Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	bind_v	earth_n	power_n	8,826	5	5.9330	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52581	Sal, lumen, & spiritus mundi philosophici, or, The dawning of the day discovered by the beams of light shewing the true salt and secret of the philosophers, the first and universal spirit of the world / written originally in French, afterwards turned into Latin by the illustrious doctor, Lodovicus Combachius ... and now transplanted into Albyons Garden by R.T. ...; Traittez de l'harmonie et constitution généralle du vray sel, secret des philosophes, et de l'esprit universelle du monde. English	Nuisement, Clovis Hesteau, sieur de.; Turner, Robert, fl. 1654-1665.	1657 (1657)	Wing N1469; ESTC R4890	78,186	256

bespeaks Pan thus Pan le fort 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 produisont 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

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 opp ess 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

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 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

a Resurrection by the Ablation of all mortiferous and corruptive Accidents And thus it will attain the height of perfection which is effected by Separation of Earth from Fire the subtile from the spiss and by Fixation of its purged part by gradual heat But that I may speak without ambages and doubts This ascent into Heaven which is the Sublimation and Exaltation of its parts to perfection cannot be effected unless Separation and Purification go before and 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 currum 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 Art 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

where Glass is the cause of hardness Salt affords matter and Water causes unition and condensation CHAP. 9. Of the specification of the Universal Spirit to Bodies THe Soul of the World and its Action and Vertue is represented in all things in which it is this bindes and conjoyns the superiour things with the inferiour for as many Idea's as the Heaven contains so many seminal causes it obtains whence by the Mediation of the Spirit it forms so many species in the matter When therefore it falls out that any one of these species degenerate it may by the Soul within it and the mediation of the universal Spirit be reformed and reduced to its former state for the Spirit is alwayes at hand and ready for all motions In the mean while we must not imagine that the intellectual Idea is attracted but rather that the Soul is indued with such a vertue and allured by the material forms which cannot seem absurd to any one for it prepares every one his meat and nutriment because it is transmutable into all things by which it is sollicited and willingly remains and resides therein Zoroaster calls the Agreement and Harmony of the Forms with the Soul of the World Allurements Whence it appears That all things and kindes draw their powers and faculties from the Soul of the World not all totally but such as respect the seed or propagation and the like whereby they germinate or encrease An example hereof we have in Man who feeding onely on Man's meat acquires not the Nature of Birds Fishes or the like which he eats Many other Animals also feed upon the same victuals and yet every one attracts that which is proper to his species so that it is worthy our admiration that out of the same Meat Man can attract what is proper to Man and a Bird what is proper to a Bird. And this is not because there are many and diverse Aliments in one and the same dish but because of the species nourished which attracts and changes the nutriment proper to and convenient for it self by mediation whereof it generates its like by vertue of this Soul and seed which is in it according to its quality But we must not think That in the Machine of the Worid the Spirit Soul and Body are things separated for these three are alwayes united and conjoyned as is apparent and by this union the whole Spirit and corporal substance become vital The universal Soul then feigns and imagines divers forms which the Spirit receiving into the bowels of the Elements makes corporeal and produces Hence Animals generate onely Animals Plants Plants and Minerals Minerals though not all alike for Minerals as I said before generate not their like after the same manner as Plants because their Spirit is cohibited by too gross matter which Spirit if it could be conveniently extracted and conjoyned with Mineral matter● would generate its like because by its exquisite penetration into imperfect Bodies through the subtiliation of Art and artificious Graduation of Fire it brings with it proper and Mineral seeds onely not animal because repugnant to its Nature yet I will not say That it wants the action of other faculties but that it doth not demonstrate them but according to the species whereto it is accommodated for else every thing would produce its unlike a Tree would generate a Man a Plant a Bull a Metal an Herb which I speak onely in respect of the diverse specifications of things For if we consider the most general Genus it produces in all things its like because being Mercury it assumes the Nature of all things wherewith it is mixed But humane Art cannot effect that that is solely granted to Nature which alone can procreate a species Art may dilate and multiply it if it begin its operation at the root of the species as prudent Philosophers do who extracting the Spirit from Minerals specificated decently purified and reduced to perfection render it apt to perfect imperfect things And an expert and industrious Artist perpending these things aright may easily institute admirable Adaptations Finis Libri primi A TREATISE OF The Philosophers true Salt and Secret And Of the universal Soul or Spirit of the World BOOK II. CHAP. 1. That the Spirit of the World assumes a Body and how it is incorporated WE have I hope sufficiently explicated in the former Book that all things were not only produced but also made corporeal by the universal Spirit We now come to declare what kinde of Body this Spirit assumes and how it self both is and makes all things corporeal for that must needs be corporeal which makes all other things such seeing nothing can give what it self hath not Let us therefore see with what and how it is vested with a Body not that we will here dispute of the incorporation of celestial and supernatural beings but onely of Physical and Sublunary Generations and of the body of the Earth which is the sole vessel and true matrix where the prime and most general Incorporator of things is it self incorporated I say then That no body can be made without a precedent Mover that may diduce potency to act that which exists not in save potency may be produced into light and according to Natures intent reach its final term which is to make that a body which it would produce Now this mover can be no other then fire or heat which moves it self first in the Air for all Generations begin there because fire is the most active Element and consequently most subtile and light whence it is more prompt for motion Fire therefore whose propriety is through its levity to ascend and make unknown things visible doth requisitely receive the beginning of its motion and action from inferiour Bodies that is from the centre of the Earth where as we said before the old Demogorgon and Progenitor of all things inhabits sitting there in his Throne and midst of his Empire that thence he may govern command preserve and divide the essence of Life to all the parts of that great Spherical Body expanded about him and that he may more easily and from equal distance receive from every Member what he wants The root of Fire is implanted in the fruitful bowels of this old Parent which thence emits a vaporous breath which Hermes calls the humid Nature for vapour is the prime and next action of fire with which it is so conjoyned that it cannot be imagined without it But some may say If vapour comes from fire how can it be moist seeing fire is hot and dry whence acquires it this contrary quality And here we finde nothing absurd if we do but consider That fire cannot live and subsist without moisture which is its aliment support and subject without which fire cannot be conceived for being by Nature active and its action indefatigable it must needs have something to act upon and never be destitute of this thing Fire then and co-essential moisture are like

touches which greatly hinders the light and splendor of Nature which always desires purity and freedom from darkness as appears by that intense splendor in perfect Bodies a token of their purity seeing others more immerged in impurity are more obscure as Metals perfect and imperfect precious Stones demonstrate But if we would avoid long peregrinations and according to the oracles advice terminate our curious journeys in our selves by seeking out the causes of our Diseases we should easily finde them derived from those infected fumes that obscure the light of our sanity and thence desume a manifest sign of what is wrought within us for a sound Man because of the internal clarity of his natural disposition hath a cleer and lively coloured aspect but a sick Man from the first onset of his disease is pale and plumbeous his native vigour perishing and decaying and all these mutations proceed from the fumes of sulphureous and excrementitious Adustion and Inflammation which extend themselves thorow all the members and by mediation of the pores infect the whole Body This paleness may also proceed from Nature feeling her self aggravated with a disease and thereupon revoking all the pure and good Blood inwards that mustring up their forces she may better oppose her enemy or sustain his assaults and upon this occasion the external parts are destitute of their clarity and in this conflict the external parts remain as it were dead like Earth tend to obscurity because Earth wherein this battle is begun is naturally black as on the contrary Fire is by Nature clear and white The Earth then on its part being spisse and obscure begets blackness and sulphureous fuliginous and smoaky Adustion begets obscurity wherefore both cause corruption destruction and ruine and besides these two nothing in the world procures universal ruine neither is any inferiour Body exempted from these evils save Gold and precious Stones which Nature hath brought to what perfection she can And so Death is to other Bodies a perpetual enemy seeking how to destroy them but Nature as a careful Mother how to preserve her works who hath armed two potent and nimble Champions to help them and withstand the Adversaries fury one whereof is Fire the expugner of sulphureous Adustion the other Water the expeller and driver of Terrestrial dregs And as Nature is ingenious and subtile in all her operations so is Art indued with equal subtilty and industry And there 's no other way to Separation instituted by Nature from the beginning but these two which Nature her self hath trodden from the non-age of the Universe whose first seeds void of form and confusedly mixed in a Chaos were dissolved in Water and by the Spirit of God the first Mover moving upon them divided and distinguished whence the Separation of light from darkness proceeded as also of distinct forms from confusion of generations from barreness and of death from life and if things in the first commixtion were thus confused as impure with pure Excrements with Substance Earth with Heaven and life with death all were without action power essence and life and the whole confusion useless An Artist therefore considering this and observing That nothing can exert its vertue till the confusion of its purity and impurity be separated he takes Water and Fire for his Helpers and follows Natures copy whose operations he should observe with all curiosity especially in generating Metals which are by so much the perfecter by how much they are more digested in the bowels of the Earth This sentence is then irrefragable That Water and Fire are the sole general and principal means of Separation but the composition of things being various and one thing yielding with more ease then another we must also act variously upon them yet so as not to vary from the plain path that nature has delineated For adustion and unctuous Sulphur making a body inflammable and infective may be extracted one way out of one body and terrestrial feculency another way in others Calcination and Sublimation were invented to purge adustion but Distillation and Dissolution to remove terrestrial feculency and Descension for the conservation of weak and easily inflammable bodies and all these are either effected by fire as Calcination Sublimation and Descension or by water as Distillation and Dissolution But because both the Books of ancient and modern writers speak at large of these things I shall not further labour in their explication because I can adde nothing new nor yet any ornament or facility to them it may suffice if I adde any thing definitively and known to my self in general and that is that Calcination is invented for your overcoming of hard and rebellious things and for continuity and valid and firm composition which hinders division and admits not of easie separation and hence four conveniencies arise the combustion of impure and stinking Sulphur the easie separation of superfluous and extraneous earthiness the fixation of the internal Sulphur and more prompt dissolution For it is natural to fire to consume those adustible parts which are not of the essence of a substance to facilitate the division and rejection of terrestrial excrements to fix radical Sulphur and to multiply salt in bodies which alone doth afterwards admit dissolution by water I say therefore that Calcination agrees onely to bodies that because of their continuity scarcely yield for spirits and volatile things which flye away by fire cannot be calcined unless some fixing thing be added which is repugnant to their nature Seeing there is no other end in Calcination then to extract salts wherein the better part and secret vertue of bodies consist to which that corruptive adustion adheres which in sublimation we suffer ro evaporate and flie away as useless that the remaining substance may be better freed from terrestrial dregs and easier educed by fire to purification and stability It is true also that sublimation requires some intension of fire but that happens then chiefly when the things to be sublimated are more profoundly mixed with the dregs of some other fixed body that they may more pertinaciously hold their terrestrial impurities and this kind of sublimation is most secure save when we work upon subjects that have their dregs naturally more fixed Descension hath a two fold use one is to extract Oyl out of vegetables without combustion the other to cleanse fusibles bodies before they be made volatile and these are the three kindes of separation made by fire now we shall speak a little of the other two Distillation and Dissolution made by water and the former of these is made by inclination and straining that the limpidity of bodies may with water come forth into the water of dissolved vegetables for that same that 's made by an Alembick appertains to the order of sublimations which is effected by elevation and not by ablution And though some account this for an indifferent and but a mean way yet I say it should not be rejected but much