa spiritus illic Materie abstrusus vitam qui porrigit omnem Explicat aegre ex se vires in vivida promat Has hominum virtus densa sub mole latentes But those that neither Life enjoy nor yet First matter are but in the Earth do sit As Metals rich and Stones that precious be Differ from these for no off-spring we see They generate nor kinde augment but lie Resting themselves yet he that shall espie Their secret acts and with himself compute Their augmentation cannot sure conclude That th' are quite void of life for though they do No off-spring generate nor turn into Themselvs nor other things yet life they have Which is so chained in the closer cave Of their dense solid matter that they can't Exert such actions as a brute or Plant. Yet if mans skill do quit them of these bonds Their vertue 's such as will make them amends For when these Minerals are pure they will by their specifical form though not generate something like themselves yet work such an alteration and perfection in things like themselves that they shall equalize the Philosophical Elixir whose divine vertues wise-men so much admire fools so much contemn because their blinde eyes cannot penetrate to the Centre of this Mystery If therefore Animals Minerals and Vegetables which constitute the greatest part of this visible World be full of Life what Reason have we to think That the whole is more imperfect then part thereof But let us sink further into Sublunaries if the Celestial Bodies give Life to the Inferious they must certainly and necessarily be enlivened by the Universal Spirit for nothing can give that it hath not of which let us hear Augurellus Hoc etenim quic quid diffunditur uadiqueâ—aeli Aeraque Terras laâ—i marmoris aequo Intus agi referunt anima qua vivere mundi Cuncta putant ipsumque hac mundum ducere vitam All that 's contain'd under Heavens Canopy Both fire air earth eke the boundless sea Are mov'd they say by a most ample Spirit That th' world enlivens all that it inherit But natural motion is alwayes conjoyned with Life how then can that produce Life and motion in another that hath them not in it self Motion never forsakes that which hath Life and that which either moves or is moved alwayes cannot want Life The Soul of the Universe moving it self spontaneously is the fountain and original of all corporal motion for the most subtile part of this Mundane Soul soaring high and inhabiting the Heavens is continually wheeled about with the Celestial Bodies which it self circumduces with its proper and continual motion and for this Reason the superiour Bodies are more lively and perfect then the inferiours because they are continually moved orbicularly and that which is moved continually must needs be immortal And thus it appears that the whole World is full of Life and that the Life of every species and individual is but a participation of this Universal Life of the World which alone may be properly called an Animal in whose corporal Elements the seeds of all visible and corporal thing are hidden and included for we see many Plants grow without precedent seeds and many Animals produced without copulation of Male with Female The visible seed of Plants lies in their Grains of Animals in their Genitors Metals also have their seed but such as is not visible but by true Philosophers who know how with great industry to extract it from its proper subject And unless there be a certain procreative faculty in the Elements wherein Generation is potentially included many Herbs would scarce germinate on the Earth much less on high Walls where no seed was ever sown nor Herb planted neither would so many kindes of Animals be generated in the Earth or Water without copulation of Sexes as there are which do by copulation afterwards perpetuate their species though themselves were not generated by the commixion of any Parents as we see in Snakes generated of Mud and Flies and other little Animals of Excrements Again How do Oysters Sea-Spunges and other Aquatical Creatures live which rather merit the name of Plant-animals then of Fishes These do not so much live by any particular Life proper to themselves as by that Universal one general and common to all which is more vigorous in subtile Bodies as more neer to it then in grosser ones which are more remote from it The World
then created wholly good by him that is Goodness it self is not corporal solely but participates of spirituality and intelligence for it is full of all manner of forms and as I said before hath neither part nor member but that 's vital and therefore wise-men have called it a Masculine and Feminine or Hermaphroditical Animal one part holding a certain Matrimonial Alligation with another And hence by a certain Translation arises the diversity of Sexes in Plants and Animals which in imitation of the World copulate together and generate a third like themselves for the World produces an infinity of little Worlds for every Body in the World that is generated is a Microcosm having distinct parts vertues and qualities belonging to a little World So that every thing hath an inclination to generate a thing like it self by the right ordering of Action and Passion which could not be if all things were not full of Life for what Generation can proceed from a dead subject seeing it is neither probable nor possible that that can communicate Life to another that wants Life it self We see indeed sometimes many things are generated without the congress of Male and Female yea without the production of either whereinto the Universal Spirit infuses Life by means of Fomentation as many by Artifice who exclude Eggs and Chickins without the sitting of a Hen and others who by preparing certain matters and putrefying them produce wonderful Animals as the Basilisk of a Cocks Egg or of the menstruous matter of a red Hen Scorpions of the Herb BASIL Bees of Neatâ— bowels a kinde of Ducks of the Leaveâ— of a certain Tree falling into the Sea a with many things of the like Natureâ— that merit admiration rather then credit because they are made out of thâ— ordinary course of Nature certaiâ— matters in certain seasons and places attracting Life from the Universal Spirit wherewith the World so abounds that all its actions are vital insomuch that nothing dies perishes or ceases from action and consequently from Life but immediately some other living thing results out of it and upon this account no Body perishes or is totally annihilated for if it should all the parts of the World would by little and little vanish one after another before ouâ— eyes especially considering how many mutations and Ages have gone before us insomuch that he that perpends might admire that there are any reliques left in Nature at this time which 〈◊〉 French Poet and no little conversant in this secret Philosophy hints at to his Friend thus Vostre aspect inegal qui mea fortune change Est comme le soliel contraire en ses effects Qui amollit la cire indurcit la fange Et fait des corps nonveaux de ceux qu'il a defaicts Your aspect in my fortunes changes sways As Phoebus in his effects whose bright rays Waxes do modifie but harden Clayes And from corruption do sound bodies raise a Our Author seems here to embrace the vulgar Opinion of the Generation of the Northern Ducks which the Scots call Claikis Claiks or Claik-geese and the English Bernacles which many other Writers say are generated of the Nuts of a certain Maritimous Tree falling into the prolifical Sea or of some Shells adhering to putrid pieces of Ships which thing the learned Lobellius makes mention of in Advers Stirp pag. 456. where first he seems to assent to afterwards to doubt of and last to conclude That Fabius Columna had justly refuted this Opinion Lobellius in the second part of his Work pag. 259. describes the figure of this Duck or Goose as also of the Tree and Shells Olaus Magnus also mentions this kinde of Ducks Lib. 19. Hist. Sextent cap. 9. But Carolus Clusius seems to have explained the generation of them more rationally Canctario Exoticorum pag. 368. where he sayes That the Hollanders sayling towards Waygatz saw some of these Ducks sitting upon their Eggs. Fabius Columna repeats his words but Ulysses Aldronaldus Lib. 19. Antithog cap. 23. towards the end embraceth the middle sentence saying He had rather erre with the multitude then contradict so many famous writers and therefore he sayes These Ducks may be generated of corruption and afterwards multiply by copulation and incubation like Mice and other Animals The generation of Palmer-worms from Plants may also be well referred to this place which whether they be generated naturally or artificially feed onely upon the Herb whereof they are generated or to which they are related as also the Generation of Caterpillars and then of Butterflies which afterwards multiply their species by copulation I saw at Rome in Henricus Corvinus an eximious Apothechary and Botanist his Shop a Butterflie which they said was made of the corruption of Cypress-Leaves so elegant and great that its Wings equalized my little Finger in length and were all over as it were eyed whereof as of the Palmer-Worm you may read Fabius Columna his Observations Part 2. Stirp minus Cog. pag. 85. CHAP. 2. That the World because it lives hath a Spirit a Soul and a Body THe Body of the World lies open to our senses but its Spirit lies hid and in the Spirit its Soul which cannot be united to its Body but by the mediation of its Spirit for the Body is gross and the Soul subtil far removed from all corporal qualities For the unition then of these two we must finde some third participating of both Natures which must be as it were a corporeal Spirit because the extreams cannot be conjoyned without an intervenient Ligament that hath affinity with both The Heaven we see is high the Earth low the one pure the other corrupt How then shall we exalt this impure corruption and conjoyn it with that active purity without a mean God we know is infinitely pure and clean Man exreamly impure and defiled with â—ns Now these could never have been â—onjoyned and reconciled but by the mediation of Christ Jesus God-Man â—hat true attractive Glue of both Naâ—ures In like manner this Spirit corâ—oreal or Body spiritual we speak of 〈◊〉 the active Glue of Body and Soul which Soul sits in the Spirit of the World â—s a spark from and of God's infinite â—ntelligence for these effective elevaâ—ions renovations mutations variations â—nd multiplications of forms must neâ—essarily arise from intelligence and â—ot from matter which participates of â—o reason and therefore cannot cause â—ch formations and specifications The World then is nourished by this Spirit â—nd agitated by this Soul which is infus'd â—nto it by mediation of this Spirit which Virgil following divine Plato's Doctrine expresses elegantly Lib. 6. Aeneid Principio Caelum ac Terras composque liquentes Lucentemque Globum Lunae Titaniaque Astra Spiritus intus alit totamque infusa per Artus Mens agitat molem magno se corpore miscet The nourishment of th' earth mountains and skarâ— Of th' heaven of planets of glistring stars We attribute to th' Spirit but to th'
and the humour thereof being condensed by innate heat is turned into a certain kinde of Earth which contains Mercury and Sulphur in due proportions CHAP. 7. How the Earth nourishes this Universal Spirit THough this Spirit be infused into and dwells in superiour as well as inferiour Bodies yet it may be best known and discerned in Bodies most evident and neer to our view of which the Earth is neerest and most vegetable in it therefore is this Spirit generated and manifested more copiously for the Earth is a certain mark whereto all the Influences Rayes and Vertues of the superiour Bodies tend It is moreover the Fundament and Basis of the other Elements containing in it self the seeds and seminal vertues of all things for which cause it is rightly called the common Mother of all Animals Vegetables and Minerals It is therefore impregnated by the Heavens and produces all things out of its womb and though this Spirit were expelled washed away or separated from it by what way you please yet the Earth thus void of Spirit if left a while in the Air would again be impregnated by the Celestial vertues and influences so as to produce some Chystalline stones and lucent sparks and by this means the Spirit which was taken for separated would again regerminate in the Earth Impregnation then made by the action of the Heavens and of the first qualities doth continually render her generative for out of her womb come all things sublunary She produces all things endued with life preserves nourishes and at last resolves them into their own Nature When she is agitated by these actions she causes a twofold expiration one without her another within her which expirations egrede from this Terrene Spirit when moved and calefied by the Celestial heat The expiration elevated without or above the Earth if it be humid causes and produces dew and frost if dry winde thunder and other dry Aereal impressions but the expiration included in the Earth if it be humid generates liquable Metals and Minerals if dry stones and the like that are not liquable All things vegetable proceed from and are nourished by this Spirit whereof the Earth is Nurse for which cause the ancient Poets call the Earth the common Mother and Nurse of all Creatures CHAP. 8. That the Spirit of the World is the cause of perfection in all THe Universal Spirit is the general Genus and common to every Genus for if we cast our eyes into the inferiour or elementary World we see it divided into three subalternals to wit animal vegetable and mineral kindes and yet the same in all onely operating diversly according to the diversity of its forms And hence the infinite variety of Creatures arises for else there would be only one species in the Universe but if we perpend the superiour and Celestial World we shall also finde That the Spirit is one equal in all and differing in nothing but purity and subtilty for the Celestial Spirits are procreated of its pure igneous substance and differ from Terrene ones in corporal grosness and the Celestial Globes and Luminaries are made of its middle and Aereal substance it constitutes therefore all things because it hath in it both the faculties of superior and inferior Bodies and because it is of an exquisite temper for this Body is in all the beginning and end of perfection and if it were destituted of its faculties it could never perfect any thing and here we understand simple and natural perfection and although it be perfect onely according to the intent of Nature containing in it self the rule line action and power of perfection yet it acquires vertues and faculties above the sphere of natural things and can deduce things from potency to act This Spirit alters and penetrates all things though never so gross mollifies hard things hardens soft things and augments nourishes and conserves all things This Spirit also being in all Bodies the Author of Generation and Corruption hath necessarily a threefold operation for by its driness it must enliven and by its coldness congeal and by its moisture congregate and unite for which it hath a threefold name imposed on it desumed from the three kindes of Earth for they call it vitrifying salsuginous and Mercurial because of Salt Glass and Mercury all things are made though Paracelsuâ— reckons these principles otherwise to wit Salt Sulphur and Mercury adding Glass as a fourth As if he should say All things are made of these three first principles and reduced at last to the fourth as though neither Nature nor Art could produce any thing beyond Glass But I shall prove my own sentence by Examples and Reason The Bones of Animals are consolidated and hardened by vitrification the Fâ—â—â—h and Nerves concreted by Salt and united and congregated into one mâ—â—â— by the â—â—curial humour In Vegetables also the shells of Almonds Pine-Nuts Wall-Nuts and the like as also of Oysters and Snails in Land and Sea may be made by vitrification and the taste demonstrates That these Bodies are saltish for nothing wants Salt but what is insipid yea those things are very saltish whereof Glass is made as Fem Kali and the like Some may here object That it is not Glass but Salt that causes the induration of Bones Shells and the like which I have mentioned Whereunto I answer That Experience and Reason speak the contrary for Salt is resolved and melted by the least moisture of Air or Water but the Bones and Shells before mentioned resist liquefaction as they are more or less hardened by this Glass-making faculty for the ultimate confirmation of which my assertion I may adduce precious Stones Adamant and Chrystal which are nothing but Glass elaborated to perfection in the Furnace of Nature And now that all things are condensed by Mercury is so manifest that it needs no other Testimony but common Experience Minerals have enough of Salt Sulphur and Mercury in them Stones and such effoded things as acquire not extention and fusion by the Hammer and Fire have some Salt in them but this is superated by the adustion of corruptive Sulphur which comes upon their induration and vitrification Metals and all ductile things are concreted and condensed by Salt and Mercury and so much hardened by vitrification that they bid some râ—sistence to the Hammer which is indeeâ— more or less according to their implâ—cation with more or less impurity aâ— adust Earth which comes upon the câ—agulation of their Mercury And thâ—â— we may affirm that all things are madâ— of the ternal number of Glass Salt anâ— Mercury or Water where Glass is thâ— cause of hardness Salt affords matteâ— and Water causes unition and condeâ—sation CHAP. 9. Of the specification of the Universal Spirit to Bodies THe Soul of the World and its Action and Vertue is represented in 〈◊〉 things in which it is this bindes and â—njoyns the superiour things with the â—feriour for as many Idea's as the â—eaven contains so many seminal â—uses it
of Air and this raised vapour is nourished and augmented by the first vapour which never ceases to act on the matter of the Acorn till it have brought it to the period of that perfection to which Nature destined it which is to make it an Oak which when it hath acquired its perfect magnitude begins not indeed to die but to decline and gradually to return to its first form even to the Earth where the same vapour is not idle or deficient for of the putritude of this Tree certain Animals called Horse-lice with abundance of Worms are thereby generated yea when the Oak is turned into perfect Earth it causes a new vegetation But if any should say That the Acorn is augmented and multiplied to this magnitude he erres for it is manifest That in this germination the Acorn remains whole without diminution yea separates it self from the Tree when it is germinated The Oak then grows not from the augmentation and multiplication of the Acorn neither is it from addition and abstraction from the adjacent Earth for then so much of the Earth would be exhausted as the Trees magnitude is it must therefore necessarily proceed from some other way matter seeing by these wayes it cannot This Spirit then or Vapour which is ordained for no other end is that which is incorporated and produces this individual from which the creation augmentation and preservation of all things proceed and not from the Mass of the Earth which is nothing but the Excrement of the spirituous and primaeve matter as it appears by the digestion of the stomach which rejects Excrements in the same weight and quantity almost that it assumed Meat in when nevertheless it hath extracted its proper nutriment from it which is onely the Spirit included in that Mass which by its siccity makes it self a Body and by its humidity dilates and augments it self CHAP. 2. Of the conversion of this Spirit into Earth and how its vertue remans integrally in this Earth THe former Reasons seem sufficiently to evince That the Spirit of the World assumes a Body now we should declare how it is corporified and though in this search the labour will be great and effect small yet shall I endeavour to make this thing comprehensible especially for their sakes who in their nativities have had favourable Stars and are thereby rendred Admirers of these rarer Effects and Searchers of these occulter Secrets for in that many learned and curious Men have erred in the inquisition and detection of this Body arises from hence That some have believed this knowledge far to exceed Man's capacity and onely attainable by Angels or Devils Others have thought That it being called The Spirit of the World no Maâ— should feign to himself any but an Universal Body because an Universal Spiriâ— must also have an Universal Body Anâ— others have thought That it could noâ— be perceived but by conversion of morâ— perfect Bodies into their first Sperâ— and Spirit by exact and industrious subtiliation not minding nor considering That Nature admits of no regress and That Bodies by how much they arâ— more perfect by so much they are furtheâ— distant from their principles and fiâ— corporeity Some are of opinion That a Quinteâ—sence might be extracted from Bodies perswading themselves That the moâ—â— subtile and volatile part is that Spiâ—â—â— they seek so erring from the scope which they aim as if they would seâ— the East in the West for they maâ—â— Bodies spiritual where they shouâ— make Spirits corporeal But seeing thâ— Spirit is manifestly converted into Terrene Body and without contradiâ—â—â—on or doubt generates all bodies it mâ— therefore be extracted by them because otherwise they forsake the direct tract of Nature and seeing it is made a Terrene Body it may be perfected by Fire into something which the Quintessentials call their Heaven But corporification begins from the Earth for the first work of Mercury is to make Earth Why then do they begin with making of Fire which would proceed as if a Man should build a House and begin at the Roof But such as would reduce Bodies to their first being pretend and have more specious Reasons then those that would redact them to a Quintessence save that they go in a crooked way that leads them contrary to their meanings for besides that Nature never goes backwards they minde not that they should follow the way of completion and not of destruction or reversion to their origines and nativity for besides the impossibility of this course these wayes are so long and difficult that an ordinary term of Life cannot reach their end Moreover they can never attain the true and natural first Being this way but onely a phantastical Body far different from that wherewith Nature effects her productive operations which is solely the legitimate Sperm of all Bodies And if we consider now That all Bodies are made by Terrification we must needs grant That there is some prejacent subject most apt for the making of Earth But I said That in the beginning Fire was the first Operator in the World which elevates a spirituous Vapour then cocts dries and incorporates it for a Body cannot be made without coagulation which necessarily follows the driness of Fire And in what other place can this immassation desiccation and coagulation be made save in the Earth whence all Bodies proceed The prejacent matter then must needs be there occluded for if it be not there then all Bodies are made of nothing which is repugnant to Natures course which would have every thing to have its principle and out of nothing nothing but nothing to proceed This matter or principle then is bound to the Body of the Earth where it is nourished ingrossed and incorporated and therefore such as would extract the Quintessence out of perfect simple or imperfect Metals should do better to open the Matrix of the Mother and take the Sperm out there then to kill and destroy her Infants or adult Off-spring while they go about to reduce them to the state wherein they were in time of conception But if they should open this Matrix what would they there finde for nothing appears to sight or sense And many believing this way most profitable have been deceived whilst they thought in the bellies of Mynes to finde some seed of Gold which missing of they despair of their purpose because they never met with a middle disposition betwixt hardness and softness in Metals If therefore the eye can discern nothing here how then is it possible for them to get any thing This indeed is a work the other a labour Such Searchers surely believe not that the first matter is so subtile and loose a Spirit or Vapour as that it cannot be reached save onely by intellect and imagination However seeing it is contained in the Body of this great Parent and dwells there Reason evinces That it hath something of corporeity in it and although I have sufficiently declared to subtile
as the Body of this great Earth hath the specifical and productive vertue of individuals so hath that same we call Salt not that it can produce Herbs Metals or Animals as the other doth but that it conserves in its brest the original Seed of all things as Experience by the operations of Fire manifests hereby giving colours sapours vegetations and induration to all these kindes and also proper Fire which the Sun hath introduced into it whereby it enlivens and nourishes all things which I have sometimes observed in the prosecution of a Philosophical operation whilst I saw in this matter without other mixtion all colours distinctly one after another in order and according to the internals that the Masters of this Art determine as they should be in the matter and confection of the Philosophers Stone together with that sudden fusion which follows upon the attainment of the highest redness like that of wilde Poppy but it would not produce that admirable effect in changing of Metals but it exerted such miraculous vertues by causing universal and natural sweats in Man's Body that I am afraid to publish them lest I be branded with the title of a Scharlatane Medicaster though C.V. my Soveraign good Prince as an irreprehensible Eye-Witness may easily vindicate me from that injury for when the fame of those admirable cures came to his Ears he was pleased like a gracious Jupiter to visit the Habitation of his poor Philemon induced thereto I suppose by the generosity of his minde and the relation of a good Man who was so afflicted with divers Dolours and extenuated with the diuturnity of his grievous Diseases that nothing but hopes on Divine Providence or the solace of his imminent Death could move in him resentment The true relation I say of this Man so much affected C. V. that he diligently took the information of many men whom I had by this remedy restored to sanity and if the covetousness or envy of the Man who undertook the cure of the reverend Cardinal and my Lord's Brother P. M. had not prohibited the use of this Medicament I perswade my self by God's Grace and Benediction it would have conduced to the sanity of many that still lie languishing for want of cures If therefore this Salt have all the qualities of the Earth in it who will deny it to be Earth or say That it may not be called the Universal Spirit made into Earth as Hermes describes it But I aver That this conversion cannot be effected save by the Artifice of easie practise but difficult perquisition for it is without falsity an act exceeding Man's cogitations to render that matter visible to the eyes and tangible to hands which so many learned and famous Writers in all ages have thought invisible and incomprehensible of which they have affirmed That those that labour in this profound Theory may be able to discourse well and plausibly of its excellency but should never finde and know it in effect And I profess amongst all the curious men wherewith I have conversed familiarly this forty yeers from which time I have had some knowledge of this matter I can scarce finde six that know ought of it When then I have sufficiently declared how this Salt may be turned into Earth which is the operation of operations it rests that I shew That after conversion its vertue remains entire Buâ— before I enter this Discourse I shall as iâ— is requisite relate with what vertue thiâ— Salt or Spirit is of it self indued that wâ— may search and finde the same in it wheâ— it is converted into Earth I say therefore for confirmation of my purpose That it is without doubt anâ— needs no proof that the continual motion of the Heavens is for some end for though Physically we may say Thaâ— the end for which a thing is moved iâ— to acquire another place yet is motioâ— made for other causes and the intent 〈◊〉 this motion is not to go from place 〈◊〉 place onely but so to move as to oâ—tain the effect of another End for theâ— are two Ends the one is by Philosopheâ— called the End for which a thing 〈◊〉 made as the End of Plato's Generâ—tion is for Plato's Soul and Beatituâ— is the End for which Plato studies Veâ—tue The other End is that to whiâ— things tend Thus the End where conjunction of Male or Female tends Generation but the End for whicâ— Generation is made is a Man or an â—nimal Thus the End for which Plato went out of Greece into Egypt was to learn Wisdom but the End to which he tended was Egypt The End therefore of the Heavens motion is not onely to acquire new places but to influence upon inferiour Bodies for if any one should imagine that these influences are of no use or that they are cast into a place where nothing can receive them he is in an error too gross to be refuted This Celestial Influx is perpetual and continual because the motion by which it descends is orbicular beginning in and returning to it self And this is the Reason why the things whereon it influences and which it produces are of the same Nature and quality as without ceasing to receive the power and multiplication of these Vertues which fail not And seeing this Influence is not extended above the Heavens where nothing is it must needs be carried toward some inferiour thing that it may act upon for nothing is passive but what hath a Body and what other natural Body is there in the World but Earth Is not this the Body of Bodies and that solely that can subsist alone having in it self all the qualities requisite to a Body as Longitude Latitude Profundity and Superficies Is not it the Subject and Mark that Nature hath set whereat to aim all her Darts where can she better accomplish her works then on the Earth The Earth therefore is onely that inferiour Body that receives Celestial Influences whose faculties and powers penetrate calefie purge separate enliven augment confer and restore We need not now dispute whether the Heavens and Celestial Bodies influence upon the Earth for experience and sense takes away this doubt This therefore being left as sufficiently known we shall onely declare how they make their influences vertuous I said before That they tend directly downwards and not upwards and the Earth being the Centre of this Spherical Body they must needs fall upon her and fasten their Points there for the Earth is that Point of the vast World where all the lives of these influences concentricate And seeing the Earth is a Body so solid that it gives solidity to all others it is requisite that that which penetrates it be very subtile The Heavens therefore being of most subtile matter produce alike effects for the operations ordinarily follow the qualities of the Body that operates And this penetration would profit nothing but like a Torrent running over a Field because of its swift motion scarce wet the surface unless it
Stars direct All that the Earth and Universe contains My nod expect When all a Chaos was I spread my rayes Of light about And then divided that which in few dayes The world brought out Seeing then this Matter by its proper Nature and Appetite tends to incorporation who can rationally say That whilst it assumes a Body it is deprived or swerves from Nature that by its own vertue causes corporation and seeing when it takes a Body it is first turned into Earth who can deny but this Earth is indued with the same vertue for though through commixtion and concurse it partake of some elementary impurities yet in its Centre it is alwayes pure so that after its purification Fire which is otherwise the most active and potent Element hath no power to destroy it because it exceeds this Fire in perfection and subtilty And hence it so suddenly penetrates Bodies enlivening them and augmenting their vertues by restoring and preserving what is natural in them to wit their radical moisture which by its fiery subtily it purges and separates from its Excrements that suffocate it And that I may in a word absolve all this that most excellent Medicine which Siracides saith is extracted out of the Earth and which no wise Man will despise It is moreover that precious Salt whereto the Doctor of Doctors compared his Apostles as to a most exquisite Treasure produced by the Heavens for he might as well have said You are Adamants Rubies Pearls Gold or Silver of the Earth but that he knew That all these things though admirable contained nothing in them comparable to this general Salt whereunto all the rest owe the homage of their perfections This Medicine operates like Fire in consuming the impure which as heterogeneous it disgregates from the homogeneous parts of the pure substance and seeing the Heaven generated this Virgin in the bowels of the Earth why should she not retain her Parents vertues and like an Infant that naturally participates of both Paternal and Maternal Seeds hold both Paternal and Maternal Humours for which cause the Ancients called this progeny Androgynos which is a name common to both Sexes the Poets an Hermaphrodite as being properly neither Male nor Female but both and no less properly may this Virgin be called Uranogaea or Heaven made into Earth for being Earth she hath the Celestial Vertues tied and annexed to her indissolubly whose admirable faculties she manifests in her operations whereof I have given sufficient declaration in the precedent Chapters to all such as armed with any noble spark of ingenuity will endeavor to adventure to break through the thick woods of darkness and ignorance or to such as Virgil saith to whom Heaven has granted access or ingress into the obscure Chaos of the Earth CHAP. 3. Of the Separation of Fire from Water subtile from thick and with what industry it should be effected NAture the most sagacious Agent shews us by her proper operations that in all things we must first consider the end for which we undertake any matter and then finde out means to attain the end A prudent Searcher of Natures secrets then should have perfect knowledge of the principles progress and qualities of matter both internal and external lest in his search he confound his end with his means and forsaking the high-way which Nature hath trodden from the Foundation of the World turn into by-paths and phantastical unknown and unfrequented tracts Hermes knew the right way well for he was indued with the perfect knowledge of the Worlds constitution who desirous by Art to follow the footsteps of Nature prudently imagined That the Earth was the principle of all things and the first Creature that was by Separation created in the belly of the Chaos and thence he made such ingress into the Treasury of Natures Secrets by the Terrification of this first Matter which I said before was nourished in the Matrix of the Earth But as it is not enough for a Builder to have Materials wherewithal to erect an Edifice unless he know the manner of performing and fitting his Materials to the work so Hermes was not content to finde out convenient matter but made diligent search for the manner whereby he might prosecute his work in imitation of the chief Operator in the Creation of the Universe and so form a little World wherein all the vertues of the greater World were included Considering therefore That the thing he purposed to make must be most and that he must begin with gross and inferiour things to obtain this perfection he first begun to divide the contrary Natures by separation of the superfluous and useless parts to avoid the ruine of his work where according to the Adage it may be truely said He took the Bird by its Feet and so going through the right Gate entred into the Closet of Natures Secret without turning for Separation is the beginning of all things and the first operation of the Universal Body segregating the confused Members by the division of the confused Mass or Chaos the order and form of Elements first appeared and took their places for without Separation Day and Night Sun and Moon Winter and Summer had yet been one Metals and Minerals though never so different would have been contained in one Body and all Vegetables would have been but one Seed It was therefore necessary That Nature for the attainment of that Order and Distinction wherewith we see the Universe condecorated should begin with Separation But that we may descend to particulars let us see how this sagacious Agent begins all her operations but for Separation Generation would neither have beginning nor end by separation Aliments augment and conserve every Body And if I should deduce the proof of this Argument thorow every species I should without doubt confound my self in the intricacy of this Chaos and never finde exiture for the infinity of examples I will therefore lay down this for a Foundation That Nature begins all her Actions from Separation But because the knowledge of this is not sufficient unless withal we know what things she separates and whence this separative faculty proceeds we must discuss this matter more exactly that our discourse may proceed regularly and before I meddle with any disposition I think it best to propose some definition of Separation and declare of how many kindes this Separation is Separation then in general is nothing but the division and distinction of things dissimilar from one another as of the Heaven from the Earth Sun from Moon and the like as also of the pure from the impure heat from cold dry from moist and the contrary And from this Definition we may draw two sorts of Separation The one of things differing onely simply and not of contraries as of the parts of the World which were separated at first from the Chaos or that we may descend to particulars as of the Wood from the Bark of Leaves from Fruits and Roots from Boughs and this
species of Separation may be called simply a Distinction for these parts are not really divided or separated from each other whether we have respect to the principal or to the particular members of the World for though Heaven and Earth seem to be separated from each other in situation by reason of superiority and inferiority yet they are not divided one from another seeing there is a perpetual connexion and affinity betwixt them as appears by many places of this Book Whence also Homer no less Philosopher then Poet said That the Earth was bound to Heaven by a golden Chain But that I may keep to my former example Leaves and Fruits Wood and Bark Boughs and Roots are not separated and divided as contraries but onely distinguished by their proper places and garnishments whilst they have a certain affinity and mutual tie yet so that the one does not occupy the others place but that they agree together and support each other The second species of Separation is the Solution or Distraction of things totally differing contrary or superfluous which have no natural connexion with the substance of things as pure and impure hot and cold gross and subtile and the like not that I would affirm That these things cannot stand together but That their union and mixtion because of their diversity causes Destruction or at least hinders the action of the natural Vertue of the pure substance And this kinde of Separation may be properly called decision or division which Nature uses in all her productions that she may set the proper actions and vertues of every thing at liberty The first species is onely the distinction of parts truely dissimilar in situation and figure but homogeneous in vertue and substance for it is certain That the Wood Bark and all the parts of a Tree participate of one innate Vertue which is particularly proper to the Tree generally common to all its parts but as to subalternate parts there may be some difference for some may receive more or less of the substance or vertue but none contrary for one and the same effect produces not things diametrically opposite out of the same matter a salutary Plant emits no poysonous faculty yet that may be salutary to one Body that 's mortal to another Thus Hellebore nourishes Quails but kills Men. But one Plant cannot exercise contrary Powers upon one and the same subject for Hellebore cannot both nourish and kill Quails nor both intoxicate and nourish Man The proper vertue of the Plant then is in the whole Plant and any part of the Plant may be dissimilar to another in situation and figure but not contrary in vertue and substance for the Leaves and Fruits have of the same substance and vertue though one more then another Here some may object That Brassica produces different effects for according to the vulgar opinion its decoction looses the belly but its pulpe bindes the same Whereto I answer If it be proper for the substance of this Plant to loose it 's impossible that it should also binde for to speak plainly the pulpe that remains after decoction is not of the substance of the Plant as it appears by the concoction of the stomack which receives the substance of Brassica for Aliment but rejects its pulpe as an Excrement that hath no nutritive faculty in it which faculty is wholly in the substance and in each part of the substance for the substance hath this propriety That it admits of no contrary but onely of more or less which we must also understand of its actions and power and not of its essence of which we have an example in man no one part is more the part of a Man then another though it may be greater or more potent in vertue and action the same may be seen in simples or Plants wherein some parts are more or less hot or cold moist or dry as their colours and sapours manifest yet are they not contraries for one part of a Plant cannot kill through cold and another of the same kill through heat but Experience shews us thus much That the summities of Boughs and that Flowers are more subtile in their Operations then the trunks and inferiour parts of the same because it is proper in every substance for the more subtile and pure parts to ascend and the impure to settle and abide next the Excrements which Nature observes for two Reasons first That she may adorn the Plant and by the variety of its digestion make it grateful to look to Secondly That she may administer to Man or other Animals what is needful for the conservation of his essence in a greater or less degree herein resembling a careful and provident Mother who prepares all things necessary and convenient each thing in its degree as industry or possibility can render it for she never exceeds simple perfection and Flowers and Seeds are the most perfect parts in Herbs which she hath elaborated which Art beginning where Nature left may bring to a higher perfection by the same way that Nature kept to wit by Separation as we shall hereafter further explain Nature therefore by this first kinde of Separation does nothing but distinguish things for the ornament of their subject and use of Man other Animals or some part of the World amongst which she hath sown and implanted mutual Love and Reciprocal Affinity so that all things do naturally and out of a kinde of sympathy tend to one anothers succour and service But the second kinde of Separation is different for by it Nature or Art in imitation of Nature divides and segregates contraries that is abstracts from the substance what is not of its essence but rather averse to it dwelling with it though it be not of it as pure with an impure thing subtile with gross substance with its Excrements And this second kinde of Separation is used as the former for two Reasons also one is That the pure substance be preserved from corruption and death the other is that it may more freely exercise its vertues and actions as being free from its gross dregs for when that which is impure possesses and contains that which is substantially pure it never ceases to oppress it till it hath quite vanquished and suffocated it and by that means made way for mortal corruption which never approaches near simple and pure things but haunts all fowl and impure ones Now every substance is of it self simple and pure and by consequence not subject to corruption and death as we may observe in all superiour things which are free from Excrements but inferiour Bodies are otherwise for they lie in the midst of the impure Excrements of this World which naturally destroy and mortifie their Guests whereas purity enlivens and conserves corruptions and mortifications surround men because of the multitude of Dregs and Excrements they are infested with which make them live a short and miserable life as loaden with Aerumnies and Diseases so that they are here
detained as a guilty Malefactor in an obscure filthy Prison who being dubious betwixt death and hope of Life lies there obduced with moldiness infested with vermine and nourished with immund and corrupt meats for all Aliments are impure and carry with them an Executioner to wit hidden poyson whence we at length take our own death in our own hands and spontaneously kill our selves seeing our Aliments have so little of enlivening and nourishing vertue in them and that so closely enveloped with Excrements that the digestion of the stomack though strong can scarce attract it now we eating such meats do ingest poyson with the good substance which entring our Bodies ceases not to be augmented and accumulated till it obscure and extinguish the vital Light or rather Natures legitimate Action which is Vivification unless some Medicine or Separation retard or suspend it Corruption then is induced by Excrements and it may happen two ways either from the Parents Seed who being not well and by consequence corrupt produce corrupt Seed degenerating more from Generation to Generation but this is so far subject to Medicinal Corruption as that by help thereof the course of its activity towards Mortification may be stayed or retarded This Corruption may not improperly be called that Malevolent Satan who goes about continually seeking whom he may devour for which cause this wanders about the Terrestrial Globe or the Excrements of the World which have their principal seat on the Earth which also eructate their Corruption upon other Elements and thus Men living of them and in them are corrupted in them and by them and so they produce corrupt Seed which time renders more and more corrupt for our age being more vitious and dissolute then that of our Ancestors hath rendered us worse then they and the next its probable will be worse then us and the next more dissolute still The second rise of Corruption is from the continual use of too too excrementitious Aliments by which our Bodies are depraved so that this infection will pass from the Parent to the Son as we see in the Leprosie and other hereditary Diseases Now these Aliments deduce their Corruption from the place where they are generated for after the Almighty Creator had disposed the confus'd Chaos he so ordered that the superiour Bodies should remain pure and subtile but the inferiour gross and impure because it is the Nature of pure substances to ascend to the place of their origine but of Excrements to descend to the Centre And hence it is That that which is pure in Animals and Vegetables is elevated and ascends highest and makes them ascend increase with it till it be freed from the Excrementitious Mass which subjects it to mortal Corruption and that it may attain the place that is remotest from Excrements and live without alteration or spot for the same cause also more spiritual and subtile Creatures inhabit in higher places as being purer and finding their Aliments more convenient and like their natural substance but such as are coporal inhabit lower places where they are immerged in dregs and filth that have their place in lower parts whence they are corrupted by that of which they live which is mixed with mundane Dregs for whatever the Earth and other Elements which are the Receptacles of impurities can produce is corrupt and maculated and therefore induces corruption and defilement upon all Bodies that use it for Aliment And thus Blood acquires an ill disposition which afterwards beget ill humours but in some more in others less according to the inquinated state of the Parents and the abuse of the corruptive things which cause mortality and destruction for if the Earth and the Fruits thereof were as pure as the Heavens all Animals would live as long as the Celestial Incolists But Nature hath ordained this for a Law That that partakes more of corporeity should dwell about that that 's most corporeal and that which is more corruptible and inquinated about that that 's likest to it but the Earth is lowest of Bodies and therefore most gross and corruptible Nothing therefore can proceed from it but what is like it unless its corruption and impurity be stayed by the Art of Separation and all its pure substance extracted from its Body which a true Philosopher may by industry effect It never was nor yet is my intent to offend Physitians to whom I owe much honour yet I with many learned men admire they do not better instruct Apothecaries that they may be more curious in preparing Medicaments whilst themselves may observe how oft they have been frustrated in success when they proceed after the vulgar manner for they will cure and restore sick and weak Bodies by offering them a great deal of Pottage wherein there is yet so much impurities and gross dregs that very little pure substance wherein the curative faculty consists remains which is so immerged in their Poyson that they have no power against the Disease neither can Nature help their operation for she is subdued in this conflict by the impurity of the Remedy on the one side and the cause of the Disease on another which is all one as if a Man should drive away Corruption by corrupted corrupting means which is impossible for Rain never dries up Rivers nor Fire extinguish a Flame nor yet Corruption expel Corruption They also attempt the Restauration of their Patients debilitated strength by Aliments of easie digestion which they think partake of little impurity and so are not subject to Corruption never considering That this way cannot much profit them for though they use very choise Aliments yet are they not of much advantage because they are indued with no action or power that can either exterminate or lessen the morbifical causes but onely refulciate their miserable lives almost ruined by weakness never freeing them from death unless that Nature spontaneously arise and oppose the mortal Machinations of her Enemies or else the Patient seek help from some exquisite Medicament brought by some perite Artificers industry to supernatural purity and perfection which being free from Corruption may restore the pristine vigour and by this means eradicate the cause of the Disease for every true Medicament should effect two operations to wit purge from Corruption and restore lost Strength and in this the whole Basis and Art of Medicine consists though the lesser of the two parts is onely in use to wit Purgation the more excellent to wit Restauration being wholly abolished or through sloath or avarice neglected And that these things are thus carried is apparent from certain Potions introsumed which have no other effect but onely to make the Belly laxative or purge out not that matter that causes the Disease but some other Excrement that hath nothing to do with the Disease or else through the ill preparation dispensation or impertinent adaptation of simples cause superfluous evacuations to the ruine of Nature too weak before but now more
Bath the smoak of boyling water or by infusion in water or else by inhumation in moist places and the end of all these is one to wit the reduction of the things calcined into water that by this liquefaction the terrestrial matter may by straining settle in the bottom of the vessel but this subtile practise and all of the like kind should be reiterated for if any would by continual calcination separate the more simple parts of the compound and reduce to salt what hath the essence of salt he thereby creates much loss for the intemperate and continual violence of the fire will sublimate and evaporate a great part of that which is with such labour sought so that nothing will remain but a small quantity of the soluble matter with a great deal of dregs and besides that matter may by long abode in the fire be made into glass it is better therefore to flie to frequent reiterations then violate nature by the excess of any precinitancy I found such an inconvenience once in calcinating common Chrystal which while I desired to purge from its excrements and by long ignition to reduce to its true essence I found both it and its excrements made into glass and thence useless for my purpose for though Chrystal be clear lucid and transparent yet in Calcination it first emits black and then violaceous fumes as also stinking and sulphureous odours which sufficiently attest its excrementitious earthiness as also white fumes following after the true Homogeneity of its substance which remains clear and fluid in small quantity till it become true chrystalline Salt yea by the duration of these last reiterations its ingrateful sent is changed into a most delicate one like that of violets-powder By these reiterations of Calcinations two more conveniences do yet arise One is that the thing calcined by assuefaction to the fire brings stability and subtilty to the Medicaments as I said before The other that a body often dissolved acquires easie penetration and ready ingression as also more potent strength to change the state of the patient from sickness to sanity from weakness to vigour from declination to restauration and perfect health and these are the ordinary ways of all separations which have no other scope then the purging of pure substances from excrements and elevating of their terrestrial grossness to a fiery purity and from imperfection to perfection Which Hermes hints at when he says that earth must be separated by fire and the subtile from the gross which he says must be done with great care and animadversion For when he speaks of the preparation of the universal Spirit after its terrification and opens the way to the preparation of all individuals he would signifie that there is something in this earth which can scarce be retained and conserved and this is a light and volatile spirit which is kept by the temperament of fire But on the contrary it will easily flie away with the separable and more copious volatile part if in the operation temperate fire and a good method be not used with much patience where the Artist should observe this rule with all diligence that there are three distinct Sulphurs whereof two are separable to wit the external which perishes by Calcination and Dissolution and the internal which vanishes onely by decoction and the third is fixed which is properly the Sulphur of nature and the proper subject of its substance whereunto Philosophers give the name of Agent Fixed-grain or Element of fire As to the external Sulphur it is that first volatile and adustible water for it is plainly extraneous and the first nutriment of fire but the internal is more rooted in and united to the substance and therefore yields not save to intent and continued heat and therefore it assumes all colours before it egrede beginning first with black which is the prime sign of earthiness adustion and corruption and the antecessor of putrefaction and corruption and then passes through other middle colours till at length it put on whiteness which is the airy colour and then ascends to a fiery colour or redness in which the power of art and dominion of fire is terminated and beyond which there is no progress Which thing the Poets fabulously concealed under the unconstant form of Proteus who turned himself into various monstrous forms that he might affright those that would captivate him This variety of colours proceeds from the internal Sulphur the true author and producer of all tinctures and varieties which are by Nature or Art observed in any subject These colours may be also distinctly noted in the decoction of the first universal Subject as I have above said That it produced them in my operations and first whiteness presents it self and then Natures Sulphur appears which Geber says is white without and red within for redness immediately follows this whiteness without all help save the continuation and augmentation of Fire whence one Philosopher said His Stone was a Gold-Ring covered with Silver I would briefly insert these few words about colours not that I would presume to teach the preparations and observations which I know necessary for the perfecting of that great and so much praised Philosophers Elixir but onely that I may shew the curious Disciples of learned Medea which induced by profound and ingenious inquisition seek to enter the secrets of these mysterious Physicks what Sulphurs must be rejected and what must be retained in all things I hope I shall spend that time well which I have substracted from my houshold-affairs if I restore any vigour or spark of life to that languishing part of Natural Philosophy which envious Men have buried in the Sepulchre of Calumny under the odious title of abusive Transmutation and falsifying of Metals though ignorance onely stop their eyes from discerning this true mystery which they load with opprobrious contumelies and injurious words grounding their malice onely on the malicious lies of impudent dullards who run about Cities sell smoak and obnubilate their false Sophistications under the coat of this fair Virgin deceiving the eyes of the too credulous Commonalty with their pigments and by their Syrenical and fraudulent Speeches precipitating curious Inquirers into Scylla or Charybdis CHAP. 4. Of the Spirits ascent into Heaven and descent into the Earth THe Almighty Creator of all things foreseeing from the beginning that infection and corruption growing with things compounded of Body and Spirit would move continual and intestine wars he opposed a remedy to this dissention whereby the one may be conserved and the other not destroyed and seeing the Spirit and Substance were included in a Body and the Body immerged in corruption it was impossible that corruption should act upon and prevail over the Body and yet the Spirit placed in both should be kept free and incur no danger but rather that with the Body it should yield to deaths Tyranny which alwayes intends Natures destruction and the prostitution of all individuals which thing
the Heaven Earth and all that is therein that is all this great world is like an Embryo in the Chaos whence none can have any light unless he consider the first rudiments and progress of its distinction and formation Let us therefore first go to the Fountain and Spring that we may thence trace the rivulets that flow from it and know them and by examples of forms judge of things formed I say therefore that the prime and absolute creator who is as a point whence all proceed and an inexhaustible fountain whence infinite rivulets issue hath a Nature proper and particular to himself which is to conserve as well as produce the whole world for it is the property of a good Author to produce things and when he hath procreated them to conserve and defend them This first Effect which is Creation is a secret that we are ignorant of we understand it not but by the affinity or likeness it hath to generations But the second is open and manifest to such at least as are illuminated elect and born of the Spirit but not to such as are sons of the flesh lest precious pearls should be trod upon and cast to swine Jesus Christ our Lord hath perfected the former and more excellent and taught us commanding us to imitate him in all good works whereof he hath set us an ensample For Nature walks always in the same tract and never forsakes her ways As therefore the universal Parent or Conserver consulted by his providence the common conservation of all things from the beginning of the world So Nature from the beginning had her intentions and was always occupyed in continual action about productions For as it was necessary that the safety of the Spiritual part of man should descend from above so is it likewise as necessary that the safety of the Body should come from the same Fountain because from below where the seat and habitation of corruption is neither life nor safety can proceed For what end do the Heavens the perpetual Fountain of Restauration and Perfection by the influence of their vertues flow upon the Body of the Earth which the benevolent Stars with their benign Aspects sympathizing with the afflicted society of mankinde do daily graciously prosecute and affect but to generate in her a durable and enlivening Spirit which in the Womb of this fecund mother assumes a Body and manifests and dilates its faculties through all the parts of the world distributing them to each creature according to its exigency and hereupon do the particular powers depend which we must know by their effects in Herbs Beasts Stones and other things which have drawn their proprieties from this general Spirit and do miraculously conserve us and other creatures And as it pleased God to enrich man with the perfection of his own Son according to the extension of the humane Nature and yet he would not have any one contaminated with sins and iniquities to seek remedies and health from man but from himself the true Fountain whence all perfection flows so also Nature the perfect observer of the Divine will and imitator of his works hath not setled the perfect vertue of curation and restauration in Herbs and particular Creatures but would have us seek it precisely in the Centre whence this is communicated to Creatures to wit in the Earth where this enlivening Spirit is generated for if simples are indued with the vertue of curing restoring nourishing and conserving how much more hath the abundant dispensor of it whence all these receive it but that the Earth â—s the treasury and dispensor of these vertues daily experience gives us sufâ—ient reasons for she must needs possess them else she could not give them It is therefore admirable that so many egregious men should spend their time in drawing their waters from simple rivulets far removed from their pure Fountain and running through a â—uddy current and not go to the Fountains head I do not in the mean time contemn special Medicaments but I would that Generals were more sought after and particulars not neglected for though 〈◊〉 General Medicament might salve eveâ—y Sore yet particulars merit commendation especially in external superficiary Diseases when the Centre of sanity is not afflicted That therefore I may return to my Scope I say again the Earth is the Matrix wherein the Heavens beget that Spirit that Nourisher Restorer and Conserver of Bodies which alone gives solidity and perfect cure and how this so potent and efficacious a Spirit should be found and taken all wise men should direct their cogitations to so useful an inquisition that they might observe the exemplary Steps which Nature paces in perfecting her intentions and hold this for a rule though God infinitely exceeding Nature is not bound to natural reason no more then a Monarch to the Laws himself prescribes which yet his subject observe without inquiring why he prescribed them And who hath more faithfully and successfully followed this example then Hermes Trismegistus who after the deluge was first as some say that opened to men the mysteries of the perfect knowledge of God and exactly explicated Natures secrets for besides that Angel-like in his Poemandrum he explains Divinity where he manifests the Doctrine of the Creation of the great and small world its beginning progress and duration he also continues his holy Philosophy with the same hand in his Asclepium declaring with a spirit and voice prophetical that the regeneration of man should be wrought by the Mediation of the Son of God indued with humane â—lesh he also industriously touches the same Scope in his Tabula Smaragdina where he saith that as all things in the world were made out of one subject by mediation of one God so his Magistery which is the chief and general Medicine may be perfected and compleated by adaptation onely which adaptation is nothing else but a Glass where we may see Divine Meditation aenigmatically represented to shew that Nature necessarily follows the steps of her Master He also attests in other Books That the Author of Regeneration should descend from Heaven and become Man and live among Men for their edification He says also in his Tabula which he left as the last Testament and Testimony of the excellency of his thoughts That this general Spirit the Conserver of Bodies shall descend from Heaven to wit from the Sun and Moon which in his Poemandrum he calls The principal Rulers in this Mundane Monarchy to assume a Body in the Earth which he calls the Spirits Nurse by the Mediation of the Air in whose Belly he shall be carried because the Celestial Influences cannot be communicated to the Earth unless the Air which is like an Intercessor carry them to it and as the Divine Restorer and Protector of our Souls in the assumption of humane Flesh deposed nothing of his Divinity so saith he the Universal Spirit shall retain and keep all its Vertue entire when it is turned into Earth
give place to Fixation as to the scope and ultimate end of Art And here note That this is done for two ends one is That the Tincture may be perpetuated the other That the volatile and combustile Sulphur of the Mercury may be separated and extracted which cannot be effected but by the long and continual action of Fire and this Fire must be regular lest violent precipitation in the beginning make the pure Spirit of Mercury not yet fixed to ascend which Comes Trevisanus hints at saying That Writers differ about the structure of the Fire though they all aim at one and the same scope to wit That it should be so made that the fugitive Spirit should flie away before the persequent suffered any thing from the Fire that is that the spiritual part should not leave the corporal through the ardour of the Fire which should fix it by the action of common Fire discreetly applied in its several degrees wherein the whole of this Art consists But some may say If Fixation in the Fire communicate Permanency to this penetrating subtilty how shall it afterwards be sublimated Let such take waxen Wings and they shall see that they will have a minde to flie from this Prison the Earth But they must minde lest ascending too high the Sun melt their Wings and burn their Feathers and so precipitate them into the Sea But let them imitate wise Daedalus who held the mean betwixt two extreams because if he had flown too low the Water would have loaden his Wings if too high the Sun would have melted his Wax It was the impatience and blinde desire Icarus had of overcoming Daedalus that wrought his ruine And whence came Phaëton's pernicious ruine when he would govern the Sun but that he thought himself more apt for this work then his Father who admonished him thus Hac sit iter manefesta votae vestigia cernes Utque ferant aequos Caelum Terra calores Nec preme nec summum molire per aethera curram Altius egressus Caelestia signa cremabis Inferius Terras medio tutissimus ibis Run where thou seest the marks that I have made With these same wheels and that thou maist evade The danger of burning Heaven Sea or Earth Flie not too high nor yet stoope down beneath This tract for if too high you soar you 'll fire The Heavens if too low the Earth you 'll move with ire Keep then the mean as safest in your gyre But the recitation of these Ovidian Verses are not enough though they be most true according to the Opinion of the Ancients I will rather explicate their intention folded up in the Coat of their Fables seeing those onely serve to the expert in this Art Let the curious then know That when Hermes says this thing must ascend into Heaven and again descend to the Earth and acquire the vertue of both he means not that the matter should be sublimated to the top of the Vessel but onely that it is necessary that after perfect fixation some spiritual portion be applied to it whereby it may be dissolved and become altogether spiritual leaving its Terrestrial consistence and assuming an aery Nature which is the Philosophers Heaven and when it hath reached this simplicity be again coagulated and reduced to Earth by a new coction effected by the same degree of heat till the Body so imbrace the Spirit that they become one incorporated and by this means acquire a Celestial subtilty and a Terrestrial fixation And that we may always note Natures ways if this Icarus cannot totally elevate himself he must resartiate his wings by putting to new wax new feathers that is by reiterated dissolutions which the Masters of this Ar◠so oft repeat that they seem importunate to all such as understand not the consequence of this repetition which yet is onely that things might be better united being mixed by their least particles which none can effect without the purification both of the Body and Spirit keeping the Spirit volatile from all Terrestrial impurities and the Body from all internal Dregs during this fixation These things then ascend into heaven by Dissolutions and descend to the Earth by congelations This Body then glorified will ascend into Heaven upon the wings of its Spirit and in the same perfection again descend to the Earth to separate good from evil and preserve the one but destroy the other that is what Bodies soever it enters it ejects their impurities and conserves their purer substance for reiterated solutions and fixations gave it power to enter Bodies This Hermaphroditical yong man and his delicate Salmacis must be washed in a Fountain that they may embrace each other and Salmacis burning in love say When shall the time come that this fair Yong man shall never be separated from me nor I from him and that our mutual loves may perpetuate their conjunction in felicity that so these two Bodies may have one heart and one face and then we must take care that the Island Delos remain immoveable and that Apollo and Diana whom Latona there brought forth may be both stayed in that place This fable denotes nothing but that the dissolved matter wherein the Philosophers sun and moon is contained should again be congealed and fixed I would not have my Reader imagine that he shall in this Book finde the rich Mines of Peru to satiate his avarice and make him rich withal though I have sufficiently demonstrated in several places to men that have their eyes in their heads that the way to these riches is not unknown to me Yet I will not easily be perswaded to undertake so long a journey for certain reasons not unlike those that held Trevisanus two years from this enterprise after he had got the perfect knowledge of this Magistery Onely I have in my minde determined to ratifie that most precious confection or rather inestimable treasure which benign Nature gives for the sustentation and prolongation of mans life who from God received priviledge to be mans Protector which I undertake out of an honourable desire that I may by my industry advance the publike good when the favorable Star of experience hath led me to my secure Port which I would willingly impart to curious Men For I have so successfully elaborated this Universal Spirit that with a small quantity I have restored above a hundred men consumed with different Diseases to sanity and doubtless many excellent wits would have penetrated deeper into this obscure and devious Wood but that seeing it filled with horrid Monsters they have been so confounded as to leave this perillous Path and forsake their enterprise As Poliphilus hath by a most ingenious pencil expressed whose generous and undaunted courage sleighting those common terrors hath effected so much that both the sides of this black dark Word lay open to light and by whose manuduction you may notwithstanding all obstacles arrive safe and and sound at the delicious and grateful habitation of
Lady Polia shut up in the rich Temple of Vesta This I can assert for in dubitable that the way he held is open to all but all have not that Ariadne's Clew that he had to extricate himself out of this labyrinth neither is every one a Theseus that he can overcome the Minotaure It is certain that Nature like a loving Mother proposes and offers this precious Treasure of life to all and that God our Universal Father keeps open the Gate of this fatall Cavern for the commodity of all men for the descent to Hell is easie but then again to ascend to Heaven hic labor hoc opus est Stay coach-man here 's a straw First then that splendent Branch Dedicated to the infernal Juno must be found out of which Virgil writes Accipe que peragenda prius latet arbore opacae Aureua foliis lento vim ine ramus Junoni inferne dictus sacer hunc tegit omnis Lucus obscuris claudunt convallibus umbrae Sed non ante datur tellures operta subire Auricomos quam quis decerpserit arbore faetus Hoc sibi pulchra suum ferri Proserpina munus Instituit primo acculso non deficit alter Aureus simili frondescit virga metallo Ergo alte vestiga oculis rite repertum Carpe manu namque ille volens facilisque sequetur Si te fata vocant aliter non viribus ullis Vincere nec duro poteris convellere ferro First see what you must do the golden tree Which to th' infernal Juno we decree Lies hid under a grove in a deep vale And now you may not pass within the pale Of th' Earths deep Cabinet until you have Snatch'd from this tree her off-spring which to grave Proserpina you must present the tree That gave this fruit will not long fruitless be For loe another golden off-spring follows Fix your eyes here and in your hand retain then What you do finde if th' fates do favour now You vanquish but if not no force will do If therefore Nature be sollicitous in hiding these things lest they should be indifferently prostrated to all or Hogs get to the honey-pots no wonder if Ancient and Modern Philosophers have invented so many aenigmatical Figures and hidden Fables to cover and cloath this Science with For they know well enough that ceremonious Nature would never have hid her self under so many different Forms and Species but have appeared naked but that her Venerable Secrets would thereby incur that contempt which alway accompanies common things For which cause I also in this Treatise use the same Solennity and Taciturnity lest I should undergo the same peril that he did who published the Mysteries of the Elysian Goddesses which should have been kept Secret and Chaste and not like common Harlots exposed to publike abuse And whether I have spoken conveniently to my own purpose or no such as have made progress in this search may better judge for experience is the best Dame In the mean time I hope none will give a hard interpretation or pass a bad sentence on me because I have compared Natural and Chymical operations with Divine and Christian Mysteries wherewith they have some conformity For by this application I have no way profaned them but rather Celebrated their Excellences and pointed at that great care and testimony of our Creatour in ratifying the safety both of Body and Soul together Which reason moved one Author so that he wrote that the true Chymistry which Paracelsus calls Spagiry follows the Gospel foot by foot because by the help of this and fire Nature exerts her most potent faculties which Antient Philosophers as Brachmannus Gymnosophisters and all the Egyptians insinuate in their Theology For all the Magick of Paganism and all the fables of Poets signifie no more then what this Book Treats of which the most Learned and subtile Bracescus diligently examined though envious Toladanus writes the contrary after he was deceived in an experiment in this Art which he thought he had wrested from him by his importunity believing that the spume of Iron was the Philosophers Mercury because he asserted that it was extracted out of a vile Matter of small price which was cast into the streets not observing that the discreet Masters of this Art cloath their Matter with strange Vestments calling them by all the names of Metals indiscriminately and yet without the least fraud for he that knows this matter knows also that it contains the seven Metals in it And I would gladly know whether they think Cosmopolita meant of the vulgar Steel when he sayes That Neptune shewed him under one Rock two Mynes the one of Gold the other of Steel The Man was too plain to harbour such frivolous conceits but he named his matter thus because of the conformity with polished Steel And Bracescus had played the part of a Fool and not a Philosopher if he had in one moment opened the whole mystery of his Secret in the acquiring whereof he had doubtlessly spent two thirds of his life But that I may add something to the explication of these Mythologies do we not plainly see That that ancient Demogorgon the Parent of all the gods or rather of all the Members of the World which they say inhabits the Centre of the Earth covered with a green and ferruginous Coat nourishing all kindes of Animals is nothing else but the universal Spirit which by God's command produced the Heaven out of the Chaos with the Elements and all things therein which it always hitherto sustains and enlivens for it truely took up its Habitation in the middle of the Earth as we have declared in the beginning of this Book where it sits as it were in its Throne and thence as from the Heart of some great Body and Seat of Life universal animates and nourishes all things and that green and ferruginous Coat is nothing but the surface of the Earth which is of a blackish and Iron-colour decked and variegated with divers coloured Herbs and Flowers Virgil perfectly skilled in all these mystical Secrets called this Spirit or Soul of the World Jupiter whom his Pastorer Damaeta invokes in his third Eclogue because as he saith all things are full of him And Pan that god of the Woods worshipped by Shepherds is taken for the same for besides that this word Pan signifies All he is also made the God of the Woods because the Greeks for the Governour thereof worshipped the Chaos which they otherwise call Hyle that is a Wood. Orpheus bespeaks Pan thus Paule sort le subtile l'entier l'universel Tout air tout eau tout terre tout feu immortel Qui sieds avec le temps dedans un throne mesme Au regne inferieur au moyen au supreme Concevant engendrant produisant gardant tout Principe en tout de tout qui de tout viens a bout Germe du feu de l'air de la terre de l'onde Grand esprit avivant tous les
membres du monde Qui vas du tout en tout les natures changeant Pour ame universelle en tous corps te logeant Ausquels tu donne estre mourirment vie Promant par mille effects ta puissance infinit Pan strong and subtile great and general That art both Fire Air Earth Water and all That raign'st alwayes and over every thing Getting conceiving bearing and keeping What'ere beginning had or have an end That Art both Tree and Fruit both Foe and Friend The Spirit that doeth binde the worlds parts That penetrates all Natures and imparts Both life and motion power to act and will And that dost with thy vertue all things fill Saturn the Son of Heaven and Vesta which is the Earth and Husband to Ops his Sister which is that co-adjuvant and conservant power of all things represent Demogorgon and the Infants that he first devours and then vomits up again are they not Bodies to whom he gives being and at last reduces them to himself whence new ones alwayes issue that by his perpetual vicissitude the order established in the beginning may be preserved to the end He is sometimes painted with grey and sordid Hair his Head covered with a Sickle in his Hand and for his Symbole having a Serpent circularly grated and holding its Tail in its Mouth And sure he is old enough being the Grandfather of all His Beard and Hairs are white alwayes growing which are the things that always germinate He is sordid and ill disposed of himself because of the Terrestrial impurity which adheres to it by reason of its Sulphureous and Adustive Corruption His Head is covered that is the principle of perfection is closed in the cover of impurity which makes it known to few His Sickle is his Penetration Mordacity wherewith he penetrates devours all things The Serpents biting its tail is his regenerating nature wherby he repairs himself as is storied of the Phoenix by which name he is also sometimes called so that he is always conversant in a circular and indeficient encrease But methinks I hear some say That I miss of the intention of Authors in their fabulous description of Saturn for they mean by Saturn Lead which is of all Metals the Seniour which also devours all others by its crudity because it is full of Salt for Mordacity arises from Salt as the Refiners of Metals finde in their probations for it there vomits out the Gold and Silver which it deglutiated but could not consume because in its decoction they received Fixation so as to resist the weak heat of its Ventricle I do not altogether reject this sense because it is in some places conformable to the other and in that it is in all things concordant with what I have given I hope none will tell me mine is false Maia represented the Earth so called because out of her as a Mother the universal Spirit or Mercury had its origine and from the pure invisible Seed of Jupiter which is the Air for it proceeds really out of these as the learned Cosmopolita sayes in his precious Treatises Mercury is commonly painted with Wings that they may shew how she is of a volatile Nature his Head is covered with a Hat for the same Reasons that I before gave for Saturn's Head He carries a caduceous and fatal Rod encircled with Serpents both to signifie and denote his regenerative faculty as those Reasons also I gave to Saturn's Serpent By this Rod he opens Heaven and Earth and gives life and death and that Rod represents powerful Nature for by ascending into Heaven and descending to the Earth he acquires the vertues both of superiour and inferiour things By this same power he draws Souls out of Hell makes all Eyes yield to Sleep as Virgil writes of him He is by some also called Poyson and a Theriack or Life and Death according to his use and dosis for Life consists in due temperament and justice Death in excess Many other such mysteries are contained in this Heathenish Theology which have no other scope then that I aim at all which if I should here explain my Treatise would prove a Volume But I will not defatigate my Reader with frequent repetitions of one and the same thing These may suffice to shew That all Mythological Commentaries such as these with their Allegorical and Historical Sense gave no occasion to Poetical Fictions as if any Truth were in them but such things tend chiefly to shew the admirable operations of Chymistry as amongst others the Story of Jason and Medea explicated by Chrysogonus Polydorus To which Explication I will add That this Name Medea that signifies Cogitation Meditation or Investigation is derived from a word that denotes a Principle Origine or Reason for all Meditation hath doubtless some Principle or Reason for its Foundation This Medea taught Jason that is an Inquirer two things wherein all Philosophy consists first The Acquisition of the Golden that is the Art of changing Metals and Minerals And secondly The Restauration of Bodies weakned with Diseases readily and perfectly curing them and bringing them from old Age to Youth and Vigour by this sole and universal Medicine expelling all corrupt and corrumpent humours and superfluities from Bodies which would else bring them to their end Jason endeavoured and perfected these miraculous effects by the observation of Medea's counsel after long and laborious Navigation obnoxious to many perils both in sailing in killing the Dragon and taming the Bulls This Navigation is the laborious Inquisition and dubious Experience of things wherein many are exercised all their life long and cannot arrive at the Port of Nature The monstrous Bulls which he was to tame and subjugate are the Furnaces wherein the operations are made which do not ill represent a Buls Head and breath out Fire at their Mouth and Eyes as the Fable hath it for they must needs have some Transpirations else the Fire would be extinguished and the degree of its heat not regulated for unless some experienced Man regulate the Fire many things would fall out wrong in the operations and delude the Operators hopes as I have experienced for of nine Vessels which I reposed in a Furnace to give it a due degree of heat I lost eight and one I conserved by means whereof I obtained the said Experiments in curing Diseases The watchful Dragon is that universal Mercury which Cadmus had learned to kill that is fix the Campus Mortis wherein the teeth of the Martial Serpent should be sown is nothing but a vessel wherein Souldiers armed with Spears are elevated But this Vessel should not be a Glass-Alembick as Polydorus thinks but made in form of a Cooperculum or Covert narrow below and capacious above made of good Earth well cocted and not of Iron or Glass In whose bottom Mars his Field must be elevated rigid with Lances and Spears representing souldiers provoked and fighting And this is onely an ingenious Fiction of the
these influences which purgative separation is the cause why all things naturally reject their Excrements as not being of their substantial parts which is indeed very requisite seeing there is nothing in the World but its Excrements exceed its natural substance nay all that we see and touch is onely the excremental part of things that obumbrates their occult substance as we may observe in our Aliments whose greater Mass turns not into our substance but goes away by the passages destined for such egress Nature onely extracting the invisible and spiritual succe out of them which is apt to be converted into ourflesh and substance We may likewise affirm That this Mass of Earth we tread upon is nothing but the Excrement of that first substance which was united in the Chaos Now encompassing the Centre and so including it in a Spherical Equilibrial proportion that it cannot move or fall for seeing it is in the lowest of places it can tend no wayes further unless it should ascend which is repugnant to its Nature But in the mean while I do not say That the Body of the Earth is nothing but an Excrement for though it appear wholly excrementitious yet there lies under its Excrements a pure substance which being wholly spiritual could not become sensible without the administration of some Body as we see in all things produced their Seed and first Matter is invisible but as they are carried in a corporal Mass and excrementitious substance we can see them and no Body can be made without Excrements for which cause this substance is separated from the Body of Earth in Generations by the influence of Celestial heat retaining nothing of the said Earth but as much as may be for a sustentacle for it which from the beginning had no other use but to serve for a Receptacle and Shop or rather a Vessel wherein this spiritual Matter might effect its operations as we shall largely and plainly demonstrate in the sequel Chapter where I shall treat of Separation more largely But Separation were to little purpose if the things separated should remain without action Natures scope in Separation is to enliven and abandon Death which comes from no other cause but superabundance of Excrements suffocating the pure substance but here I mean natural not violent Death but if the Seeds of things should alwayes lie buried in this excrementitious Earth nothing would be produced or receive Life but the Celestial Vertue by its vital influence extracts them and these being full of Vertue dilate and promote themselves into all and each several species as their Nature and Composition require Life then proceeds from Purification which the Stars effect by their influences with which the augmentative and restorative faculties descend for the Stars being in continual motion they are continually occupied with action and consequently with vivification giving Life to Life which cannot be without Conservation and Restauration Conservation they give by sustaining Life indeficiently Restauration by restoring what the Generations of individuals consume and spend And this we may see manifestly in the first Matter incorporated for being impregnated by Celestial Influences it is of it self nourished multiplied and augmented continually And hence it is called a Dragon or Serpent that preys upon it self always regerminating which where-ever it be it takes such root that the place shall never be quite destitute of it though it be washed or burned which is a certain token by which this first Matter may be known These then are the principal Vertues which the Spirit of the World hath and will alwayes receive from the Celestial Influences which produce great and admirable effects in all the Members of the Universe But here some may enquire How that the first matter receiving such pure and potent Influences from Heaven comes to be conspurcated with so many vitious qualities and how it retains them when it hath received them seeing it is alwayes busied in the actions of vivification augmentation conservation and restauration for if it separate not it will die and if it augment conserve and restore not it will diminish perish and debilitate which it never does Whereunto I answer That the Stars have a twofold influence one natural the other accidental the natural was communicated to them in their first Creation and it is that Government of the Universe which Hermes speaks of whereby they keep it in its Being by defending and preserving it by their influences from destruction and annihilation wherewith the Spirit of the Universe is continually enriched which applies them to and manifests them in all things whereto it gives encrease and substance but the accidental Influence of the Stars is that which falls out preternaturally by reason of their different Situations and Aspects and this is alwayes subject to mutation and never remains equal and this hath only power upon the effects of Matter not upon the Matter it self for whatever influence happen though never so malign the Centre of the Earth intermits not its actions but absolves them as before and produces Animals Vegetables and Minerals as well as ever and if mortifications sometimes fall out from the malignity of some Aspect they onely touch the surface or excrementitious mass of Bodies and not the interiour substance and such an accident is often changed so that the influence sometimes operates one thing sometimes the quite contrary which the natural and principal influx never does Whence we may conclude That the first Matter as it is simple of it self receives nothing but those Celestial Vertues which it also retains and keeps in its Terrification But we must now declare how it retains them that we may make good that saying of Hermes That its Vertue remains entire when it is converted into Earth because all the Celestial Vertues descend and meet in the Centre of the Earth which in their course aim at nothing but the information of the Matter which is as it were the Receptacle of the supream Idea's The same Matter being full of Forms is diversified not indeed actually but potentially into innumerable specifications and so it is not properly a Body but as it were a Body or Companion of a Body whereunto it hath an Appetite and by information moves to that end and this motion it hath from the action of Celestial Fire which I before called The first Mover in the Chaos which the old Poets Orpheus and Hesiod describe under the Name of Love And Ronsardus ouâ— French Homer or Pindar thus delineates Le suis amour le grand maistre des dieux Le suis Celuy qui fait mouvoir les Cieux Le suis Celuy qui governe le monde Qui le premier hors de la masse eclos Donnay lumiere feudy le Cahos Dont fut basty cette machine ronde If any Rustick know not who I am Love is my name To whom themselves both Jove and all his train Subjects proclaim I am the hand that moves the heavens and th' reins That