and all sensibles except fishes CAP. 6. IN the beginning the Waters conteined all were conteined of none but teemed in darkenesse The heauens were of olde And the earth that was of the water by the Word of God VVherefore the world that then was perished by water The heauens and earth which now are bee kept in store by the same Word vnto fire The first matter of all things is water and therefore the first cleansing is by and with water The last perfection of all things is spirit and the last cleansing is by fire which is the violence of the spirit consuming all matter imperfectible and leauing in an immortall bodie that which is pure cleane and perfectible In which triumph of the spirit all shall burne sauing the perfect seede of them that scaped in the waters For nothing that is vncleane commeth to the last and second perfection of the fire not hauing beene washed and depured in the first of water But how the earth was of water whether by separation of the lower waters when the drie land appeared or by subsidence of the heauier part of the Chaos in the rarefaction caused by the spirit moouing is a matter of great and necessarie consequence doubtlesse it was by both as wee see in depuring of liquors and Chymicall extractions And so the second world is of the diuiding of fire as in spagiricall mysteries wee may plainelie see This is true in that we seeke after which is more easie to vnderstand if we consider that heaâ—e the forme or essentially inseparable from the forme of fire was made by the spirits mouing vpon the waters and that the life and fewell of fire is aer The waters as being most spiritual had the first ornament of distinction and forme in all degrees first light which some thinke to comprehend Angels and therefore fire But that thought hath many great aduersaries and may imply matter of strong heresye as though they had beene Coadiutors or agents in the following dayes of creation Therefore they doe best which vnderstand the creation of Angels to be in the sixt day in which man himselfe also was created besides many other sound reasons Then heauen followed the diuider and mediator of the waters aboue froÌ„ theÌ„ beneath next vegetables c. as before where note that before any sensible creature was created in the water or earth the better part that is the superior waters and the heauen had all their furniture of light with the whole hoast of heauen of innumerable starres and their offices And lastlie Angels a little before man For though it bee not defined when Angels were created yet their residence beeing in heauen and their Indiuidualitie immortall it cannot bee doubted that they were before and neere the perfectest forme of the ruling creature And the light of Angels in origination must differ infinitely from the inaccessible light of God And as they could not suffer by water so they that continued in their originall light shall not perish nor suffer by fire as all other things shall euen the heauens themselues The heauens and earth which are kept by the same word in store and reserued vnto fire c. 2. Pet. 3. Psa 102.25 Thou hast layed the foundations of the earth the heauens are the worke of thine hands they shall perish but thou shalt endure Euen they all shall waxe olde as doth a garment as a vesture shalt thou change them and they shall bee changed 2. Pet. 3.12 Eccl. 17.31 c. The heauens beeing on fire shall bee dissolued and the Elements shall melt with heate c. VVhat is more cleere then the Sunne yet it shall faile Yea the heauens and starres though insensible bee farre more excellent then the sensible creatures of the earth and inferiour waters Not concerning their forme but concerning their composition perfect mixture and pure matter of corporalitie All which cause their permanent indiuidualitie Such is the substance of our question The starres are vncleane in his sight How much more man euen the Sonne of man Iob 15.15 which is but a worme c. The heauens are not cleane in his sight how much more Man For man is of the earth And heauen is the congregation of waters In which they become fixed permanent which cannot bee without the action of their spirit of light and fire For though euerie one haue their part of all foure Yet wee finde the earth and ayre patible and as it were Nurses or rather Seminaries and very wombes of corruption diseases and death From which not speaking of them in their regenerated bodies no sacrament either diuine or naturall is taken And in from and by which all things both macrocosmicall and microcosmicall haue their Morbificall exhalations But the other two water and fire bee the cleansers and naturall renewers of all which as they decay not in themselues so doe they preserue For the fishes were not brought into the Arke but were preserued in their own proper Element And by the way we may obserue one notable doctrine That the more pure cleane and subtile any thing is in the materialitie of his primitiue nature the more irreuocable is the ruine and destruction if it suffer violence aboue or beyond that number waight and measure in which it was created So wee see the fall of Angels eternally iudged and vitrified substance bee irreducible And this in naturall things naturall causes is also true But to proceede after in the creation of sensible creatures the waters were first serued with fish soules which are attributed and appropriated vnto the waters because ayre commeth by rarefaction of waters and is extended vnder the hollow of heauen Lastly was Man being the Epitome and Abridgement of the whole Creation and therfore rightly called Microcosmus a little world for whose vse and seruice all other things were created For the good or bad vse whereof he shall account to his and their Creator God Almighty The order of proceeding heerein we see to be from the most simple and vniuersall to the most compound and speciall or particular So sensibles are more compounded then vegetables Man more then other sensibles minerals lesse then vegetables and all concerning their materiality of the first Chaos partakers of the essentiall corporality which conteined all in darknesse CAP. 7. IN this Chronicle of the creation there is very excellently taught the condition of all Creatures their composition and state of their naturall life There are two corporal or bodied Elements Earth and Water of which all things vnder heauen are materially compounded The spirit of life in euery thing is his naturall heate ioyned therewith by the meanes of the ayre which is here called the rarefied waters first created by the motion of the spirit and made able to multiply it selfe in any fit and prepared subiect This heate is chiefly in the light which was first brought out of the Chaos and dwelleth in the rarefied waters as in their proper
THE SEARCH OF CAVSES CONTAINING A THEophysicall Inuestigation of the Possibilitie of Transmutatorie Alchemie By Timothie Willis Apprentise in Phisicke LONDON Printed by IOHN LEGATT 1616. To the Reader THE cause of this Presse is rather compulsory then voluntary Indeed an extorted will proceeding first frō my facility in copies and thereby from too much liberty in some who of amanuensed transcripts peraduenture not perfect gaue mee iust suspition of an ignorant exposing Which to preuent I haue sent to the worlds view this whatsoeuer being occasioned by discourse and arguments at a supper betweene diuers learned Gentlemen some yeares past My selfe am so litle ambitious thereof that I shall thinke it well if it scape without taxe specially virulent hauing entertained no thought of reply to gainsayers An incky Duell about naturall opinables should proceed like faults escaped in the printing Mend and say nothing The search of Causes conteining a Theophysicall Inuestigation of the possibility of Transmutatorie Alchemie CAP. 1. THE knowledge of trueth reuealed vnto the first friends of God and by succession from them continued vnto vs their children is more perfect then the wisedome of any Philosophy Philosophers seeke for and require reason and necessarie causes in all things But we are taught and assured that the beginning was without any such cause as they seeke after or wee can comprehend For nothing is more true then that all things were made by an infinite power of an incomprehensible Creator in that beginning of which we haue no perfect knowledge And because we are taught that so perfect a cause can do nothing not answerable to it selfe we must beleeue that all his workes be most perfect in absolute order of Number Weight and Measure created made and preserued in and vnder an vnchangeable law of created Nature answerable to the archety pall and chiefe exemplary cause of their being and preseruation Wherefore to vnderstand so much as our imperfection may comprehend it is necessarie that wee consider the degrees of this excellent wisdome to and in his Creatures whereby all things are and continue And how the essentiall causes depend and abide inuiolably the same vnto the last determination of all time and times CAP. 2. BEfore this creation there was nothing of this naturall world eyther in actuall existence or potentiallie Neither Forme Matter Spirit Bodie Substance Accident Time Place Order Confusion Positiue Priuatiue Absolute Relatiue Abstract Concrete Agent Patient Negation or Affirmation But one onely the Ineffable and Incomprehensible Iah diuine Essence Eternal without beginning or end whose name then was and in his abstract Essence euer shall be I Am. And since the Creation as hee is God the Creator and preseruer c. Emanuel God with vs which Vs is man conteining in him somwhat by proportion from the Sonne of God and man and from Angels to the insensible Center of the earth CAP. 3. THe difference or distance betweene Being and absolute not being is infinite And therefore cannot be mediate or filled but by an infinite Power But there is nothing infinite in Power sauing onely the vncreated Power without beginning or ending Of whose counsels we may not require cause or reason because they exceed reason and cannot by vs be comprehended This power because it is infinite is alwaies the same without change Wherefore it is simply without respect or relation Good and Goodnesse from which all created Good and Goodnesse commeth and on it dependeth And this created Good and Goodnes to it selfe and euery particular creature is respectiue and relatiue The first absolute Power infinite and infinitely Good with his will eternally decreed a creation and with his infinite action and spirit effected the same Infinite in the Creator though determined and finite in the Creature Ad modum Recipientis So we finde in this workmanship of the Almighty three causes which are a rule intellectual and ideall law in and to the creature Power Will Spirit being three coessential in one God and three distinct in the Creature concerning his operations though one in the vniuersality of their subiect much more in the cause whereon they depend For what Creature soeuer shall doe any thing must haue Power to effect Will to work and instruments of action which is Spirit giuing motion and this is common to all creatures vnder what degree of substance soeuer they bee particularizied For the Philosophers power meerely passiue concerneth only a supposition of naturall disposition and appetite to a processe A non Ente tali ad ens tale But except they will imagine it to bee with priuation of action in the patible or passiue subiect which is absurd they must needs grant this power to effect CAP. 4. IN the history of the Creation we finde thus In the beginning God made heauen and earth c. as there followeth Where note that the word Deep Abyssus or Chaos was that which is heere called heauen and earth being yet one confused heape or masse vndiuided without forme void oueruailed with vniuersal darknes which darknes was not the priuation of light because no created or relatiue light had then bin 2. Esdras 6.39 But without any voice the darknesse was on euery side with silence From this matter Time and Place only beginneth the search of reason vnderstanding and created wisedome vnto which all Philosophy in the highest Metaphysicks must be reduced For no reason can be giuen or inuestigation made of that which was not And not any thing euer was but in some time and place which haue no vse but onely to measure and conteine But before this beginning their neither was measure nor thing measured Conteiner nor thing conteined And therefore no time no place But both had being and beginning in and with this creation beeing themselues creatures and concluded vnder the law of Nature which here in this Reshith with them tooke beginning I am not ignorant that a late writer laboureth much about Principium increatum In which he would haue this darke and silent mother the common wombe this Chaos of possibilities this all changeable vnformed to bee and receiue beginning or more explicately to be with it Coaeuall But that is too Chaldaicall and implieth an eternitie and infinite forebeing of Matter Time and Place which agreeth not with the infinite contradiction and contradictorie predications of Deus and Non Deus And there is nothing definible demonstrable or consequent out of any principle of naturall wisedome which this beginning of Matter Time and Place doe not as certainly auerre as the supposed eternity of them Besides that it is more orthodoxall Except his phrase and sentence can beare construction of that Word which was in and from the beginning by which all things were made And receiue the construction of Saint Paulssermon to the Athenians Now therefore let vs see what riuers run from this sea Conducts from this wellhead and what principles of Philosophie wee are necessarily tyed vnto by this most certaine and true
beginning of nature and naturall causes No doubt whatsoeuer is elsewhere necessarily or probably deliuered is either directly taken from hence Or else is but a shadow of this substance and a deriuation of this light CAP. 5. EVerie worke and action of God expressed or implied in his Creation hath as a necessary cause produced some created effect and established it vnder the law of Nature with time still to continue By his Power in the beginning he created that voide and vnformed Chaos which because it was void vnformed had power and hability alike to euerie thing or forme And because nature that is the Creature is the Image of the Creator as being Relatiue to him There is in it a naturall will and appetite vnto perfection which is the naturall Good and Goodnesse of euery creature which is manifested by distinction in instruments parts c. That the heauens may declare the glory of God and all his works magnifie his holy name The third cause in the creature was yet wanting that is spirit the formall cause of motion in euery Creature which likewise answered his proper cause distinct from the other as is said in their effects relatiuely but not in their vniuersall subiect nor in the Prototypal being whose Image they are Three in One and One in Three or rather Trinity Coessentiall in Vnity and Vnity in Trinity The spirit of God moued vpon the waters The spirit mouing vpon the waters created in them spiritualnesse and naturall motion in such proportion as might most absolutely answer the excellency of the Creators disposition and harmony in the innumerable variety of all his particular creatures and be a most sure ground to informe the contemplation of reason by exact dependence of effects vpon their causes The whole Chaos conteined two parts Water and Earth In this there is diuersity of positiō aboue and beneath The Water was aboue the Earth therfore lighter and more capable of actiuity The Earth was vnder the waters and therfore heauier naturally more passible The spirit mooued vpon the surface of the waters which then thereby became more spirituall actiue stirring from thence the other waters in that deepe receiued their dower in the like vertues in proportion euen to those that were contiguall to the earth The Earth in it selfe hath no power of spirit or motion but mediatly by the Waters and that likewise in exact and graduated proportion sufficient for the agreeing diuersity of al bodies This spiritualnes or naturall spirit being but potentially in the waters could not in naturall course which God had now established be acted but by a meane The Spirit was moued Motion breeds heat Heate causeth rarefaction or subtilty subtilty is the perfection of spirit in euerie kind And of all spirituall things light is most subtile which therefore was the first Creature actually distinguished in and out of the confused Chaos And that which before was the confused power of all things void and without forme by this appeared the vniuersall matter of all bodies informed with light the most vniuersall of all formes And as in the darkenesse nature trauailed with the burthen of this wonderfull birth in her wombe and as it were sate hatching her egges so now in this light shee was deliuered of her first borne and after disclosed her other chickens formed and well shaped out of the shell of darkenesse And here the waters were endowed with Spirit Motion Heat and Light as is aforesaid which light was not actually in the inferiour waters as nights Mantle prooueth But shewing the neerenesse of water vnto light by transparence the easie reception of light their easie rarefaction by the worke of heate the child of Spirit doe giue good testimony of lights materiality But this is not so proper to the vniuersall light of which we speake by which the superiour waters bee continually illumined and illustred without any shadow of the night of our lesse generall time yet it may serue in neere similitude to illustrate The next distinct Creature named the Expansion Firmament or Heauen which a certaine Wiseman calleth the heauenly Ayre had in the very instant of his calling and creation an office appointed most generall To diuide the waters aboue from the waters below And heere is no mention made of Ayre and Fire but of Motion and Light which are neuer without heate the most proper passion or forme of that which wee commonlie call Fire Also of the vpper Waters and their rarefaction which agreeth with the Ayre of common Philosophie in the efficient and subiect But whether those names be proper or no concerneth not this place and I haue elsewhere paradoxally handled Of the substance composition of heauen many heads haue brought forth many hornes and arming their reasons with fantasticall imaginations haue pushed at each other so long till they be all galled It is sufficient for vs to consider their vse and office that is to deuide the waters aboue from the waters below and how being composed of the common Chaos water and earth more pure then things beneath them lesse pure then things aboue them they be solid fixed permanent and as it were of an immortall substance patible onely by fire Iob 37.18 And therefore it is said the heauens are strong and as a molten glasse For when the Spirit getteth the vpper hand in a pure and cleane body and that bodie afterwards of the Spirit in the second coniunction not by incrassation of the spirit but by subtilation of the body the whole compound becommeth quintessentiall then all is permanent and as you would say fixed spiritually Then there is no naturall alteration nor corruption I know that some writers make two distinct materialities or materias primas first matters in this beginning of creation one containing the water of heauen aboue the other a confused masse of earth and water the corporalitie of all sublunarie bodies But that opinion seemeth to draw a tayle after it of many absurdities incōueniences that goldē chaine of Participation of Symboles which linketh heauen and earth together cannot abide two materiall principles of one creature Neither can such duality subsist with that Talmudique mysterie of light shining out of darkenes which is figuratiuely verbū Dei in nobis Then there is no naturall alteration nor corruption but mens sana in corpore sano a pure spirit in a perfect bodie Next after the firmament and this diuision of waters followed the separation or parting of the waters beneath the firmament from the earth whereby sea and land were made In all this relation and respect are manifest darkenesse and light aboue beneath and diuider or meane betweene extreames Water Earth Sea Land wet dry Motion Rest c. Then in order followed In the earth Vegetables In heauen starres and their offices In the waters Fish and Foule In the earth againe sensibles commonly called Brutes or Irrationals Lastly Man with appointment of meate for himselfe
subiect So the whole composition consisteth of foure two patient and materiall respectiuely inferior water and earth two agent and formall respectiuely superior water and heate or light which if we call ayre and fire in the compound it shall be indifferent for it matters not what names or words be vsed so the thing be vnderstood These foure Elements or parts of composition must be considered two waies particularly and generally Considered particularly they euer concurre to the composition of things corruptible but generally of things incorruptible To which purpose let vs consider that there is a generall light made before the heauens of and with which the Elements and euery elementary compound doth communicate more or lesse and thereby hath in it some sparke of incorruptibility and possibility to attaine it according to the primitiue natural predestination of his first creation which also it might and should enioy were it adapted to fit digestion and fermentation of it selfe where all the Elements should neuer cease from their circular labour vntill by equall proportion and temper that subiect could no more be altered of which there is some neere example in Gold and pretious stones There is also a generall Heauen not made to distinguish times and seasons but to diuide and to bee as it were a Land-marke betweene the Waters the interpretations of the Hebrew Maim and the Comments of the Aerial Expansion may haue their truth not opposing this diuisor which generall heauen giueth generall influence from the Waters aboue by meanes of the generall light into the inferiour Elements and elementarie compounds and also spirituall fixation continuing and preseruing the cause of their incorruptibilitie beeing an actiue Spirit of life able to worke by digestion and fermentation as aforesaid There is also a generall and vniuersall Time and that of diuers degrees When the Chaos was created Time was created with it And as the matter of all things being then in this Chaos is incorruptible in it selfe though diuerslie passible in his indefinitenesse to all formes so is that time with it created in it selfe abstractiuely vnderstood vndiuided though communicated vnto Elements and Compounds and measuring in them no other thing then the incorruptibility of their matter Besides this there is another generall Time measuring the generall and incorruptible matter which slept in vnreuealed darknesse And as the first measureth in the Elements and elemental bodies the incorruptibility of the matter so this measureth in them the same of their formes to the preseruation of one generall forme in one generall matter of naturall transcendence The third generall Time began with the Firmament which time measureth the third order of naturall Being from the Chaos and the second order of distinction from the generall light That is the diuision of waters and therefore it is in the first degree of composition alterable by generation and corruption for in it the foure elements were perfected of all naturall sublunary things This time is the first of all vnto which our speculation reacheth concerning the naturall estate of things corruptible and generable for the other two come neerer the last dissolution when al things shal stand adorned in one light or fall confused in one darknesse And these vniuersall and incorruptible causes Matter and Forme are really according to their natures in the elements and euery compound and either shall with them in their present estate continue vnto the last possibility of their predestination or alter them that they may so continue or else being seuered from them returne to their proper place vnder the commensuration of their proper time till all things be restored in the incorruptible regeneration of an immortall spring So is their particular matter and forme separable corruptible in respect of the composition and measured by particular times in which generations and corruptions do happen of all things thereunto subiect The particular light began with the Starres and that of so many different effects as there be varieties in their motion receptions of light irradiations and whatsoeuer else in true Astronomy can bee said of them This is the particular beginning of time and times and the proper measure of all specifications and particularities Yet some would haue the measure of specifications to be in the time of the vnstarred heauens and of particularities as is here said It is no inconuenience to agree with them both haue their speculations but agree in the issue of particularities If it be obiected that this being true vegetables be incorruptible because they were created before this light and time of the Stars I say it followeth not For they are made of earth and inferiour waters earth being predominant which imply matter and forme separable and by consequent corruptibility of the cōpound not withstanding the concours of the other two elements aforesaid They were giuen for food to man and all other animals except Fishes which were made after the Stars and therefore doe communicate in nature with them And though they were made before the light and time of generations and corruptions yet they were not then absolutely perfect For neither had they then increased their species with succession of indiuiduals nor attained their last end in which al perfection is consummate that is to be meate for man and beasts made in the light and times of generations But therein we may note that all things made before this time being generable and corruptible be in their generations hermaphroditicall and therein differ from the other more multitudinary and angulare And from this place a good cabalist may gather something of the immortalitie of the flesh and by consequent of resurrection because their foode is of that which in the first creation concerning time and light is incorruptible amongst which there is a tree of life What then shall we say of meate and medicine made of that which in creation preceeds these in his particular bodie is durable with the heauens lesse compounded and angulare then any vegetable But to returne moreouer the earth and all things therein receiued the curse and became hereunto subiect by Adams fall and cannot without sweate and labour eate their bread that is enioy the predestination of the spirit of life which is in them But if they were helped and cherished by some matter like and connaturall to that spirit of life which they haue of the vniuersall light and the vpper waters measured by the vniuersall time of the vnstarred heauen noe doubt they might endure farre beyond that time they now doe if peraduenture not to the worlds ende which in their present estate is impossible for many causes and by reason hereditarie corruption hath taken so great and deepe roote as one though to another end saith Damnosa quid non imminuit Dies Aetas Parentum peior auis tulit Nos nequiores mox daturos Progeniem vitiosiorem Wherein the whole world and euerie part thereof haue their part both in quantity diminished life shortned naturall vertues