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 Ordinary Physititan to the King and publick Professor of Physick in the University of Mompelier And now transplanted into Albyons Garden By R. T. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Printed at London by J. C. for Martha Harrison at the Lamb at the East-end of S. Pauls 1657. 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 mernini 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 threefold 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 unâ—…upplied Here Reader it is fully discussed and to the intelligent and deserving wiâ—… be a great revealed Secret despised by fools crackâ—… on by bragging knaves who indeed like degeneratâ— bastards unframe thâ— frame blot the manuaâ— and deface the Gloriouâ— Image of the Almighty Some seek to fill the insatiate Gulf of their unfathom'd wills in vain pleasure Another seeks tâ— mount the slippery stair 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
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 matterâ— 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
shall elsewhere speak Now this Salt or dry Earth thus coagulated and setled in the Water drinks up all its humidity and is by the continuation of heats action spontaneously dried preserving all this while its innate moisture by which it is never deserted and from which it hath its dissolutive vertue After the accession of this moist and dry temperament it is apt for production as the action of Fire shall impel it from potency to effect and 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 But before I enter this Discourse I shall as it is requisite relate with what vertue this Salt or Spirit is of it self indued that we may search and finde the same in it when it is converted into Earth I say therefore for confirmation of my purpose That it is without doubt and needs no proof that the continual motion of the Heavens is for some end for though Physically we may say That the end for which a thing is moved is to acquire another place yet is motion made for other causes and the intent of this motion is not to go from place to place onely but so to move as to obtain the effect of another End for there are two Ends the one is by Philosophers called the End for which a thing is made as the End of Plato's Generation is for Plato's Soul and Beatitude is the End for which Plato studies Vertue The other End is that to which things tend Thus the End whereto conjunction of Male or Female tends is Generation but the End for which Generation is made is a Man or an Animal 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 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 Axioms 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 heat of the Stars burns and consumes like our Culinary Fire and doth not enliven 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 influences 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
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
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 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 is the treasury and dispensor of these vertues daily experience gives us suffient 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 muddy 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 a General Medicament might salve every 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 subjects 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 flesh 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
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
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
through his Studies to his crown'd haven with which desire I conclude â—2 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 these understood Here 's true Philosophy so pure and good And free'd from errors that none need to doubt If they were in them this would bring them out By Transmutation may be brought to pass The courser Metals be they Copper Brass Iron Lead Tin to purer this is high But 't is not all that 's done by Chymistry For the Elixir which renews our youth And age retards if Spagyricks say truth Is thereby got if these things may be done Lets Saturn Venus turn to Sun Moon Th' effeminate French our Author hath turn'd well To manly English and the Latin Spell Is made so easie that none need to fear To understand th' Aenigma's writing there The busie Merchants for their hoped gain To both the Indies Turky France and Spain Nay all the world for Gold and Drugs do rome Now here now there but better stay at home For health and wealth is here if they 'll but look They 'll finde them both discover'd in this Book 25 Xbris 1656. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To his ingenious Friend Mr. ROBERT TURNER on this his laborious and difficult Translation EXpect not Sir that I should amply treat Of this Discourse that cost you pains and sweat Nor hope for yet from my more duller pen Your Sal should be describ'd to Englishmen The sublime secrets of your Chymick-skill May prosper better from your learned quill My fancy 's raw my brain is not endu'd With Art enough to talk of humours crude Nor yet of th' Epilepsie or the Gout Consumption Asthma's or the rabble-rout Of Physick-Terms I study other things Ergo I 'll leave these unto Chymist-Kings These high-born Fancies do appear to me Like great Sir Urquhart's Genealogy Nor dare I without Sendivogius Torch Approximate you neerer then the Porch Lest I presumptuous should be gaz'd upon By those that have their wedding-Garments on But as man oft feels heat and sees no fire So I unskil'd this learned Work admire The learn'd Physitians who yeers consume In finding out a Medicine for the Rheume And when they think themselves to be at rest They dare not write on it probatum est May learn by this could they but finde the cause To cure diseases by the Chymists Laws Nor need th' ingenious Operator doubt Of perfecting what ere he goes about The lofty Secrets in this Book laid down Once understood will save him many a Crown There is a Secret higher yet in this For here is taught what anima mundi is For which the Learned oft have beat their brains And gained nought but labour for their pains If men would learn this quicker way share In Chymick-skill deal in learn'd Turner's Ware Jo. Gadbury Philomath To the learned R. T. on the following Tract WHat rare Discovery what light is this Shines to us by thy Metamorphosis That doth derive an Art to simple man From God and Nature by which Art he can Of all diseases know the perfect ground And render imperfections whole and sound Thanks therefore learned Friend for this our gain Who reap the Harvest of thy polish'd Brain The Great Elixir sure enjoy you must That thus can raise a subject from the dust Of dark oblivion and then transmute His for vesture to an English sute Thus thou hast chang'd the language ne'retheless The sense remains though in another dress This thou hast gain'd hereby the world will see Thou art a friend to dame Philosophy And for the labor thou hast undergone To cloath this Infant in our Albion Succeeding times shall praise what thou hast writ And future Readers own to thee their wit Mean time if Zoilus say thy pen did halt Conclude his brain 's not season'd with our Salt Your humble Servant Owen Crane The Contents BOOK I. Chap. 1 THat the world lives and is full of life Page 1 Chap. 2 The World hath a Spirit Soul and Body Page 16 Chap. 3 All things are made by the Spirit of the World of the first matter Page 19 Chap. 4 How the Sun is called Father of the mundane Spirit and first matter Page 23 Chap. 5 How the Moon is the Mother c. Page 32 Chap. 6 That the root of the Spirit of the World must be sought in the Air. Page 37 Chap. 7 How the Earth nourishes this universal Spirit Page 41 Chap. 8 The Spirit of the World is the cause of perfection in all Page 44 Chap. 9 The specification of the universal Spirit to bodys Page 49 BOOK 2. Chap. 1 THat the spirit of the world assumes a Body and how it is incorporated Page 54 Chap. 2 Of the conversion of the Spirit into Earth and how its vertue remains integrally in this Earth Page 67 Chap. 3 Of the separation of Fire from Water c. Page 102 Chap. 4 Of the Spirits ascent into heaven and descent c. Page 160 A TREATISE OF The Philosophers true Salt and Secret And Of the universal Soul or Spirit of the World BOOK I. CHAP. 1. That the World lives and is full of life PUrposing to comment something on the Spirit of the World I shall first demonstrate That the Universe is full of Life and Soul and here besides That Nature makes nothing Spirituous but it also indues it with Life and That the World consists in continual and restless alterations of forms which cannot be without vital motion We may also take notice That the same Nature like a careful as well as a fruitful Mother embraces and nourisheth the whole World by distributing to each member a sufficient portion of Life so that nothing occurs in the whole Universe which she desires not to inform being never idle but alwayes intent upon her action which is Vivification This vast Body then is indued with motion yea continually agitated therewith and this motion cannot be wrought without some vital Spirit for whatsoever wants Life is immoveable But here I mean not of violent motion from place to place but of that which in reference to a form is privation to perfection imperfection The vegetation of Plants and concretion of Stones are effected by the motion of this universal Spirit agitating this great Mass and the mediation of a certain radical and nutritive Spirit whose origine or principle like some primary procreating cause resides in the Centre of the Earth and thence as from the heart exerts all vital functions and extends it self through the whole Body And this root or principle is included in the bosome of the ancient Demogorgon that universal Parent whom old Poets those diligent Searchers of Natures Secrets have ingeniously described clothed in a green
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 skars Of th' heaven of planets of glistring stars We attribute to th' Spirit but to th' Soul That these do move stir without controul To which Augurellus also attests in his first Book saying Ast Animae quoniam nil non est corporis expers Mundus at mundi partes quoque corpore constant Spiritus haec inter medius fit quem neque corpus Aut Animam dicas sed eum qui solus utroque Participans in idem simul haec extrema reducat Hic igitur Maria ac Terras atque Aera Ignem Vivereque augerique atque in se cuncta referre Semper Aves semper Stirpes Animantia semper Gignere perpetuamque sequi per secula prolem c. But since a Soul is incorporeal And all the parts o' th' world we meet withal Are bodies these two cannot be combin'd Without a mean betwixt Body and Mind Which is a Spirit wherewith the raging seas Fire air earth all plants fruitful trees With animals are acted so that they Do generate their like and live for aye c. CHAP. 3. That all things which have Essence and Life are made by the Spirit of the World and of the first Matter ALL things are nourished by the same by which they were produced Now that all things breathe live augment and grow by this Mundane Spirit resolve and die without it is plain Whatsoever therefore subsists is made by it and this Spirit is nothing else but a simple and subtile essence which the Philosophers call a Quintessence because it may be separated from gross corporeity and the superfluities of the four Elements and so made of wonderful activity in its operations and it is now diffused over all the parts of the World and through it the Soul is dilated with all its vertues which vertues are communicated most to such Bodies as participate most of this Spirit for the Soul is infused by and transmitted from the superiour Bodies as from the Sun which acts most powerfully in this case for this Spirit being calefied by the heat of the Sun acquires abundance of Life which multiplies and enlivens the seeds of all things which thereby encrease and grow to a determinate magnitude according to the species and form of each thing upon which account Virgil saith Igneus est illis vigor caelestis origo But fiery vigour and heat celestial Are to these Bodies their original Now this Spirit is by Philosophers called Mercurius because it is of many or all forms producing all kindes of Bodies giving to some things a fairer and more lasting to others a weaker and more corruptible Life according to the pre-disposition of the matter upon which account this fiery vigour proceeding from the Solar beams is not alike in all subjects but diversified as there is more or less of it in the seeds All matters of purer pre-dispositions have a purer and more durable Life and Spirit for every thing delighting in that that 's likest to it it is more then Reason that this pure Celestial vigour should penetrate and sink deeper into purer Bodies and make them more durable and vital For the proof of which we need go no further then Gold which being purer then all other Terrestrial Bodies participates more of that Celestial Fire which penetrating the bowels of the Earth findes in Minerals the pre-disposed matter to wit the Mercury and Sulphur which Esdras calls The Earth of Gold prepared by the action and diligence of Nature and purged and separated from all inquinations of Terrestrial and adust Dregs which matter in the beginning is onely some Sperm or Water mix'd with that Sperm Powder or pure Sulphur which acted by the coagulative faculty thickens by little and little and in time by long and continued action of the heat hardens and so comes to its perfection which is naturally simple tincted with the colour of Fire for heat is the Progenitor and Parent of Tinctures If therefore it be certain that this heat comes from the Sun as it must needs be indubitable who can so much contradict Truth and Reason as to deny the Sun to be the Author and Parent of this perfection Let us then look higher and seek more accurately how this perfection may be caused by this mean CHAP. 4. How the Sun is by Hermes called The Father of the Mundane Spirit and of the Universal Matter BUt some may here say If all things proceed from one and the same matter how can the Sun be called the Parent of this matter when it self is procreated or produced out of this matter For answer whereunto we must consider That if we speak of the primaeve prejacent matter of all things it is altogether invisible and cannot be comprehended but by strong imagination out of whose vital light and natural heat this Celestial Sun was produced with equal light and fiery vigour which afterwards strengthening this internal and essential heat with natural displayed the beams of his Fire over the whole Universe illuminating the Stars above him and vivifying the things below him But because the Earth is as it were the common Mother of all things the Sun acts most vigorously upon her she being the common Receptacle of all Influences in whose bowels the seeds of all things are absconded which being agitated and moved by the Suns heat come to light and for this cause in Winter when the Sun is furthest absent from us the Earth being destituted of that vigorous heat which his perpendicular Rayes brought with them she is we see barren and produces nothing Whereas in the Spring when the Sun again reviews our Climate then she rises from her sleep or death and receives Life and vigour The cause of which mutation must needs be the Universal Spirit full of Life inhabiting the Earth principally which before it can generate any thing must take up its Inn in some Body as in the Earth which is the Body of Bodies and because all things are nourished and sustained by that which produces them there must be great affinity and harmony betwixt this Spirit and the Sun And for this cause ancient Philosophers say That the Sun in the Spring-time calefies and enlivens his Parent loaden with old age and almost killed with Winter-cold Seeing then she is by the Sun fortified enlivened and impregnated Hermes had reason to say That the Sun was the Father of this matter for being otherwise barren and without off-spring she now conceives generates and multiplies her spirituous matter leading it from incorporality to corporality The Philosopher Hortulanus commenting on Hermes his Table leaves and omits the radical principles of Nature and taking his rise by the principles of Chymistry
we see such things encrease and extol themselves the Spirit which gives them Life doth so much delight in Air as the place where it had its origine Hermes also saith That the Air carries it in its belly Whereunto Aristotle subscribes saying That moist things proceed from the Air and Terrene things from the moist ones for Air being next the Earth humectates it on every side 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 Paracelsus 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 Flesh and Nerves concreted by Salt and united and congregated into one mass by the Mercurial 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 resistence to the Hammer which is indeed more or less according to their implication with more or less impurity and adust Earth which comes upon the coagulation of their Mercury And thus we may affirm that all things are made of the ternal number of Glass Salt and Mercury or Water
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 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 Man should feign to himself any but an Universal Body because an Universal Spirit must also have an Universal Body And others have thought That it could not be perceived but by conversion of more perfect Bodies into their first Sperm and Spirit by exact and industrious subtiliation not minding nor considering That Nature admits of no regress and That Bodies by how much they are more perfect by so much they are further distant from their principles and first corporeity Some are of opinion That a Quintessence might be extracted from Bodies perswading themselves That the more subtile and volatile part is that Spirit they seek so erring from the scope at which they aim as if they would seek the East in the West for they make Bodies spiritual where they should make Spirits corporeal But seeing this Spirit is manifestly converted into a Terrene Body and without contradiction or doubt generates all bodies it must 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
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 that is when it assumes a Terrestrial Body God also willed his own Son and our Redeemer in his assumed Humanity be as it were regenerated by and with the Water of Baptism and Fire of the Holy Spirit not that he needed any such purgation but because he was to converse with Men contaminated with corruption that he might in all things yield himself an example of Renovation and Purification giving Men a visible and ample Testimony That according to the Flesh he was of the same Nature with them not contaminated or corrupted but obnoxious to passion and equally mortal as they In like manner our fecund Mother Nature willed her first-born though pure in his Centre That he should be regenerated by Water and Fire that is by Separation of the Terrestrial from the fiery part the spisse from the subtile and the impure from the pure which Hermes also aimed at when he said That the Earth should be separated from Fire for what God hath conjoyned Man should not separate but onely the impure and gross from the subtile and pure by Fire And besides this Sense which first offers it self to our Intellects there is yet another more occult meaning for seeing by the Separation of Earth from Fire he means that that 's gross from that that 's subtile he seems to hint that we should separate the natural qualities of these two Elements by detracting the moist frigidity mixt with heavy Terrestrial things without which that cold cannot subsist and by putting on hot siccity which is of the Nature of Fire and consequently light and spiritual For which cause he adds That it must ascend from Earth to Heaven that is from imperfection to perfection for Paracelsus calls Fire the Firmament and as nothing can attain perfection unless it first depose its imperfect gross and mortal bark wherein this cold quality abounds the cause of all mortification as heat is of life so also prudent Nature observes this Rule That each subject should sustain and pass the obsure blackness of death and expect the cleer and candid renovation of life and immortality that is impassible essence whereon neither Fire nor corruption hath any power And assuredly the acquisition of this life by death is naturally exercised by all Creatures continually for all Sperm or Seed of Animals is mortified in some Matrix and of Vegetables in the Earth before any specification can be made But if this rule takes place in the members by how much may we more exactly observe and directly imitate it in the head and if the life acquired by mortification be of any duration how much more shall that be perpetual which is principal Jesus Christ taught these things by similitude of a Grain which he says cannot fructifie unless it first die signifying the mystery of his Resurrection which his Death should precede for he willed Death that he might rise to a glorious and perpetual Life therein not onely giving example to men but expressing the whole Idea of Nature That divine and learned Ermite Morienus Romanus who is often quoted by modern and natural Philosophers avers the same of the fixed Grain whereto Nature hath given power to perfect Metals for he saith Unless it putrefie and grow black it cannot be perfected and compleated but returns to nought I have taken liberty to say thus much that I may teach the younger sort how the Creator should be acknowledged by simple Creatures and because the vulgarity of Men begs this knowledge from remoter things acting as they do who seek the perfection of Sciences from the Scholars of the lowest Form whereas they should require it from the best Directors and Doctors I would excite them by these natural conceptions that they would convert the principal endowments of their Souls to the search of the general principle and that in more exquisite things such as impart life and preservation to all mortal Creatures Mortification then necessarily precedes all entrance into life and principally in this Spirit the first-born of Nature when it assumed a Body for else no Man could separate it from Body which hinders its Regeneration to Life and Pacification of its Essence not as though by combustion and destruction it lost its Body in Death nor yet by Putrefaction but so that in Germination the Putrefaction of Seeds annihilates not that which is corporified in them for which cause in the Exaltion of Mercury or the Universal Spirit after the first degree which is made by Separation all that 's corporeal and spiritual becomes volatile because the sublimatory vertue therein overcomes the fixing faculty but the fixed part afterwards retains the volatile with it being helped by the action of heat which augmenting the power of the two nobler Elements destroyes the power of the two weaker which Hermes hints at in a certain Treatise by a plumous Bird detained with a Bird without Feathers And Nicholaus Flumellus by two Dragons one with and another without Wings But that I may not longer fold my self in these Daedalean Labyrinths see we not all Vegetables encrease and elevate themselves upwards by vertue of this volatile Spirit which as I said before would carry them higher towards the place whence it came whereto it hath an appetite but that it is detained by its proper Earth and corporal Mass wherein some fixed matter resides But lest some not sufficiently accustomed to Philosophical terms should think we contradict our selves I will here explicate my self I say then That I mean not by this volatile Spirit that which I before called volatile and separable Sulphur for that is rather the Author of Corruption then Growth but that most simple part of the primaeve vapour which never loses it s subtily whose Nature is to be elevated and tend to perfection for to sublimate is properly and Philosophically no more then to perfect and exalt matters from imperfection to perfection As therefore this Mercury hath an elevable so hath it a stable substance the first is naturally innate in it the second is in its centre or power yet it cannot compass its effect without the help of Art And that I may shew more plainly in what ways Nature proceeds in her operations I think it convenient to add a little about the causes and manner of Fixation Repeating therefore that indubitable Axiome I alledged in the beginning of this Book as perpetually observed in the Worlds Constitution to wit That all that hath life hath also some duration and that nothing is produced under the cope of Heaven which