the most part false because their Phylosophy and other abilities were polluted and corrupt In vaine therefore it is to seek knowledge from them who have spent all their life in looking after it and have wasted all their time and study to no purpose not finding out any truth though many of them were seduced by ignorance rather then malice the Light of Truth not yet risen to them nor the Light of Nature as yet kindled by the holy Spirit Divinity is the Fountaine of Naturall and Supernaturall knowledge All true Phylosophy should be grounded on the Scriptures and so return into God that so the Regenerate Christians might reap and receive the full increase of that seed which among the Gentiles was choaked for want of the Sun like that among the thorns No Art can be perfected without Regeneration Christians should not be ruled by Heathen Phylosophy True Phylosophy must be grounded on Christ the corner stone We ought therefore to be most wary that we suffer not the Philosophicall errours of the Heathen to beare down or dominiere over the rules of Christian Phylosophy Christians onely in whom the Truth is planted who have their seed from God by the means of Regeneration which the Heathen have not doe truly know to use or teach Phylosophy without mistake or errour and how to manage aright all other faculties Believers shall be taught of God when the Holy Spirit is powred forth To be short the knowledge of God is the Treasury of the whole world wherein all things are laid up so that without this knowledge no man can come to eternall life For Faith Hope and Love follow knowledge Adhaesion or cleaving to followeth Love Union follows Adhaesion in Union is Blessednesse and Wisdome This Regeneration that holy man Hermes and others of clean hearts and godly lives before the Word was incarnate being enlightned by the holy Spirit though they concealed it among other Secrets they knew it better then many of us who call our selves Christians and had rather seem to know God then love him O great miracle 1 John 4. Wâ—sd 1. John 17. Man whose mind by Christ is united to God possesseth the true wisdome of all things and the most absolute knowledge of all Secrets Furthermore he that knoweth himselfe doth know all things Fundamentally in himselfe and being set between Time and Eternity above him he sees God eternall his Creator The soul is the off-spring and image of God Apoc. 22. after whose image and likenesse he was with other Angells created by an unsearchable love besides or about him he knows the immortall Angells his fellows and companions from whom he differeth onely in body and the Judgement to come Under him he sees the visible World whereof he is a pattern and all the Creatures with whom he hath a likenesse even his parent of whom he was born as to the externall and mortall body Man who is a true Proteus of a fickle wavering disposition received a flexible mind from Nature Eccl. 15.14 that being set in the midst of the Paradice of this world by the assistance of Divine Grace raising himselfe upward he might be regenerated into a quiet Angell or the Forger of his fortune winding and creeping downward degenerate into a restlesse Bruite But the free Râ—asonable Creature neglecting the fatherly admonition and his due obedience Gen 2. turning from the mean to the extreame himselfe dispising his Creator He that seeks to himself that which is anothers unâ—voydably â—uâ—â— himseâ—fe into two â—nconveniences i. e. theft and robbery of himselfe and death The Fâ—â—l waâ— aâ—swering from Uâ—iâ—y to Alteâ—iâ—y learned by experience what his own proper Evill and Nothing was to his voluntary damage and perdition like a Thief and Robber And thus abusing the bounty of his most indulgent Father he made choise of death rather then of life and like Lucifer not content with his lot ambitiously desiring higher things he set himselfe in opposition against God at last by an unexpected change was cast out of the Garden of pleasures into this dolefull and darksome valley of Misery and Ignorance The first man was left in the hand of his own counsell Eccl. 15.14 and of his own accord turned from the strait path into the crooked way of Misery greedily desired the possession of good and evill to his own destruction as Herms and Moses sufficieâ—tly demonstrate God created man that the number and losse of the rebellious Angells might be made up in the kingdome of Heavâ—n Man the bond or buckle of the world the last wonderfull and honourable living creature was upon the sixt day after all other things drawn or taken è limo terrae out of the slime of the Earth or visible frame of the whole consisting of Heaven or Heavenly Sphaeres and the Earth viz. out of the most thin or pure substance of the whole frame of the world concentred into one body fashioned by the great Spacyrus into a bodily shape made to supply the place of the fallen Angells Man was formed of the most excellent Compound and purest Extract of the whole Word out of the Center of all Circles Therefore Nazianzen speaking of the workmanship of Man saith God made Man last that in him as in a short and briefe way he might set out or expresse all that before he had made at large viz. all the members or parts of the whole world As an Oration is made up of letters and sillables so the Microcosm or Limus Terrae Man is compacted of all bodies and created things The great God eternal and Creator of all things took the Quintessence out of all things created and thereof fashioned and composed Man as the Prince and End of all these and congratulated him as his Son holding or possessing the honourable place of the high Divinity on Earth In respect of the Body or corruptible Nature he bears the Image of the great sensible and temporall World In respect of his soul or immor-Nature he bears the Image of the Archetype or originall copy and patterne of the world that is of the immortall Wisdome of God himselfe So that all the properties of Animalls Vegetables and Mineralls entred into him and withalla living Soul inspired into him God is all things of himselfe Man is made all things of God and was therefore created last that by him the compleatnesse and perfection of all the Creatures might be signified Man is the tye bond knot joynt Psal 8. Thou hast put all things under his â—eer Paraceâ—s excepteth the Spirits and inhabitant of the â—â—ur Elements packet or bundle of all the Creatures All things created were disposed of to him and they respect and honour him as Gods steward set over the Orchard or Garden of this world God is the Center and Circle of all things that he brought out of himselfe for all the works of the Divine goodnesse are circular and perfect sphaerically wheeled about to him from
Intellectuall Soul and earthy Body like two Extreams are knit glued and confederate together and in this third mean which partaketh of the other two they are coupled and united into one intire man Thus God and Man cannot be united but by a Mean even our Saviour who partaketh of two Natures the Caelestiall and Terrestriall the Divine Humane Paracelsus saith that the soul or breâ—tâ— of life is infused by God into the Elementary body through the Astra's as a Medium Through this Medium this middle Aetheriall little body the Intellectuall Soule by the command of God who is the Centre of the great world and by the imploying of his Intelligences or Spirits to that end is first poured and descendeth into the middle poynt of the Heart which is the Centre of the little world and from thence is spread into all the parts and members of his body as soon as it joyneth its vehicle to the naturall heat by which heat it joyneth to the Spirit begotten from the heart by the spirit it drencheth it selfe into the blood by the blood it cleaveth to all the members to all which it hath an equall nearnesse And because the said Aethereall body participateth of Heaven therefore it holds and keeps the same course with that of the Firmament whose operations it draweth to it selfe by a peculiar magnetick vertue just as the visible body doth the efficacy of the Elements and so remaineth one thing with the visible and invisible world John 10.30 as the Son with his Father as rednesse with wine as whitenesse with Snow The whole Firmament is in us with the Planets and Stars As heat pierceth an Iron Furnace and as the Sun doth glasse so doth the Stars with all their properties pierce into Man so that of the syderiall spirit of the Firmament we may learn all Naturall things The MIND Man hath an Intellectuall and immortal Soul Zach. 12.1 Gen. 2.7 Es 42.5 Wisd 2.23 or Spirit by the inbreathing of God created with the four foresaid inhabitants of the Elements which the bruit beasts have not after the Image of God and the Divine Triunity with the similitude also of Unity 1 John 2.27 Chap. 4.14 Acts 17.28 that so in all things he might be one with his Heavenly Father who is in us by his Spirit from which we learn sacred Divinity and all heavenly and earthly secrets without errour yea in him we are and live and are moved As God is One in Essence Trine or Three in persons so Man is One in Person Trine or Three in distinct Essence that is composed Triune of a Terrene Body an Aethereall Spirit of the Heavens and a living vivifying Soule which God breathed into him and is the house of God This the holy Scripture witnesseth Luke 1.47 1 Thes 5.23 Gen. 2.7 See the Amphiâ—halce of Rhunrad worthy of perpetuall memory Paul the greatest Phylosopher and Divine shewes three parts of Man Spirit Soule and Body There are two Souls or two Spirits in Man Mortall from the first matter which is the life of the body and Immortall from God The Spirit is the Life of the Soule the Spirit and Soule are the life of the body John 14. even the wonderfull Agreement between the Creator and the Creature in whom the great Creator would shew himselfe to be Unitrine or Triune One in Three or Three in One As also the unanimous consent of all that truly professed Phylosophy from the Light of Nature If happily there should be any that deny these three parts yet they must acknowledge that Man was created è Limo Terrae out of the clay or dust of the Earth by the word FIAT and that he received an eternall Spirit or breath of life from the mouth of God which is that Linum Caelorum or slime of the Heavens from the Lord. The Limus Terrae or dust of the Earth is two-fold visible and invisible He hath his Body or cottage from the Earth and Water but the life that dwells therein is from the Aire and Firmament of Fire which life is the Syderiall Spirit and is properly the Man not flesh and blood As the Syderiall Spirit is the life of the Body so the Spirit of the Lord is the life of the Intellectuall Soule And as the Sydereall Spirit dwells in the Body and works therein day and night for this invisible is himselfe the Firmament God created Man to be his Tabernacle as well in this as in the world to come and hath all things in him so the Spirit of the Lord the WORD of God the eternall man dwells in the Soule the house is the habitation of the Soule the Soule is the habitation and cottage of God Therefore when Man the most perfect compleatnèsse of all Gods works the most compleat figure of the world and expresse image of God in whom he rested from creating as having nothing before him more honorable to be created all the wisdome and power of the Creator being shut up and perfected in him as the supream artifice in that he containeth all things in himself that are in God when I say he was on the sixt day made up of all things the last of the Creatures and image not onely of the eternall God but also of the great world because with it he comprehendeth and containeth all things in himselfe it followeth that there are three worlds or Heavens in Man and that he is born about of three Worlds or rather is all the world and a most sure and undoubted Pattern of the whole Universe Exemplumque Dei quisque est in imagine parvâ Manilus That which is Naturated savoureth of the Nature of that which did Naturate it God dwelleth in the Soul as in the Heaven of Man And therefore some have called him the Fourth World in whom are found all those things that are in the other three for which cause also he may be called by the name of every Creature He hath a Spirit or Mind from God for what else is the Spirit of Man which God breathed into him but God himselfe dwelling in us The invisible Body or true Internall Man consisting of Reason and an Astrall Spirit agreeth with the Angells and is their fellow And if he be a true Magician he is not inferiour to the Angells in all Magicall operation and is Lord and Possessor of all things His mortall Phisicall Body he hath from the frame of the world and all things created therein for all Externall things are nothing else but the Body of Man So that he partaketh of a threefold world of the Archetype or God-like world in God of the Intellible or Angellicall of the sensible Elementall or corporall world and hath a symbolicall operation and conversation with them all The Mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the chaâ—ret driver or Stern-man of the Soul or Rationall Spirit like the eternall God concludeth all Beings Times and Places 1. He communicateth with
God in his Soule or Mind because by the breath of life he was made after his image the Intellectuall Soul is a certaine particle of the Divine Soule in which very Soule God hath sowen certaine seeds and resemblances of his Mind in us much like to that of an Eccho which sends back its voyce from the resemblance of the aire by which it expresseth a lively soule The mind raised up into the most High God and united with him converseth with God and doth the same works neither is there any disposition or any thing in Man that doth not clearly hold forth something of the Divinity neither is there any thing in God which very thing is not represented in Man 2. He hath a semblance with the Angells in respect of the invisible Body and Rationall Soul by whose help he worketh and is preserved with the Angells and hath the same wisdome that they have for he is Gabalis socius Angelorum a curdled companion of the Angells or one mixed with in fellowship 3. He participateth with the Firmament and Stars of whom he received that Astrall body or Syderiall Spirit which is the true Astrall Man for flesh and blood is not the Man but the Spirit contained in them which Astrall Spirit is the subject of humane Reason that containeth the sences and wisdome in it and is made Animall a living creature with the body This Spirit and the Astra's are but one thing in Man but the body is the subject of this Spirit and so the Astra's rule man in the Spirit and the Spirit of a man ruleth the Body in flesh and blood This Spirit is mortall onely the Intellectuall Soule which God breathed into man is immortall 4. He partaketh of the Elements for from these he had his mortall Physicall Earthy body And because the world which is the Parant of Man according to Paracelsus hath in it the four Elementary Spirits of the four inhabitants of the world as also the fift kind of Flages of a thousand sorts incorporated into the Soule of the Microcosm the Imagination also of these five Spirits in the Elements must be in the Microcosm Man but the use of Mans Reason according to the will and command of God is as a Chaine were with those five Spirits are knit and bound together that they may acquiesce with his Imagination 5. He partaketh of all Elemented Animalls Vegetables and Mineralls for he hath in him the Nature and properties of all these All things were made of nothing and Man was made of all those things The great world was the matrix of Adam thus the whole frame of the world is the mother of all things that are brought forth Man therefore who was the last is the most excellent and noble of all Creatures because he hath the parts of the whole world nor is there any thing in the great world which may not really be found in man The Son is like the father in all things the father being known the Son is known also Therefore Man the greatest miracle of Nature most admirable Extract kernell of the four Elements the choycest workmanship of God and most perfect Samplar of the world is truly every Creature for he is all the world and he alone hath this honor to have semblance with all things and operation with all and conuersation with all Yea he riseth to such perfection that he is made the Son of God transformed into the same image which is God and made one with him John 17.11 12.22 23. which is not granted either to Angells or the world or any other Creature but to Man only that he should become the Son of God and be united to God That which is sensible and that which is insensible hath a sydereall spirit or a sydereall body in it But before wee proceed any further it is requisite that wee treat here a little more largly of the Syderyall or invisible man to wit of his Originall and power If Aristotle had taken notice of this Olympick Spirit and Galen made more account of it there had not such errors crept into Philosophy and Physick springing from the heathenish masters of errors to say nothing of Divinity at present Eve is Adam transplanted The first men were created the rest proceed from the Being of the seed or Esence The invisible man or Olimpick Spirit is borne in us after this manner Adam and Eve did not proceed from other parents as we their posterity do but were taken as hath been sayd ex LIMO TERRAE out of the dust of the ground or great world as to the mortall Body which is visible and invisible The Spirit of life is the Spiracle or breathing hole The Spirit of the Limbus is Sydeâ—eall the Animall spirit The body of the Limbus spiracle ought to make one Marriage otherwise there would be an adulâ—eâ—ous and bâ—stardly bâ—ood For as in all thing the marriage or joynting together of two is the perfection so Adultery hindeâ—eth the â—ight of Nature vide Paraceâ—s in Phylâ—sâ—p agâ—â—â— â—â—â—acelsus saith that the Elâ—ment of fire or the Firâ—aemee 〈◊〉 althought it be thâ—â—â—â—st subâ—â—ll and 〈◊〉 thing 〈◊〉 it is a body because bodies are the fruits thereof and without a body such fruit cannot grow So the wind is a body and like a visible body hath power to overturne another body Not onely visible things are bodies for God created as well visible as invisible bodies of the same power The inner Man ascendeth the inward Heaven A particular Consâ—â—llation This Spirit is tha Doctor of true Astronomy For the whole frame of the world is collected and reduced into the Microcosm so that there is nothing to be found in all the world but the same also is in one man The Physicall Elementary visible and Tangible body is from the Earth but the Invisible Insensible Sydereall body which is the house or cottage of the Spirits life is from the Astra's of the Firmament Thus Adam had two bodies that is a visible Elementall and an invisible Sydereall body So that now by propagation there are alwayes two Men born a Corporeall Elementall Visible Man the Organ and Instrument of the invisible and an incorporeall Astralick man which moveth guideth and performeth all skilfull matters For the Astra's now in Man doe by Man alwayes in generation produce those two The visible Elementary body of flesh and blood in the mothers womb out of the four Elements but the invisible Sydereall body that is capable of attaining Phylosophy is from the Astra's of the Firmament For that little world Man is one and the same in all things with his-Parant the great world But as the great world is distinguished by its shell or out-side from the Angelicall world so man the little world is distinguished by his skin or out-side from the great world Hence it is that the Sydereall Internall Olimpick Incorporeall or Gabalis Homo coagulated or curdled Man is the same
the secrets of all Natur 's Light By this Art the knowledge of almost all things and in this Stone the universal Nature of things shineth forth The Tincture is the Fife Essence of the Microcosm and comes vâ—ry near to the first and most perfect Being and that Cabalisticall unary number Paracelsus calleth it the perfect perpetuall Câ—tholâ—ck Balsom of Physitians or Phylosophers the Defensive of old age the Universall medicament which like the invisible Fire consumeth all diseases the Glasse of God's Mysteries and the Miracle of universall Nature the Fift Essence of the whole frame of the world and the whole world Regenerated wherein the Treasure of all Nature lyeth Subject and Instrument of all Naturall and Transnaturall Virtues the Son of the Sun and Moon who by his ascending into Heaven and descending into the Earth hath obtained all power of superior and inferior things the Habitation of all metallick minerall and vegetable Forms which God created under the Globe of the Moon yea that it is truly the spirit of Life which pierceth through all other spirits Those Ancients who had most perfect knowledge of Things have called this Fist Essence the middle nature of Soules and is altogether one and the same with the spirit of our body the bond between the Body and Soul wherewith that super-celestiall thing is delighted and retained that it fly not from its bodily prison for that peace may be made between those enemies the Soul and Body there is need of the Balsom of life as a means to be sought from Externalls by which the internall is restored to retaine or sustaine the Fire of a long life without which fuell it goeth out of the body as a flame from the lamp-wick for want of oyle it is the most simple Matter which the Best and Greatest Lord generated out of the spirit of this world for the restauration and preservation of Humane Nature which hath been altogether unknown to the Physitians of our time For it never came into their Schools who goe not into the Temple of Apollo through the right door but break through the Roofe and sit in his seat as the Scribes and Pharisees heretofore in Moses chair And while they hold the keys of Sciences in unrighteous captivity they bring to passe nothing with their decrees and ordinances but like false Teachers they themselves enter not into the Academy of Nature and others who desire to enter in a right way they hinder in their laudable course by their pernicious dehortations so that they never come to the knowledge of the Truth and are forced to be ignorant where it may be But because the true originall of all corporall diseases in the judgement of the best Physitians is the enormity of the Naturall proportion of the Three First or as common Physitians say the disorder and ill disposition of the four Elements or Humors of which the Humane compounded body is sick or well this foresaid Medicine which is in it selfe the matter of our Creation may be congeneous and uniform to the substance consisting in equality When the purified Elements are reduced to a pure and equall simplicity then is got the Medicine that prolongeth life because thus the Elements are equall for the inequality and dominion of one over another is it that breedeth diseases the most subtile Soul separate from dregs and as it were the simple substance of the Elements the Fift Essence or Fift Virtue resulting from the purer Essence of the four Elements purified incorruptible is compared to Heaven nor doth it admit any malignant spirit but they all fly from it And because it is obnoxious as little as little may be to a Tempred corruption or putrefaction therefore it expelleth as much as is possible by Nature all accidentall corruptibility from which any sicknesse or weaknesse may arise and restoreth the inward vigour throughout all the members and by reconciliation cureth againe the diseases that hapned by the exaltation of the Three Principles Mans health consisteth in the agreement and union of the Three First Substances Health consisteth in a Temperate body but when they are exalted and set on fire by the Stars the intestine wars follow And because the Three First Substances of diseases are valitile Let it not seem strange to any that the sole act of one Thing should be variously diversified not as to it selfe but accordâ—ng to the Nature of that which receiveth it as the celestiall Sun hardneth the Clay and softneth the Wax they give place to the Essence of Fire which consumeth the disease and separateth the pure from the impure Moreover that Fift Essence of the Human Body bindeth the Elements or Humors in Peace and Harmonicall league and reduceth to the true Temperament by making equall the unequall and strengthneth the naturall heat and substantificall moysture it keepeth the oyle and spark of Life in an equality by its celestiall vigor for so long as the Radicall Humor the Vitall Balsom and most precious Nectar of our Life abideth in its quantity we are not sensible of any disease for the strengthning power of the Human body and of Animalls proceedeth from the spirit of Life and restoreth the sick to health and a good temper it holdeth its Nature in her Being and preserveth the Nectar of our Life in a good and laudable Temperament and so will keep the predisposed or fore-qualified Man safe and sound from sicknesse with the comelinesse of youth for the time of his continuance which is the age of Beauty and Human Fortitude even to his Naturall death that is to that Terme of Life which the Omnipotent God hath appointed to Man for disobedience as well that of every one as that of our first Parent I say such a man who shall use it prudently and seasonably with a devout calling upon the Name of the Lord if the constitution of the body and its complexion be not extreamly waâ—â—ed Therefore in this Fift Essence and Spirituall Medicine which hath the Nature and Heat of Heaven not of our mortall and corruptible it is possible to find out the True Fonntaine of Physick the Conservation of Life the Restitution of health the Renovation of lost youth and the desired clear health and to speak Naturally there is no Balsamick Medicine in all the world better than this true Triacle of Phylosophers which like the Elixir of life is the superlative and last consolation of Mans body preserving all activities in the Humane Nature and restoring the diminished power through the defect of Nature For in every kind there is a certaine One that holdeth the first degree in that kind therefore because this Medicine is made of the more incorruptible and efficacious Matter that can be under Heaven that is the Soule or Spirit of the world which hath in it the force of all Celestiall and Terrestriall things The Heat of the Sun and Moon is that Naturall Heat whereby every thing is digested for the
THEOPHRASTê° PARACELSUS †The lively Portraiture of the most famous and profound Philosopher and Physition Aureolê° Philippus Theophrastus Paracelsus Bombast of Hohenheim who was Poysned the 47th yeare of his age PHILOSOPHY Reformed Improved IN Four Profound TRACTATES THE I. Discovering the Great and Deep Mysteries of Nature By that Learned Chymist Physitian OSW CROLLIVS THE OTHER III. Discovering the Wonderfull Mysteries of the Creation BY PARACELSVS BEING His Philosophy to the ATHENIANS Both made English by H. PINNELL for the increase of Learning and true Knowledge LONDON Printed by M. S. for Lodowick Lloyd at the Castle in Cornhill 1657. THE Translators APOLOGY Caution and Retraction READER THOV art sick in body or soule or both t is the gracious care of thy mercifull Creator to prepare and apply means for the Cure of them both It is and ought to be thy duty principally to respect the more worthy and give all diligence to attend the most noble part of thy selfe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dead bones and rottennesse are but such and no better in a painted Sepulchre whatever be neglected let not thy soul run to ruine Thou hast plenty of provision set before thee starve not at a feast of fat things if it be not dish'd out in the best fashion forsake not good meat for the Cooks unskilfulnesse Indeed the princely dainties of this royall banquet call for a neater hand to carve them abroad and I for manners sake have a great while excused the service ut detur digniori prefering and proffering it to some of greater abilities more fit to have undertaken it which if they had accepted these incomparable Mysteries and unsearchable Truths had been more Chymically prepared and not offer'd to thee in the grosse body of so dull a language This onely I have for my Apology viz. that I have been more carefull to be faithfull than curious not striving so much to trim the garment as to proportion it to the body if others would have shew'd their skill I had not been censured for a bungler But Reader I am not so intent to make my own excuse as to leave thee altogether without a Caution what therefore that most profound Teutonick Philosopher Jacob Behmen somewhere in his writings saith to his Reader that I counsell thee viz. if thy mind be not spirituall forbear to read these things for they will doe thee more hurt than good if thou art not illuminated in the true Mysterie of Emanuel if thou know not the extent of the Incarnate Word if thou understand not the Angelicall ascent and descent on Jacobs ladder how canst thou cast thy suffrage into that Seraphicall acclamation Holy Holy Holy is the Lord of hosts Isa 6.3 the whole earth is full of his glory Let no carnall mind cling to the posts of Wisdom's house or come near the gates of her Temple The Oratories of old were by Oraculous care guarded from prophanesse with this inscription over the doors Ite profani Fanum est Fanum nihil ingrediatur profanum this place is holy let no filthy thing come into it I may say of this following Preface it is Holy let no carnall mind profane or pervert it The learned and Religious Author would have thee wise unto salvation that thou mayst be saved from thy own wisdome thy greatest enemy I cannot say whether he was a better Physitian or Divine whether he may doe thy body more good or thy soul sure I am his Prescriptions may well be called Basilica Chymica Royall Receipts being the rare Extracts of the most choyce spirituall Truths out of the grosse body of naturall Things Bear with the prolixity of his Introduction the rest will recompence thy patience I once thought to have abridg'd it but durst not meddle with so good a Symmetry I have sent it abroad without any alteration but what a German hath by a garment of the English fashion The best Physicall Method in order to thy Eternall welfare is here observed the maine scope and principall intention being first to rectifie the Archeus of the inner Man that it may attract health from the heavenly Iliaster and distribute the same to all the faculties of thy soul and members of thy body then to prostigate and chastise the peccant humors of thy outward and naturall man and all through the Grace of God revealed in the great mysteries of the Incarnation Life Death Resurrection Ascension Mediatorship c. of our blessed Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ Let it not offend thee at which many have stumbled and fallen that the Father and the Son should be so nigh unto thee in All Things that God and Christ should condescend and humble themselves to walk before thee Rom. 1.20 and with thee and in thee that things Invisible should be seen in Visible things Vniversus mundus nihil â—liud cumque It was the common faith of the Ancients both Ecclesiasticall and Profane Deus explicatus Athenagoras Prefente monstrat quaelibet herba Deum that the Creation is but the Revelation of the Creator May God be seen in all things and not Christ also by whom they were made The Gentles that knew God might also have known Christ had they been obedient Hos 6.3 John 6.4 if we follow the Father he will draw us to the Son All things call loud unto us to behold the mysterie of the Father and the Son to hear their voyce and cry shame upon us that we hearken not nor obey The wicked heart saith to God Depart Job 21.14 22.17 18. though he filleth his house with good things The corne and wine and oyle the silver and gold which God multiplyeth unto men they prepare for Baal and spend that upon their Lusts Hos 2.8 which should be motives of their love Psal 19.2 Act. 14.17 Times and seasons are the faithfull Tutors and witnesses of God but men regard not their doctrine nor receive their testimony The bruitish man doth not know Psal 92.5 6. nor doth the fool understand the deep thoughts of God in his great Works but the wise in heart that take pleasure in his works they search and find them out these seek till they have found the Pearl in the field the Messias Mat. 13.44 45. the Christ of God in the things that are made and these shall understand the loving kindnesse of the Lord. Psal 107 43. 111.2 Oh the blindness of the men of this world whose minds the god of this world hath so blinded that though the true God be in all his works which men may see and behold afar off yet they magnifie him not Job 36.24 25. The Lord Jesus Christ the true and onely Wisdome of God Prov. 1.20 21. 8.1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 c. cryeth without and uttereth his voyce in the streets in the chiefe place of concourse in the opening of the gates in the city in the top of high places by
Pigmyes In the Aire or our airy world there are Umbratils Silveâ—ters Satyrs whose Monsters are the Gyants To the Fire or the Firmament doe belong the Vulcanals Pennats Salamanders Superi whose Monsters are Zundell Besides those Flagae which Theophrastus in his works affirmeth are in many thousands of severall forts incorporated to the Soul of the World Thus also there is a fourfold Medicine For example the fiery airy watry earthy Heart of the Macrocosm in all things agreeable to the Heart of the Microcosm Man For all things are of one operation in Man So also are we to understand of the rest of the members of the body for the Microcosm the child ought always to answer to the fourfold members of the Macrocosm its parent Thus we shall find that every malady and medicine is of the same Physiognomy Chyromancy and Anotomy He that knows not this Fundamentall cannot be a good Phisitian Thus also we find out of ancient Records that Astrologers and Chymiologers were very near of kin for the Caelestiall Astronomy is as it were the Parent and Mistresse of the inseriour for as much as both have their own Heaven their own Sun their own Moon their Planets and their own proper Stars yet so as that the Astrology of superiour things hath to doe with the Chymiology of things inferiour Those Chymists who by the assistance of divine Grace have attained the Mind and rightly know how to accommodate the properties of those bodies in the superiour Globe which are seen in the Astra's and bodies of the inferiour Globe these can easily and truly unfold all Phylosophicall difficulties that have been wrapt up in aenigmaticall obscurity and will confesse that henceforth they need not travell to India or America to get the knowledge of Phylosophy For by the providence and goodnesse of the Creator it is so ordered that the invisible Astra's of the other Elements should be represented by a visible appearance in the supream Element and that they should clearly discover their motions and seasons although there be nothing in the whole course of the inferiour Nature which by the inbred Astra's is not able to justifie the lawfull use of Astronomy In his Idaea of Phylosophical Phifick They that are troubled with the gout have a foresence of the sudden change of seasons their paine many times makes them Prophets and Astrologers against their will So many sick folk perceive before hand the change of weatherin the four Elements The Internall Elements of man have a foresence of the change of Externall As Reason rules the outward Astra's so Physick rules the inward The Astrum of Man and Heaven is but one Thus as P. Severinus the Dane doth learnedly observe the Sidus constellation of Summer Winter Spring Autumn are contained in the Earth Water Aire which unlesse they did conspire with the Astra's of the Firmament to which onely many of the common Phylosophers by a great mistake have ascribed all Astronomy we should blame the impressions of the Heavenly Astra's as barren in the time of dearth There is a twofold Heaven Externall as all the bodies of the Astra's in the Heaven of the Firmament and Internall which is the Astrum or invisible and insensible body in all the Stars of Heaven That invisible and insensible body of the Astra's is the Spirit of the World or Nature as Paracelsus calls it the Hylech spread abroad through all the Astra's or rather it is all the Astra's it selfe And as that Hylech in a particular manner containes all the Astra's in the great World so also the internall Heaven of Man which is the Olimpick spirit doth particularly comprehend all the Astra's And thus the invisible Man is not onely all the Astra's but is altogether one and the same thing with the Spirit of the world as whitenesse is with snow As all things spring and proceed from within from things hidden and invisible so also the visible corporall substances proceed from incorporall spirituall things out of the Astra's and are the bodies of the Astra's and remaine in the Astra's one in the other Hence it followes that not onely all living things but also all growing things even stones and mettalls The Formation of things is in the Astra'â— as iron in the imagination of the Smith Hence also Nativities are to be cast See Pâ—racel in Paramiro de eme Astroâ—um and whatever are in the Universall Nature of things are indued with a syderiall spirit which is called Heaven or the Astrum the secret Forger from which every Formation Figure and Colour of things proceedeth From this proper and internall Astrum viz. The Sun of the Microcosm which Paracelsus calls the Ens or Being of the seed and virtue or power is Man also generated produced figured formed and governed But when we say that all the form of things proceedeth from the astra's it is not meant of the visible coales of Heaven nor of the invisible body of the Astra's in the Firmament but of every things own proper Astrum so that the superior doth not power forth its vertues hidden secrets into the inferiour spectificate Firmament as the false Philosophers thinke that the stars of the Firmament do infuse virtue into herbs and trees no in no wise every growing and living thing carry its proper heaven and Astrum with it selfe and in it selfe the superiour stars in their course through the Zodiak excite and stir up the growth of inferiour things they provide for them by dew raine seasons but do not infuse the internall Astrum into things that grow neither smell nor colour nor forme but all things proceed from the inner Astrum or secret forger and not from without the externall stars do neither incline nor necessitate Man Man governeth the Stars and not the Stars him but Man rather inclines the Stars and by his Magicall imagination infecteth them and causeth those deadly impressions For we receive not our conditions properties and manners from the Ascendant nor from the Constellation of the Planets but from the hand of God through the breathing in of the breath of life Read the eight Psalme So that Mans Reason ought to rule the externall Stars For if we that are the children of Adam did not provoke our Father with our sins we should alwayes find him meek and gentle towards us Vid. Paracels see Paracels in Paramiro lib. 2. de origine morbor cap. 7. The course of the externall Firmament is free with its constellations and is governed by none So the course of the Firmament and Stars in Man is free with their Constellations and not at all governed by the outward Firmament which course is not finished materially but in the spirits of bodies For as the Aire or Sun cannot set an apple or pear upon the tree which must rather grow ouâ— of its own internall Astrum or inward Heaven from the Centre to the Circumference much lesse can the externall superiour Heaven infuse any vertue into the things that
suffered them perfectly to be seperated by any industry of Art Here also it is to be observed that some bodies have onely properties without Arcane or hidden secrets nor have they in them that Cherionium i. e. that wherein Nature cannot be changed but are onely barren Relollacaeous qualities i. e. qualities whose force is onely from the complexion in which there is no vertue for curing diseases Againe some bodies doe imitate the properties or qualities of Seeds and have the Tinctures in which though heat cold moysture and drinesse accord yet no actions proceed from them but onely for the present doe assist as it were the companions of the deputies in such bodies there may be a seperation made of the strong from the weak of the pure from the impure There are to us four Elementated Elements viz. Fire or the Firmament Aire Water Earth which conceive bring forth and againe receive or take into them all things they are the Fruit of the Seeds and the other Elements which by a constant and perpetuall flowing and watering doe serve unto generation from the three first are all compound bodies into which they are againe resolved these three are found in every matrix In living creatures the bones resemble the earth the flesh ayre the vitall spirit fire and the humors water and in every birth of every matrix The Soul in man is a Caelestiall Fiery Element the solid and Spermatick parts are the Earth the moyst parts as the Blood and other Humors are of the Element of Water the Aire is all that that is hollow without substance But these things as we have said are to be understood of Elementated Elements for the true Elements are Spirituall because all the least and smallest Seeds strive to imitate the oeconomy of the world and hold forth a dark resemblance of the Elements and Principles after this sort we acknowledge that the Elements are in all Things and that they are mingled with and preserved by the Balsam and Radicall Tincture Thus Water it selfe having the four Elements in it cherisheth its Seeds with a fruitfull nourishment and multiplication Thus much out of Severinus but least that which he hath said should seem obscure to the inconsiderate Reader we will now speak more clearly of the Elements He that is a true Phylosophicall Physitian and would know the four Elements or those four Pillars of the World shall understand himselfe and his own Originall From the Outward he finds the frame of the Inward viz. the true Anotomy of the great and little World Every Creature is formed out oâ— the Elements Living creaâ—â— es are assigned to the Aire Vegetables to the Earth Mineralls to the Water the Fire is that which gives life to all These are the wombs of all things The Earth as is said with the Water is the Centre the Aire circularly compasseth the Earth and Water the nine Sphaeres or Firmament with all the Stars are the Fire The true Elements with their proper Astra's are not visior sensible but as the Soul in the Body is insensible so also are the Elements in their bodies The body of the Element is a dead and dark thing the Spirit is the life and is divided into Astra's which out of themselves give their growth and fruit And as the Soule seperateth its body from it selfe and yet dwells in it so also these spirituall Elements in the seperation of all things have severed the visible bodies from themselves by seperation The potentiall Heat seperated the Stars from it selfe as in the Earth the hearbs seperate the flowers from themselves So Moysture the Aire Coldnesse the Water Drinesse the Earth that is from the Element of the Earth proceedeth an Earthy body from the Element of Water floweth a watry body from the Element of Aire an Aiery body breatheth forth is compact in its own Nature from the Element of Fire a body of Fire shines out viz. the visible Heaven and is compact in its own substance Every thing brought for anâ— grâ—wâ—â— is 〈…〉 generating matrix as the fish in the water From these bodies of the Elements things that grow doe proceed and come forth and out of these the fruit by the mediation and operation of the Astra's for no visible body is of it selfe and from it selfe but from its own invisible Element and Astrum The visible Astra's or Stars in the Firmament flame forth from the Fiery Body Of whatsoever any thing is begotten of the same also is iâ— nourished and preserved A Herring will not live out of the water therefore fire is the food and preservation of the Starrs Nostoch saith they feed on fire and at last sever it from themselves although in the lower part of the Aire it be turned into a Mucilaginous matter upon the Earth Mettalls Salts Mineralls grow out of the body of the Water From the body of the Earth spring Trees and Hearbs Our visible Elements are but the bodies and houses of others This Rule both Divines and Physicians make use of which hinder and withold their force and efficacy All things that are joyned together in a visible body choak and break the force power and operation of the inner Spirit The Earth of it self is dead yet is it the Element of an invisible and hidden life The Earth is twofold Externall or visible Internall or invisible The Externall is not the Element but the body of the Element and is the Sulphur Mercury Salt For the Element of the Earth is life and Spirit wherein lie the Astra's of the Earth which bring forth all growing things through the body of the Earth Though the Earth seem to be dead yet hath it in it selfe the seeds and seminall vertues of all things therefore it is said to be Animall Vegetable Minerall as it is made fruitfull by all other Elements it bringeth forth all things out of it selfe Thus trees hearbs grasse flowers mushromes and all growing things of the Earth are the bodies of the Astra's and fruit of the Earth out of the invisible Astra's they bring forth their fruits as flowers pears apples cherries and every one of these fruits is againe the Astrum and Seed Such is â—he vertue of the Element of water that spirituall regeneration cannot be without it as Chr. said to Nâ—c Our Fire is not the Element because like death it consumeth all things Heaven is the fourth and first Element concluding all things in it selfe as the shell doth the egge No one Element can be without another but there is alwayes found the commixture of the four Elements in the generation of all things Paracels in Pâ—ram de Entâ— There is also a twofold Water viz. the Body which is Mercury Sulphur and Salt but the Element is the life and Spirit in which the Astra's of the Water are contained which like a mother out of her Abysse bring forth all mineralls salts mettalls stones jewells sands and all the fruits of the Water which yet
whom they proceeded He is the Centre in that all things flow from him and because the Essence of all things pierceth also through all things God the Centre and Circle of all things He is the Circle because like an all-capacious Tabernacle he concludeth and comprehendeth all things Within God are all things and at the worlds end nothing shall be without him either of what was before or what hath been since the Creation what was either before it was brought forth or since it was brought forth So is Man Thus Man in imitation of his Creator is the Centre of the Creatures and the Circle of them all It was Gods pleasure that all things which he made should honour him by Man For all things in the world doe not onely look to him as their Guide and Governour for whom also they were all created but likewise on him all the Sphaeres bestow their beams operations reflections and influences and on him all the Creatures poure their vertues and effects as upon a middle Point and Retinacle or that by which they are stayed and supported As the Earth is a Receptive body of all seeds so also is Man Man is said to be the Circle in that he containeth all things in himselfe and with himselfe leadeth back all things that gushed out of that Summum Bonum or chiefest good unto the fountaine of Eternity from which they did originally spring and flow The world was the first figure or image of God Man is the image of the World the Animall or living creature is the image of Man the Zoophite or sensible hearb is the image of the Animall the Plant is the image of the Zoophite Mettalls are the image of the Plant stones represent the likenesse and images of Mettalls The great world is in every thing one with the little world as the child with its parent the prudent Ancients wilsely called Man a Microcosm or little World which few now a dayes understand that the great visible World was made Man As the great world is bipartite consisting of two parts visible and invisible so also the little world man is twofold visible in respect of his Body invisible in respect of his Spirit There are two Spirits in Man The first Spirit is from the Limbus or greater world the second from the word Fiat one a syderiall Spirit from the Firmament the other from the breath of life which is the Intellectuall Soul inspired from God and the mouth of the most High Man hath three parts a mortall Body with a Syderiall Spirit and an immortall Soule which is the cottage of the Image of God or of the holy Spirit in Man There is a two fâ—ld wisdom in Man Angelicall according to which he is to live and Animall which is not to be regarded Regeneration overcometh a bad birth If a man live sensually by his own proper and proud Will according to flesh and blood onely he is but a Brute or Beast and is known whether according to those Epithites in Scripture he be a Dog Fox Wolfe Sheep Sow or generation of Vipers of which I shall discourse more at large in my Treatise of Signatures and therefore shall forbear to speak more thereof at this time If he live Rationally then he is a Man The invisible or immortall body of Man from the breath of God is not subject to Stars or Astronomers and hath dominion over the living Creatures in his body But if he live according to the God-like Spirit upon the Tree of Life observing the property of the Image of God if I say he live according to the Talent and Treasure laid up in his Earthen Vessell and committed to him then hath he dominion over the Stars and all things else Man comprehends and carryeth all things about in himselfe whereof he is made that beareth he in himselfe He was made of the world he beareth the world about in him and is borne of the world Againe as the first matter which was a kind of ineffigiate confused Essence which Phylosophers call the Chaos and Hylen or Mother of the world was the seed of the great world so the great world is the seed of Adam or Man As the world was hid in the invisible Waters upon the Abysse or great deep Water is the Matrix of the world upon which the Spirit of God moved Gen. 1. The Earth plung'd or swam up out of the Water 2 Pet. 3.5 so Man Adam lay hid in the world The first matter was made a world and the great World was made Man As a Tree groweth from the seed the seed is the beginning of the Tree and the seed also is the end of the Tree for in every graine or seed of the Tree there lies hid another Tree So the First Matter which Paracelsus calleth the Limbus whose Earth was the WORD of the Lord was the seed of all things that were to be created As a Câ—rver and Potter out of word and clay can make a hundred severall shapes at pleasure so God extracted every creature out of the first matter and Man was the last of all as the perfect seed which againe is able out of himselfe to beget another Man like himself And though Man be not a seed as other seed is yet hath he power to cast seed out of himselfe whereby is begotten another Man like himselfe As Adam or Man carryeth the world and every creature in himselfe and is preserved by the world so every one that is borne of him bears about him that which he did viz. the whole world and is born and preserved by it as Adam was Man isâ— that Earth or field which hath all seeds in it self As the Son is not lesser then his Father so Man is not lesser then the World all men are but one man of flesh blood and spirit Therefore the knowledge of Man is to be taken from both Lights as the Son cannot be known from himselfe alone but from his Father Man hath two Fathers an Eternall whose Image he beareth and a Mortall one which is the whole world with all the creatures that is that Limus Terrae that slime of the earth or hidden Secret thing None can know the image unlesse he first know him whose image he is Hermes calleth Man an earthly God Gen. 2.7 and the most precious Esse or Being of all creatures which all Phylosophers Physitians Astronomers and Divines are to consider and diligently inquire into In the lesser world Man there is no member or part that doth not answer to some Element some Planet some Intelligence or other and to some measure and number in the Archetype or first pattern Man hath a visible body from the Elements as a fit garment and sutable cottage for the Soul From the Heaven or Firmament he hath an invisible Syderiall The perfection and dignity of Man Aetheriall and Astrall Body or chariot and vehicle of the Soule wherein the
with the Firmament of the Astra's as hath been often said like rednesse with wine whitenesse with snow or the lustre of the Sun with the Aire The other part therefore of Man or this sydereall body is called the Genius of man because it proceedeth from the Firmament it is called Penates because it is in our power and born with us the shadow of the visible body Lar domesticus the good or bad houshould or private Angell the Umbratile or shadowy Man the familiar Homuncle or little Man of the Sophies or wise men the Daemon or Genius of Man Paracelsus his internall Adech i. e. that which first inwardly formeth in our mind what we afterward outwardly fashion with our hands the Spectrum ghost or fantasie the Light of Nature the presaging or Propheticall Euestrum that foretelleth any thing by signes in Man It is also called ahe imagination which incloseth all the Astra's and is indeed all the Astra's or Starrs and holdeth the same course Nature and power with heaven Now the Astra's or Stars by which I do not meane the seaven visible coales of Heaven which are but the bodyes of the Astra's but I meane the invisible and insensible body of all things or Astrall Spirit they are nothing else but the verue or powers of the Angells The Angells which live only upon the vision of God are the created wisdome of God Hence it is that he that knowes God he knows the Astra's also He that knowes the Astra's cannot but knowe the world and consequently man the off-spring of the world The eating of the apple produceth this body the sydereall seed into force vigour Astrum Vulcanus and Archaeus are the same thing but one Spirit yet without Reason divers as are the divers formes of severall things The Astra's form bring forth all bodily things out of themselves and multiply themselves together with those bodily things that are brought forth the seeds of any graine or Wheat is the Astrum viz. the invisible body which being cast into the Earth it produceth a visible body and begetteth many other Astra's out of it selfe So is it in other growing and living things But the Astrum is nothing else but the insensible invisible body or living Spirit yet without Reason in things that grow but with reason in living things as in man and is divers according to the forme of divers things Bodyes are nothing else but the Excrement of the Astra's which are brought forth into a bodily Being by their operation This every Astrum can doe of it selfe as by imagination to bring forth of it selfe another Astrum in a body forming it by operation There is no body without an Astrum The Astralick Spirit is every growing thing standeth in need of a corporeall habitation The inner Man is Heaven it selfe or all the Astras Read in Picus how Trimethius put upon himselfe the various Evestra's of the three-fold world one after another transformed himselfe into several shapes and thus by reall Magick he shewed to that great Picus the hidden virtue or power of Man who was created after the image of God We are transformed into that which we most intently gaze and meditate upon The understanding of Man is assimulated to all things The impression of the Imagination from fear terrour griefe is the â—ife of sicknesse and death The Astra's send the plague into us through our skin as the Sun doth his beams thhrough the glasse as there is no Astrum without a visible body And whereas the imagination of Man is not one but all the Astra's it is as true that it produceth not onely one but many operations and although the Imagination be incorporeall and invisible yet being joyned to a heightned the Gate of Wonders the spring and originall of all Magicall operations and hath power to beget and bring forth visible bodies without detriment or diminution of the Astrall and sydereall Spirit and can work any wonderfull operations whatsoever present or absent above the reach of humane Reason The Light of Nature makes bodily things visible but Eternall things are to be seen onely by Faith The child in the mothers womb is strangely marked by the impression of the imagination without any bodily touch What we doe visiby by the body that doe we by Faith after the manner of Spirits Thus the Imagination breedeth the Plague and such like Firmamentall diseases it brings sicknesse and health The Pestilence which comes by fear trouble and terrour riseth by the imagination of the Spirit of the lesser world or of the Sydereall and Animall Spirit which is the mechanick Astrall Spirit in Man as we see in women with childe who give marks and tokens to the young in their womb by the same sydereall Spirit This sydereall Spirit which is born of the Astra's together with Man and therefore remains united to the Astra's is the Load stone and hath a magnetick nature in man As the Earthy Load stone in its body is a spirit and draweth to it selfe so also the body and spirit in Man doe draw unto him by a visible body this is the Load stone of the Microcosm The sydereall body and spirit attract unto them the force of the Astra's as we see in those that are Lunatick in whom the agreement properties and affinities of such magnetick vertues with the Spirit and sydereall body of Man hath with the Astra's are made manifest This fourth kind of Naturall Magick called Gamahaea doth all things invisibly and spiritually by the help of Art which Nature is able to doe visibly and corporally without such help The House is as it were dead but the Inhabitant to wit the Spirit of perpetuall motion of invisible Nature or the magnetick spark of the Soule of the world liveth and worketh effectually All Animall wisdome Wisdome is the begâ—nning of Inchantment the Astra's do those things which Humane wisdom desireth In respect of the Elementatary body it is a Spirit and performeth all spirituall operations Heaven knoweth all things most certainly all actions and events of Men are pictured in the Astra's every living Creature hath its Ascendant signe in Heaven so hath also the Brutâ—sh Man Every Body is proceeded of an invisible incomprehensible subsisting Spirit The 〈◊〉 is a three fold NIHIL or Nothing a Divine Privative and Negative NOTHING the Oâ—gan of the Lâ—ght of Nature or of the Astra's The whole Heaven is nothing else but the Imagination It breedeth the Plague and and Fevers in Mâ—n any bodily instrument workmanship Arts Sciences and the knowledge of all things lie hid in the Astra's of the Firmament There is nothing so hidden in the world which is not praefigured in the Astra's yea all the Astra's of the Firmament which are the Tincture of the speculation of our mind can of their own in-bred or naturall force by imagining produce bodily and visible things out of that which doth not appear as in a clear Heaven a great cloud suddenly
ariseth from whence come raine mire snow dew thunder haile which though they were Nothing before production yet being produced out of invisible things they become great bodies Whence we may observe that all things in the first Creation were produced out of the DIVINE NOTHING or invisible Cabalisticall Poynt into something which God did in a moment for his works cannot be delayed by time All things proceeded out of the invisible Darknesse and were called out to the visible Light by the WORD speaking and the Spirit cherishing Now whereas Man had his Sydereall body from the Astra's of the Firmament and the whole Imagination of Man dependeth on the Astra's of the Firmament yea is the same and abideth one with them it must needs be that the Firmament also hath an Imagination but without Reason as Man the off-spring of the world hath with Reason One man striketh and hurteth another and that with Reason a nettle and fire burne and hurt without Reason Moreover whereas Man is the Quintessence of the greater world it follows that Man may not onely imitate Heaven but rule it also at his beck and reigne over it at his pleasure All things naturally obey the Soule and must of necessity move and work toward that which the soule earnestly desireth and all vertues and operations of Naturall things obey it when it is carried with a vehement desire it makes all the powers of the world serve us when by holinesse we draw vertue from him who is the true Archetype and when we ascend to him then every Creature must and will obey us and the whole Host of Heaven follow us By Faith we may do good or evillus God permitteth By the help of Imagination all Magicall operations and all wonderfull things are done through the Naturall inborn Faith by which we are at peace with the very Spirits themselves The Imagination worketh in Man like the Sun for as the bodily Sun worketh without an instrument upon the subject burning it to coals and ashes so the incorporeall cogitation of Man worketh on the subject by the spirit onely as with a visible instrument what the visible body doth that also doth the invisible body This 〈◊〉 the Gaâ—ae 〈…〉 Art as the sydereall Man doth hurt unto another The Imagination of Man is the Loadstone that attracteth above a 1000 miles off yea in its Exaltation it draweth unto it whatsoever it wilout of the Elements But the ImaginatioÌ„ is no efficacious unles first it attract the thing conceived by the attractive force of the imagination that it may beget the Architect of the Imagination as a native spirit out of it selfe afterward the Imagination being as it were with child maketh impression which though it be not tangible yet it is corporeall like the wind Magick or Faith transplanting minds hath power over all Spirits and Ascendants Hence the true Magician or wise Man can attract the operation of the Astra's stones mettalls c. into the Imagination to make them excercise the same force and power with the Astra's as for example by a burning Glasse the beams of the Sun are derived unto us with its heat The Imagination can produce whatever we see with our eyes in the greater world Thus by Imagination and true Gabalia all hearbs all growing things all mettalls may be produced This part of Magick is called Gabalisticall and is supported with three Pillars First with TRUE PRAYERS made in Spirit and Truth when God and the Created Spirit are united in the Holy of Holyes when God is prayed unto in the internall Spirit not with noyse of words but in a sacred silence without opening the mouth and groaning Secondly by NATURALL FAITH or in-born Wisdome which God the Father equally communicated to all men in the Creation as to his own proper flock and common patrimony Thirdly by a strongly exalted IMAGINATION how great and how wonderfull the strength or force thereof is the Light of Nature doth manifestly shew Gen. 30.37 c. as well in Jacobs Rods mentioned by Moses as in pregnant women who imprint the mark of that which they long for upon the child as hath been said The Imagination or Fantasie of Man is like the Load stone in its Nature attracting the Fantasie of other men as we see in those that gape and yawn A vehement Imagination doth not onely cause a transmutation of ones own body but sometimes also of anothers by way of imitation to wit by a certaine kind of Vertue which the similitude of the Thing hath unto that Thing that is to be changed which is moved by a vehement Imagination as appeareth in astonishment or swouning in crashing or creaking of teeth in grating one piece of Iron against another c. whereby the teeth are set on edge in like manner yawning provoketh yawning Many by their melancholly Imagination and diffidence have exposed themselves to the temptation of the uncleane Spirit and sometimes have been overcome by it True Faith is the cure of a false Imagination Many fall sick and recover againe by the Faith of Imagination Many also by their intent Imagination without distrust of their weaknesse by a constant and most firme Faith toward God by a mind lifted up most high by infallible hope constant and most ardent prayers have so prevailed that on a sudden they have become the Temples of the living God The Sum of all is that we worship God devoutly in honesty and holinesse as the more secret Theosophers or wise-hearted to God well know for by the ardent and devout intention of him that prayeth with Fear and Trembling the Understanding or Mind flaming with a Religious love is joyned to the separated Intelligences For internall Prayer proceeding with abundance of affection from a Godly mind and continued with a fervent desire uniteth the mind with God and learneth and knoweth all things of God Few men think what the Mind can doe that is disposed by true faith and more few by far there are who know how to exercise the same by a supernaturall influence which doth rule and governe the body The purified Mind like a river entereth into the very inmost secrets of things beyond all shadowes though there be many who know this disposition yet by reason of worldly cares and thoughtfulnesse wherewith they are overwhelmed they can doe nothing that favoureth of true Wisdome But thus much of these things Such like contemplations as these which are of greatest Antiquity will seem harsh and crabbed to the rude and vulgar sort of men for few read them and fewer understand them and they require a larger narration then can be made of them at this time To returne therefore to our purpose It is of greatest concernment that all Chymists should bewell acquaintedwith this true Fundamentall of the occult Phylosophycal Physick because of the Harmonicall concord and conspiration between the superiour and inferiour things of the greater and lesser world in clearing which Foundation
next to Paracelsus Petrus Severinus the Dane together with Pratensis that faithfull Achates deserveth to be numbred among the Ancient wise men having got perpetuall praise by discovering to the Children of Art and Truth this firme and unmovable Foundation with much solid and unshaken verity in his Idaea of Paracelsean Physick maugre the malice of all his adversaries who have been sufficiently confuted and for ever silenced by my honoured friend Joseph Quercetan Councellour and most worthy Physitian to the King of France by Th Bovius an Italian of Verona and Th Muffet an Englishman the best Hermetick Physitians of this age in their golden writings of Eternall memory CHAP. II. Where that True Physick is to be Found EVery thing that God created Good is extreamly perfect and incorruptible as the heaven but whatsoever is in these sublunary inferiour things hath a twofold Nature Wheat doth norgrow without a place nor can we have meale without bran neither is hony without a sting Such Secrets are regenerated without any complexion of qualities a perfect and an imperfect that is a fift Essence and the dreggs may be separated one from the other by fire Seing therefore the true medicine or Physick is wrapt up in rindes barks matrixes receptacles husks garment and cottages as Almonds and all kernells are covered with bark and rind for Nature doth not bring forth the kernell of the Chestnut with a shell and prickly husk it is of necessity that the same must be seperated from the impure Elements by the artificiall Anotomy of Chymists before we can come at the pure Medicine For the bonds are loosed by art and industry and the faculties of healing set at liberty Therefore in all orders of things that are cherished in the bosome of the Elements to wit in those three Families of Nature the Vegetable Animall and Minerall out of which are commonly had medicines enough to preserve the health and cure all bodily diseases there is contained that True and specifix Physick of materiall distempers which as hath been said doth not consist in the four outward naked superficiary and Relollaceous qualities as Theophrastus learnedly discourseth but it is a certaine specifix vertue concealed in the very Seeds naturally proceeding without art which the Creator that great Workmaster of all things in the beginning of all the Creation planted in every growing thing by vertue of that omnipotent Word whereby all things were brought out of darknesse into Light The faculties and vertue therefore wherewith mixt bodies are indued like the soule in mans body from the beginning of the Creation is not from without Heaven is the framer of the externall edifices not of the Secrets Wonders and mysteries that dwell in them nor infused into them by a momomentaneous position of the Stars nor made up of a fortuitous meeting of Atomes it proceedeth not from the body nor the mixture of the body or visible forme for then it could not be separated without the destruction and corruption of the body and forme as we see in Cinamon and Pepper whose virtues being extracted either by art or vanishing by age and long keeping For as all Naturall actions proceed from Spirits and spirituall Tinctures in which the mecanick sciences of the Three principles have their vigour so the actions of Cures proceed from the Spirits and vitall Tinctures of the spirits not from the bodies or dead Relloceous qualities And seeing it is granted by the Interpreters of Secret Nature that there is nothing in the whole Universe every particular whereof is not also in that Microcosm Man as hath been said yea and that the seeds of all things lye hid in him as of the Stars Meteors Mineralls Vegetables Animalls Spirits even of Daemoris in respect of the Spirit of Man upon diligent consideration of this Symmetricall concord and Physicall anagoge it hath been the part of True Physitians to enquire that if the internall Heart of the Microcosm or Man should be sick how they might borrow strengthning remedies from his Parent or the externall Heart of the Microcosm which is one like the other if not in outward yet in inward figure and forme which remedies are analogically represented All the whole inferiour Nature is divided into three principall parts i. e. Vegetable Animall and Minerall such as may many ways be got out of those three shops of Cures For God created an inexhaustible supply of medicines and distributed to every Country sufficient for it selfe Thus among Mineralls men may find Gold which cheareth up the Spirits when a man hath enough of it in his purse Antimony and the like which are produced out of the Element of Water as Gemms and precious stones in shells are generated of drops of water as also all bodies of Oysters Musles and shell fish which by a specifick and Harmonicall vertue serve to cure and comfort the heart c. Thus also among Mineralls there Magicall and Hieroglyphicall Characters which sage Antiquity hath without rashnesse or superstition attributed to them that doe sufficiently insinuate to Inlightned men and Magically disclose their hidden vertue to those more secret Phylosophers that are instructed therein Although the choycest things among them which are most exquifitely and laboriously prepared by Nature doe As he that hath much Gold may know nothing of its medicinall vertue by Natures just decree with-hold their benigne and vitall Element from those that possesse them And many there are who confound the Universall Lawes of Nature and yet thinks to partake of her Banquet in the end There is no question to be made but the Gold would discover most Divine actions if it were rightly refined and had its power reduced into act by a Naturall and due Resolution that it might exercise its vertues Art imitateth Nature and supplyeth its defects it correcteth chastiseth assisteth and promoteth yea it exceedeth Nature for there is but one way to Resolve and to compound things because Art and Nature like mother and daughter consent to each other but few men have this gift of God bestowed on them so as to make solid and massy Gold potable that it may be drunk Amongst Vegetables there is Saffron Rue Balme Scordium Celandine Mace Ocymum with six hundred of the like Amongst Animalls there is Hart's horn Unicorns horn the Bone in Staggs hearts c. All which being rightly prepared in due manner doe cure the diseases of the Heart not as I have said by their Externall superficiary qualities but by an Internall proper specifick harmonious similer virtue for all things whatsoever serve to our health are all contained in the Spirits which onely know how and where to find out the disease the earthy part is altogether dead husks and rinds beget nothing the Spirits onely in the bodies of things doe all The Formes in thee medicines or Astra's of the medicaments separated by Alchymie from their bodies are the true Directoryes not the body but the Astrum or hidden Heaven gives all
filthy mixture of superficiall and externall Elements that that pure and Christiline matter may be administred to our bodies But to deliver this from prison and captivity Hoc opus hic labor est is a hard task to performe It is an honorable Calling when the Physitians live long and are not idle in it for without this Chymicall Phylosophy all Physick is but livelesse Without Alchymicall skill there can be no Speculative or Practick Physick He that rejecteth that knowledge being disheartned by the difficulty thereof shall never find where the disease lyeth In this therefore our common sort of Physitians are not to be followed who patronize their sloth under other mens paines and study and use to leave the preparation of their medicines most commonly to some carelesse and covetous Apothecary to the great dammage of their Patients I speake not against the conscientious Apothecaries who by their trusty diligence serve the Common Wealth as the Alchymy of Vulcan By this artificall resolution of bodyes the propertyes which before layd in the compositions of them are now brought to light By it also as by a certaine kinde of artificiall Tynosure or figures of stars the Chymists have not only made curtaines extending to all the borders of Nature but also to the very admiration contemplation and perseption of the whole Creature and of every obstruce vertue thereof and have attained to a noble knowledge in most things and not without cause Therefore a Physitian should be exercised much in this true Analysis and vitall Anatomy of bodies as hath been said because there is no constant quality of any body which is not to be found either in the Salt or Mercury or Sulphur of the same body Vegetables comprehend plants trees Zoophyts Animalls are the beasts in their order creeping swimming flying four footed creatures But first all compound bodies of the inferiour Globe are to be distributed into three orders or companies into Animalls Vegetables and Mineralls the individualls of all these and the parts of the individualls are diligently to be examined and so we shall find out the notable differences of the three First things viz. Salt Sulphur and Mercury in every particular order For in the shop of Nature there is Animall Vegetable Minerall Salt Animall vegetable minerall Sulphur vegetable animall minerall Mercury The first face of Things was pure sound perfect without corruption and death For the great and all working God for his infinite glory sake created all things good by his Will that all things might glorifie him and live holily and incorruptably according to the prescribed order Man at first was created healthy sicknesse entred by the Woman not by the Man but when he came into the world he found out an entrance unto death because there appeared two contraries the externall corruptable and the internall compleat which could not long continue in one without unavoydable corruption Therefore after the transgression and fall from unity to alterity by the curse of God new Tinctures came in even infinite evills by whose mixture with the miserable state of our life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 together with that troublesome companion the world the beauty of the whole Creature was transplanted The transplantation of the Creature is by the calamity and coming in of sicknesse upon it since the Fall me carry in their own bosome their enemy both of creation and propagation which causeth sicknesse and death by inbred contrariety and corruption Impurity was joyned to the pure roots which was the predestination of diseases For the roots of sicknesses in certaine individuall or species doe not consist apart by themselves but are implanted and mixt in the pure and first seeds of things but the nourishments of Naturall things are the fruits of those seeds which spring up in the foure wombs or Elements Nature therefore as it is now gives us nothing that is pure in the world but hath mixed all things with many impurities that as by the spur of necessity it might often put us in mind that we should begin to learn the knowledge of Chymistry from our cradles that so long as we are shut out of Paradice into the subburbs of this world we ought to till and manure the EARTH to wit the whole frame of the world by admiration searching into and knowledge of both the Visible and Invisible Limus Earth and that we should labour to get our bread and other necessary things for this present life as Natures Labourers not lazily but in the sweat of our browes that by this means by laying the Crosse upon us which we should bear with patience it might stir up our industry in this LAND of LABOUR to attain the fruits of Terrene and Caelestiall Wisdome least base and sluggish idlenesse make us wax leane and pine away or because we are more prone to all kind of sin and vice by doing nothing we should learn to doe naughtily He that hath learned to know God himselfe hath ordered the Earth with good husbandry by â—oo much licentiousnesse men grow worse become like bruite beasts but idlenesse the pillow cushion of the Devill is removed by labour and diligence And this is the true end of Mans Creation that in the fear of God and love of his neighbor he should manage the Earth recovering what he hath lost and not be idle but walking iâ— the Light of Nature not after his own but according to the will of his Creator he should continue the Instrument Habitation and Tabernacle of God and that he should walk in the Wayes of the Lord for avoyding evill and idle thoughts that he should through Nature search out the wonderfull works of God by consideration of Temporall and Caelestiall observations thereby to make known the invisible works of God celebrating the infinite Wisdome Power and perpetuall Goodnesse of the Creator in admiration of his marvellous works wonders and mysteries which he hath revealed But to passe from Food let us come to Physick concerning which there is no man so sottish or stubborn unlesse he had rather eate the husk and shells with the kernell as the former and more rugged generations have done who will dislike this Separatory art which teacheth rightly to discerne and seperate the Good from the Bad the Profitable from the Unprofitable the Stupefactive from Fire the minerall Spirit from the Anthos or blossome the Homogeneans from the Heterogeneans Poyson from healing Medicines and Balsoms Light from Darknesse Life from Death Day from Night Visible from Invisible Putrefications onely are the true Correctives of all Physick As Death separateth eternall and perishing things so doth Fire the good from the bad the Quint-Essence from the body that which is pure Celestiall the kernall and Marrow from that which is Terrestrial Impure the Rinds and Membranes the Covers Shells Husks and dreggs the Coate aed Cottage of Physick which are enemyes to mans body from the Soul the Inhabitant thereof the Super-elementall
Theophrast his Manuel Minerals conduce much to the health of Man for since Man hath Physick for his body from the world because he is a world therefore all Mineralls are for Mans good that which is contained in the Physicall body is applyed to his minerall If there be any who out of their simplicity shall say that mettalls are of no use in Physick at least in the civill life although they are the fruit of Elements as well as living things and Vegetables and created though not for Mans food yet for his Physick or that there is no agreement or likenesse especially of those perfect Mettalls with mans body although man partaketh of those Three first let them know that the Animall Vegetable and Minerall sperm or seed have but one rise or originall and differ onely in Quality of Place and Receptacle Animall Vegetable and Minerall principles are one and the same in all things but have various Receptacles for there is one of Vegetables another of Mineralls for all these proceed from one most principall and generall principall kind which is the generall seed of all things or subject of the first matter and to be distributed into three principall kinds Animall Vegetable and Minerall from which Nature hath the nature of Quick-silver to create every other Compound All things are from one Principle and tendeth to one In Orpheus his Night and Hippocrates his river Orcus all things are but One like Anaxagoras his Pamsperm which Aristotle unjustly condemned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he did not well understand it Thus also the Spirit of life is united through out the whole body of man but is various according to parts of the body in which it is But when that one onely Nature the Essence and Matter of all things came forth upon the Stage of this world by the pleasure of God which Nature is the Specifick of every Creature it brought in with it various wonderfull bodies and of manifold distinction according to the disposition and variety of the Place and Receptacle and according to the agitation and operation of the Universall spirit here Vegetables grow there Mineralls are digged in another place living creatures are generated and one gives place alwayes for the nourishment of another This is the set Order for the government of the sublunary Family that Mineralls should nourish Vegetables Vegetables feed beasts and beasts men which could not be if the nature of one thing did not by affinity partake of the nature of another and this by propinquity and vicinity partake of the first kind from which all things proceed Rom. 8. See Paracelsus his Apocalyps of Herines The Soule of the world is a kind of united life filling gathering and knitting together all things that of the three sorts of Câ—catures the Intellectuall Ceâ—eâ—â—â— and Corrupâ—ible it mâ—ght make up one Masse and frame of the whole world by the vertue which it hath from the Idea's or pattern it maketh all things both naturall and artificial I to be fruitfull by infusing into them occult qualities which are commonly called the Fift Effences Nature the Image of Goâ— is the invisible Fire or fiery vigour by which all things are multiplyed-Nature many times makes it selfe merry with its magistery or mastership and rejoyceth in its master and in its art and vertues All things flow from one Fountaine which after they have done their work and quitted the Stage of Vanity are returned to their own places Where they are blessed with unchangable Rest That universall Spirit which liveth in and quickneth this whole Masse which worketh all in all and filleth the whole world that Power of God which comprehendeth all the world in it Agrippa calleth it the subject of all mirability the Ens or Being that cannot be comprehended by sence Avicen saith it is the Soule of the world powred into all things building on the authority of Plato the Arabians and Caldeans but this we must hearken to without any superstition or Idolatrous worship giving honour onely to One God and ascribing to him his glory which we will not give to another Nature I say is that medium which by an Harmonicall consent joyneth the lowest things to the highest and sometimes is called Animall sometimes Vegetable sometimes Minerall according to the diversity of the subject or receptacle and doth often work even to amazement in the three Families of Nature as hath been manifested among other things by a memorable example in that Silesiac child in our age which was born though not with a golden yet with a gilded tooth in the left and lower jaw which I did both see and handle when I was at Prague in the Court of that most Illustrious and Famous Prince D. Peter Vrsin à Rosis Nor is this so strange to those who diligently seek out the Hermetick Phylosophy and the marvellous works of God they that chase the secrets of hidden causes all throughout Nature and would know all that is to be known for it is not unlawfull to pry into those things which exceed even naturall order these are not so much astonyed at the sports of Nature because from the intimacy of more hid and secret Phylosophy they know that that same Spirit and minerall Nature which produceth Gold in the bowells of the Earth is also in Man That Spirit in Gold is the same with the generating spirit of all Creatures and is the same and onely generative Nature diffused through all things This Spirit now hath assumed a Naturall body It is that which first moveth and ruleth Nature in all naturall things it preserveth all things and all inferiour things by a kind of Harmonicall consent are governed by it Albertus Magnus writeth that in his time there hath been Gold found in the bodyes and heads of some that were hanged in his Book of Mineralls he saith that Gold may be found every where There is not saith he that thing Elementated of the four Elements in which Gold Naturally may not be found in the last subtiliation thereof And therefore the Phylosophers say that the matter of their Mystery may be had every where because it consisteth in every Elementated thing In his Mineralls Albertus also proveth that the greatest Minerall vertue is in every Man but especially in the head among the teeth and writeth that in his time in the graves of them that had been long buryed there was Gold found among the teeth in little small and long graines which could not be if there were not a minerall vertue in Man which minerall vertue is in the Elixer of Phylosophers Thus Morienes that excellent Phylosopher the most skilfull and expert Chymiologer when he answered King Calid who inquired after the matter of the Elixer It is of thee O King said he Lullius was a divine most compleat Phylosopher whom Paracel blamed without a cause The matter of a stone is said to be in every thing in respect of the first movâ—r in natural
from the impure and restore his Patient to health by a wise Alchymicall preparation As Gold is tryed seven times in the fire so should a Physitian be pâ—oved by Chymistry which sepereteth the good from the bad also he must have somthing of his own Experience confirmed by a diligent inspection into Natures works For Phylosophy is a practicall Physicke helping the Physitian to any medicine in a readynesse and he it is who at length becomes a good Physitian born of the Light of Nature to whom Nature communicateth his Experience But never was there any man that ever knew and publisht such hard and hidden secrets in all Phylosophy and Physicke by Heavens undouâ—ted blessing as to speak but truth did that THEOPHRASTVS PARACELSVS a man and a Phylosopher most worthy of an Eternall Name and honor whose skill no man ever yet attaind unto much lesse exceeded the true Monarch of Physicke and first Physitian of man who alone since Noe's time hath written of the Internall Astrall Man and the service which God created him for as also of the originall both Naturall and Metaphysicall of great and incurable diseases which none of the former Physitians did ever so much as dream of much lesse our Students of Heathenish Phylosophy from whence all errour springeth so that as hath been said they have taken no notice of that twofold unknown body of the Creatures to wit that Mortall Elementated Physicall and visible Corporeall body of the Elements and the Astrall Sydereal and invisible of the Firmament and the stars All Sciences are perfectly attained unto by the Fundamentall of Faith and new Regeneration or Celestiall Transplantation The Intellectuall Soul of Man that divine Light flowing out of that spiracle of God and Divine springs pertaineth to the Invisible Phylosophy whose foundation is CHRIST Our study therefore and profession of Phylosophy should be Christian-like not after the manner of the Heathen in hollow empty language and temporaneous Arts preferring the mortall and perishing before that which is Eternall Nor are we onely to know all Nature externally and internally but we are also to make it our onely businesse that according to the Fundamentall knowledge of the same by the supernall help of the Light of Grace we may together with Christ and all the Elect possesse that Eternall Life unto which God hath created us A man cannot have better Phylosophy then fâ—om God in the Regeneration this is true Theologicall Phylosophy Wherefore the New Birth is first to be sought for and then all other Naturall things will be added without much labour But let us return againe to Theophrastus He was a man singularly well skild in Chymistry though he were not the Auther of that Art There have been abundance of Phylosophers who have made use of there ingenuity and memory instead of bookes This kind of Phylosophy hath been in good esteem among many Nations who were famous by that Art before Theophrastus was born and from whom Paracelsus hath secretly borrowed many things For that noble Pyronomicall Art hath been most ancient against which none but Dolts and Dunces have unworthyly cryed out which heretofore was known only to Kings Princes some few of most diligent searchers out of Naturall Phylosophy which of late hath not been a little improved by that Monarch of Mysteryes Paracelsus Who by the singular providence and impulse of God endeavoured to bring to light restore and amplifie the Ancient doctrine which by a fatall depravation and neglect of times and men was lost and obliterated for many years to wit the True and Philosophicall Physick which none in his time assayed to restore the great obscurity of which art he laboured also to evolve and illustrate The Physitian that God maketh can doe all things All power is from the Lord God without whom no Creature can do any thing therefore all wonders mysteries and secrets are to be attributed to God onelâ— not to the Devill Creature or Stars James 1.17 and to purge it from the fucous guile and vizard of imposture yea even to recall the universall consonancy of the Sciences and Muses by a kind of divine copulation from the compasse of the whole circle unto the one only Centre Behold therefore the Divil that perpetual enemy the inseperable malicious companion of man the approaching the appearing Truth hath stirred up his Emissaries and catch-poles whom he doth yet dayly egg and set on with a dogged hatred to keep others from the manger in which they cannot lye themselves and envy that singular Good which was ordained for mans necessityes I know not whether their impiety or blasphemy be the greater that whereas they ought with all humble and thankfull acknowledgement and due reverence to ascribe unto the Author of Physick from whom as from the Father of Lights is every good and perfect gift those singular gifts for the curing of those accustomed and desperate diseases which gifts were bestowed upon Theophrastus who by peculiar influence was born a Physitian they doe notwithstanding with an impious and sacrilegious boldnesse yea also with a nefarious and inexpiable wickednesse attribute these gifts according to the venome of their heart against the truth like the Pharisees of old to the Devil himselfe as though the wicked one were the worker of those cures and thus they make the Devill stonger then the blessed and glorious God though he be bound fast with the cord of the Omnipotent and is kept deprived of the Light of Grace and Nature Those things are to be ascribed to God alone and to his Law as to the Author of the whole Universe and of Nature which they are not afraid to fasten on the Devill who hath no power over the Will and Understanding of Man And thus they worship Devills instead of God blaspheming the Glory Goodnesse and Omnipotency of God and by a malicious ignorance obscuring his Wisdome or hidden Image in Man It doth not become our German Physitians to doe their own Country of Germany such wrong and to contemn those Secrets which God hath granted to their Nature they commend onely that which is none of their own but rather greedily desire what is of strangers and with an unworthy and base spirit suppresse and trample upon what is from among themselves just as it befell Pet. Ramus from his malicious populer adversaries because he stopt the current of youthfull studies in the silly common and corruptible Phylosophy For as the Aristotelians unworthily rose up and set themselves against him even so doe the mingle mangle Physitians against Theophrastus Paracelsus whose learning is deservedly admired and wondered at by Forraine n = * For he hath written to than it is impossible for any to imitate him See Paracels de Fundamento Saâ—ientia and his Book called Saâ—sâ—m Corda He that doth not carelesly read but inwardly examine his writings will perceive as much Nations And not content in respect of his Physick to thrust their
sickle into another mans harvest Divinity should dweâ—l in Physick as the Soule in the body they blush not also to wrangle against his Divinity which they have neither seen nor read nor by reason of their blockishnesse can they understand inasmuch as he onely is able to judge of Truth who is inspired with Divine Wisdome in which his Divine writings he hath successelesly endeavoured to make known to the ingratefull gratefull and unworthy world that invincible united Fundamentall of Theologicall and Phylosophicall Truth and perfect Piety Numen Lumen Divine Power and Light these two make a perfect Man When the Light of Nature is well known God or the Divine power of Grace is well known also By meditating or contemplating we know by knowing we are delighted by delighting we adhere by adhearing we possesse by possessing we injoy the Truth which is the food of our soules Read Div. Dionys and Pic Miâ—anâ—d Cant. 1 8 taken out of the Book of Grace and Nature that is that our mind should be raised up to God and our eyes lifted up to look after the Truth and to a desire of future Blessednesse through the Regeneration Without Phylosophy it is impossible to be absolutely godly nor shall any man be ever able compleatly and Christianly to Phylosophize in either Light who is not truely godly The two Lights are well known within which are all thing without which is nothing and no perfect knowledge of any thing The Light of Grace begetteth a true Theologer yet not without Phylosophy The Light of Nature which is the Treasury of God confirmed in the Scriptures maketh a true Phylosopher yet not without Theoligie which is the Foundation of true Wisdome The works of God are bipactite Philosophy comprehendeth the works or way of Nature Theologie onely knoweth the works and way of Christ In these two wayes we are to walk and spend our short time that we may die in Peace and Joy Hence it is plaine that every true Theologer is a Phylosopher and every true Phylosopher is a Theologer After Paracelsus others attempted this study following the same strait and compendious tract most holy godly men of blessed and honourable memory and most sound both in innocence and learning such as Paulus Brawn of Norimberge Valentinus Weigelius and Petrus Winzius men educated and inlightned not in the sensuall school of fools nor in the rationall school of Schollers but in the third school of perfect Men that Mentall or Intellectuall school of Pentecost in which the Prophets and Apostles and all truly learned men walking in the Life and steps of Christ have been taught and learned without labour and toyle these gave themselves wholly thereunto as the manuscripts of their ingenuity and engraven monuments which they have left behind are no lesse then divine witnesses thereof unto eternity and by the favour nf the most High will in their time come to Light unlesse the indignity and ingratitude of the world keep them back that so according to the good pleasure of the Divine Will the minds of those that read them who yet are with-held in this hell of the body under the yoak of misery may by the assistance of divine Grace after a serious knowledge and lamentatation of our Fall through frequent and daily contemplation of Heavenly things and the annihilation abnegation immolation and mortification of themselves by Christ casting all shadows behind them and turning inward unto themselves into the Temple of the heart that so I say they might by a daily practice of Piety fetch out that huge Talent and Treasury which is hid and shut up within themselvs least like miserable mortall men who know not themselves and consequently nothing else lazily neglecting God within themselves and in their blindnesse and ignorance going backward after the steps of his flocks The more we seek after things without us the more we forget and loose our selves what will it profit us to hunt through all things and neglect our selves 1 John 2.20 27. Psal 98. Hab. 2.20 Psal 58.84 85. Phil. 3. Zech. 2.13 1 Cor. 3.9 God is to be waited for with a quiet mind when the sences are laid asleep who bestoweth his benediction where in he findeth his own vessells Christ is to be found in the Temple of the Heart should in vaine seek those things without them by many books mortall masters long journeys with great and constant paines study and wearinesse which yet inwardly they might possesse abundantly within themselves if they were indeed dead to themselves even to the whole Animall Man who is nothing but EARTH and were supprest by the Sabbath and oblivion of Temporall things and entred into themselves with David Psal 40 1. patiently waiting for God our master who dwelleth in his holy Temple in the Abysse of the heart or inward parts of our Soule Psal 5.7 speaking in us by his spirit and that they should not hinder him who is willing and desirous to inlighten our mind and to work all our works in us which is the utmost happinesse and Blessednesse of Man and the very determinate and appointed End of the Cabala or secret wisdome But alasse for griefe unhappy foolish and miserable men had rather abide in themselves to their greatest damage and detriment of their right then to be happy and wise in God with God and alway in the presence of God The heart of a Regenerate man is Gods Eden or Garden of Pleasure wherein he dwelleth For God made the World and Man that he might dwell in them as in his own proper house or Temple though now he is not discerned by reason of the Dark Point of the Quaternary but at the end of this world which is to be Renewed by the Ternary of Man Apoc. 21.23 the Regeneration according to Soul Spirit and Body the New Jerusalem wherein the Unitrine Essence of God and the Holy and most Holy Trinity inseperably dwell will sparkle and glitter out with a radiant fiery colour like a Rubie or Carbuncle thorow the clear spotlesse beautifull body O thrice happy is he and more in whom as in a Bodily Angel God himselfe is the Man in the Temple of whose incontanimate mind God is the Ghest where Mans Left hand knoweth not what Gods Right hand doth Unto this God the one and onely scope and end of all mens eyes should look The Creature is juâ—ily oblidged to obey the Creator that our will may be one with God Gen. 6.3 The Fall of Man and our great evill is to depart from Unity to Alterity I never go abroad among men but I come home lesse a man then when I went forth Seneca casting aside all impediments in the way there being nothing in this world but Vanity of Vanities all is vanity but to love God and cleave to him by serving him alone and so to be united to the true Being by an humble subjection least through disobedience a proud will and selfe-love neglecting the
Spring which brake out this yeare in the coasts of Misnia and Bohemia unto which almost an incredible number of sick and weake people dayly resort For which there can be no other reason given but the constant excessive affection of them that use it which power is in the very soul of him that takes the medicine when without any feare or sinister imaginations it is carryed to some great excesse of its desire For the rational soul rouzed up and inflamed with a vehement imagination overcometh even Nature it selfe and by her strong affections renueth many things in her own body and causeth sicknesse or health not only in her own body but in others also He that falls mad by the biting of a mad dogg will have the shape of doggs appearing in his urine Thus the lust and longing of a pregnant woman worketh upon another body when through oblivion of her selfe she imprints the marke of the thing longed for upon the child in her womb as saffron coloureth water For by her Imagination she formeth the infant as a Potter doth the clay Fear trembling and appetite are the chiefe cause of the fancy estimation and imagination of women with child Therefore when she begins to imagine There are impressions of the inferior 〈◊〉 Astrâ—â—â— then the Astra's of the microcosmicall Firmament or the Astra's of the humane Mind are moved with the phantâ—cy estimation and imagination just as the externall Astra's of the microcosmicall Firmament where the Astra's ascend and descend every moment till the impression be made in which impression the Astra's of the Imagination of the great bellied women doe print an Influence and impression upon the child as Engravers mark their work with an iron stamp Therefore it is better the body be sick than the soul good words are the Physitians of a sick Soul In lib. de Anima The body is corrupted by the passions of the Soulâ— the mind is nor impassible of the â—â—â—tions of the body This Naturaâ—â— Faith 〈◊〉 the Wiâ—â—◠〈◊〉 the Creator bestowed upon thâ— Creature thaâ— was made after his likenesse although it can do all things yet ought it to keep and observe the property of the Image All things are possible to him that believeth and is willing All things are impossible to the unbeliever and rebellious as he thinketh and imagineâ—h the thing to be so it must be Unbeliefe is the greatest and most powerfull enemy of Faith For the Imagination joyned with Faith can do all things The Fares also make diseases incurable when we perceive by the deny all of such help which we expected from the ministring of fiâ— medicines Thus it is manifest that the affections of Mind when tâ—ey are most vehement are able to deprive of Life as in histories we read And this is well known to every man that many through overmuch joy or too much sorrow by too much love or hatred have dyed and many times by the like passions have been cured of long diseases because as Avicen saith Nature obeyeth the cogitations and vehement desires of the Soul and when the spirit is affected the body in which the spirit lies hid is affected also Againe the aforesaid Naturall Faith its efficacy manifested it selfe in the woman that had the bloody issue and in the Centurion Man who was created after the likenesse and image of God and savouring as it were of a Celestiall Majesty hath great things in his hands and power Gen. 32.25 26. It is well known to all what great matters a constant Credulity in an elevated or raised Mind can doe by a strong imagination even so great that in false intense opinions and operations it worketh miracles But haesitation of Credulity and diffidence doe not onely shatter and break the vertue or force of the operating mind which is the mean between both extreams but do also weaken every work as well in Superstition as in true Religion and enervate the desired effect even of the most powerfull Experiments And that which is here diligently to be observed Mar. 13.58 Marke 6.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Saviour as Holy Writ saith was not able to work miracles in Capernaum because they believed not but with their incredulity and false faith resisted him For as man can done nothing without God Mat. 9.1 2. so likewise God will doe nothing without Man as his Organ or Instument God and the Creature both together neither without the other Therefore no Man ought to will without God because no Man can Be without God in whom we are and live and are moved Eightly Least the sick party recovering should commit greater sins against God his neighbor and himselfe to the losse of his Soul for every sicknesse is as it were an expiation or propitiatory of sacrifice either the just Judge by this Divine innate revenge pennance and scourge doth call him to amendment of life for the time to come or that by this Fatherly visitation and imposition of the crosse which he ought patiently to indure he may be a pattern to himsefe and his neighbour for the more fervent Fear and Worship of God for God many times permitteth some men to fall into many and great sicknesses whose minds have been greivously infected distempered by the gladsome and pleasant health of the flesh together with the continuation of their sins to the losse of their Eternall health For health is nothing worth seeing it is but condemnation to us if our sins be not forgiven Moreover sins weaken the powers of the Soul and make it impotent to the Naturall Government of the body Therefore the powers of the body are enfeebled and hasten to death Job 33.19 20 Or else the sick is held under this yoke and bridle of infirmity as by a wholsome Purgatory though few are reformed by their sicknesse to the duty of Piety at least whilst that loose licentiousness of sinning is lopt and cut off which he would abuse if he should live and be well any longer In these diseases that arise from the resisting Astrall impression and wrath of God A Physitian beginneth in appeasing Gods wrath Job 33.26 no Corporall medicine because God hath shut the doors of Nature can do any good but onely Celestiall and spirituall viz. by serious repentance heartily to bewaile the sins that we have committed to allay the provoked wrath of God by Amendment of life and Reconciliation to our neighbor to be reconciled to God through our Saviour the Celestiall Physitian of our Soules and to submit our Will to the most righteous pleasure of the Divine Will devoutly patiently and humbly in all things with a most assured perticipation of Divine Mercy Paracelsus calleth them Deal diseases which are from the Ens of God who inflicteth all such diseases and who alone worketh by good and bad men the Cure saith he is by Faith or when the purging is perfected the Physitian may then try his skill The Causes of those diseases that
are of the Ens of God are unsearchable here the cure must be sought in Faith not in Nature as also in the cure of Deal diseases that are of the Ens of God or in the deificall or faithfull cure the predestinate Terme or period according to the Divine pleasure is to be observed CHAP. VI. Of that one onely chiefe Medicine of the most Ancient Phylosophers This occult Minerva of Phylosophy this only most precious Jewell is inestimable FUrthermore I shall here supply what yet pertaineth to that chief and universal Phylosophical Phisick than which a greater gift of wisdom we never read that divine bounty bestowed on man Not excepting so much as the very Reasonable Soul which next unto God in Heaven and Earth cannot consider or find out any thing under Heaven bestowed upon Man more admirable more sublime more noble or excellent than this most secret Secret of secret Secrets by which even wonders yea all things may be done both as to the Plannets of inferior Astronomy whose imperfection and drosse it causeth to vanish by piercing them with its most powerfull impressions for it segregateth all extraneous Sulphureity and impure Terrestreity from metallick and Humane bodies as also to the recovering covering and preserving of the languishing and lost health of the Human body by its fiery vigour besides infinite other things to say nothing now of the Magicall and super Celestial use when the Gonetick influence of the beames of the Sun and Moon and the fourth revolution is finisht upon its native Earth See the Moâ—ade of John Dee of London and Roger Bacon it is endowed absolutly with all created Influentiall power as well in the Elementall world as in the Celestiall or super celestiall it is the most wonderfull of all wonders for as God is wonderfull in all his works so doth he usually hide his wonderfull Gifts in wonderfull men All antiquity also all Verity of all Nations and Languages in the tradition of this doctrine the consent of all those most learned men who in every age have lived with the greatest admiration and prayse of many do bear witnesse that this is so Moreover besides the ocular inspectation and certification of many of our time it is easie to determine this from their writings which are woven of so many Hieroglyphicall Magicall and Mathematicall Coverings in so great and certaine a series of Phylosophicall Truth Who then would not admire and embrace so great a Gift of the greatest GOD the immortall price of his study paines and vertue which to the Pious and holy Phylosophers dignified by Nature and Education doth warrant and assure a removall of old age and renewing of youth perpetuall health and honest food and rayment without hinderance to our neighbor not by usury and fraud nor cheating wares nor by oppression of the poor as most of our rich men are now inriched but by industry of work and labour of the hands God forbid therefore that sleighting the example of the Ancients I should either deny such precious Wonders of GOD and darken the wonderfull powers of Nature for he that despiseth knowledge him the glorious and high God despiseth for rejecting this most true Art or which is worse to revile them as the most doe as if they were but the speculations of idle men or the empty dreams and fictions of a sottish and doting mind who yet among wise men doe but betray the weaknesse of their judgement and openly call witnesse of their folly Those therefore that revile and are ignorant of these divine Banquets whom the Phylosophers call fools are not to be admitted to them those also that dote in their Phantasticall dreams are utterly to be excluded Here some are listning whether trusting to my own ingenuity I dare boast also of the preparation hereof in this place or whether fot ostentation sake I ambitiously arrogate to my selfe the absolute knowledge of this Art Here I would be taken as an Index or as one standing at the door to direct others the way they should goe whom I may profit more then my self or as a whetstone to incourage them on as those covètous Mountebanks and greedy Phylosophists use to doe But because I promised the Courteous Reader a little before that I would set down at least those things which I had made tryall of I was unwilling in this place openly and most wickedly which is not the part of a wise man but of cheaters to falsifie any thing concerning the undoubted certainty of this matter For this Sacred and Divine Art and Science not of Sophisters but Phylosophers which the ignorant basely and wretchedly condemn of falshood for doubtlesse among all Arts as well Liberall as Mechanick none aboundeth with so many Imposters as this doth deserve to be reverenced for the wonderfull Secrets that are in it and to be preferred before all other earthly Sciences by those that are true Physitians who being inlightned with the Spirit of Divine Wisdome content and furnished with honest food and rayment for it cannot be that a poor or covetous man should spend his time in the study of Phylosophy doe with religious veneration pray unto God after the example of Solomon not for wealth but wisdome that he would open to them the Magazine of Divine knowledge And who measure their happinesse at least by Heaven and the Love of God the giver of every good thing Who also are moved and spurred on to search it out by the love of Secrets and of Nature according to the Divine Grace And who through a desire of getting knowledge without any foolish hope of gaine or affectation of vaine glory By Wisdome the heart is made constant doe in the fear of God refuse no honest constant and possible labor of the hands And lastly who without any malignant intention neglecting the spring of dry humane thirst doe most humbly with fear and trembling desire to use such great gifts to that End which belongs to the Master of Nature to wit the Praise and Honour of God and the good of his needy neighbor in a constant Taciturnity without pride which provoketh the envy of all men They that carry about their Treasure and use it publickly Job 22.25 By â—hese I say among the Children of the golden doctrine whose gold is the Omnipotent God that most rare Good which is to be prefer'd before all riches is justly and of right to be searched out for the health sake of men who quitting all other businesse and imployment and leaving the mettalls to those who with an impious hunger and a thirsty and insatiable desire of being rich making no difference between right and wrong do horribly vex and torment themselves night and day to the great hazard both of body and soul A Phylosopher must covet Nothing but Wisdome which is conversant about Divine things therefore a true Phylosopher never sought after nor desired riches but is rather delighted with the Mysteries of Nature
may inspire whom he will and deny it to whom he please Neverthelesse religously affirming that none can attaine the desired end though they sleight all particulars which naturally doe altogether want the virtue of tincturing unlesse they proceed from the first fountaine before the fat or blood of the Sun and the Dew of the Lunary be joyned into one body by the circular wheel of the Elements with the help of Art and Nature in the form of an Hexagon Read Gen. 1.27 28. Hermes his Table Morienes Alan Rodargir Monad Tâ—evisan Lull which can never be done except the most High God please who alone of his speciall mercy graciously bestoweth this singular gift of the Holy Spirit and impreciable price both to whom and when he seeth good And to whom he will not bestow any of his Treasures let that man use what Arts soever he can yet shall he never get any thing against the Will of God for the Spirit proceedeth from Grace who inspireth whom he will Seeing therefore all mans endeavor is but vaine except God prosper it unlesse any with the losse of this most undoubted Truth Levit. 26.20 will deny that God is the moderator of the universe and will set himselfe in opposition to the Will of his gain-saying Creator with a rash gigantick sacrilegious boldnesse and with manifest danger incur the indignation of the Divine Majesty I cannot wonder enough that in our age many great men Great men commit great errours Psal 25.14 Prov. 3.32 Wisd 1.4 Eccl. 43.32 33. wasting their time and estates should suffer themselves to be cheated and deceived with the greedy world by the golden promises of circumforaneous vitious and most lying Impostors against their own conscience not considering that without the liberall and right noble arts of which those Phylosophists and Imposters are altogether destitute having not tasted so much as a drop of the Springs of Nature no perfect perception of Mysteries can be attained to Those Gymnosophists with their Fantasticall and Frantick inventions inrich the eares of credulous men that they may make their pockets poor they promise great matters and faine that they can doe all things but their unwary disciples get nothing from them but after three or four cheats to be againe deceived by fresh and most subtile juggling deceit and fraud whose company we should avoyd even as the most raging torments of hell And that which is the chiefest thing of all the Wisdome of the Lord whose mysterie is onely with them that Fear him Great gaine is the scope of sophisticall craft because Dust Ashes is the end of such smock-sellers entreth not into such wicked and unworthy souls who have spent the whole course of their life in searching out Vanities and Deceits and of set purpose maliciously have deceived almost all the world with their guilfull devices of painting white and red and pargetting womens faces Thus these men playing away and losing the story of Pandora at length nothing else falls to their share but what Alphidius foretold should happen to them that when their braines grow giddy instead of the Tincture they should find only the colour instead of the Hermetick Stone a pibble or glasse and instead of great Treasure and riches nothing but coals and ashes Piety is the most necessary key to the knowledge of all Secrets See Rodargirus BRITTO SARMATUS his verse in Zodiâ—co PisciuÌ„â— against those sacrilegious souldiers who threatningly and malepertly rush into the Vestry of Phylosophy It is not expedient to reveal it to any carnall man because thou wilt be accuised for making known so great a Secret He that publisheth this Art let him die an evill death saith Lully because it is a secret to be given and revealed by God alone who hath created Nature and no other for he will reveal it to whom he will and to whom it doth belong to be revealed and not to others because it is the Gift of God and not of any mortal Man Job 34.11 Prov. 24.12 Apoc. 2.23 22.12 Es 3.10 11 Jer. 17.10 32.19 Ezek. 33.20 And who would not admire this efficacious transmutatory virtue of these Impostors which makes wise men fools strong men weak rich men poor and poor bankrupt men desperate and vagabond beggers But as the envy of Phylosophers is not against the Children of Art and Science who seek not their own but Gods glory and who have lived to the praise and honor of GOD the good of their Neighbour and the Salvation of their own soule so he that is an Adept and compleat Phylosopher a keeper of Gods Secrets and is conformed to the dignification of his work after he by the Blessing of God hath happily labored like Hermes more then twenty years fearing to offend the Divine Majesty will be lesse afraid to die an hundred most cruell deaths and indure all manner of miseries and punishment rather then by any means whether through wrath or what force soever shall be used to publish to the wicked enemies of the Children of Art and Science or to such as are unworthy of it this greatest and richest Terrene Treasure the Perfect Benefit or good gift of GOD descending from the Father of Lights as a Kingdom that will suffer no Com-peer from the King of Kings and Lord of Lords that terrible and fearfull avenger of every unrighteous person who hath intrusted him onely to keep it which Secret would by evill men with the ruine of the whole world be abused to judgement or condemnation of an Eternal curse because he knoweth most certainly that he shall be most grievously punished with the damnation of his soul and losse of eternall salvation by the Holy Trinity and Christ the just and severe Judge of quick and dead except he can give a good account of his Stewardship and the Talent committed to him at the formidable and terrible Tribunal before which we shall all stand even of that Greatest and Eternall Judge whose Terrible and Ineffable Majesty all mortall men ought to stand in fear of who at the great Judgement day will examine our deserts who will justifie the works of none that hath done evill and deprive none that hath done well of his reward When I say in that Terrible day he shall hold the exeltrees of the poles from turning about any longer and the motion of the Elements shall cease then all things shall run to ruine and the heat of the Centre united to the heat of Sun shall set all corruption of the Elements on fire when every evill and impure thing shall be cast like lead with the damned into Hell Apoc. 20.10 The end of the world is by fire There is a Sea of glass mingled with fire Apoc. 15.2 The property of fire is to seperate the impurity of the Elements Read Isa Holand in opere minerali Rom. 8.19 23. where all things shall be tormented for ever yet not consumed with unquenchable brimston like molten glasse
should move the Intelligence or Soule of the Artist to a true Understanding that he may open to him what is hid in the magistery of this Art Blessed will he be to whom the Lord God shall be pleased to inspire the Gifts of his Grace For it is the Lord of Heaven who knoweth the heart of those in whom he would use the form measure Notwithstanding we see men somtimes offend not onely against God by their ingratitude but also against their undeserving neighbour by strange devices not becoming an Aedpt Phylosopher with which some eminent men heretofore and two publick Phylosophers of divers Nations in our time abusing the Gifts of God against those most horrid Anathema's of Phylosophers afterward as doubtlesse every man according to his dexterity which the sydereall spirit causeth and exciteth is the forger of his own fortune they came to dolefull and lamentable end to the perpetuall reproach of their Name answerable to the unworthy publishing of this most True Phylosophicall Art miserably wasted and restrained by the Wrath of GOD the Righteous Revenger as well for their arrogant pride punishment and repentance accompanying their provoking loquacity as also for their cheating Impostures of the first Hapocraticall silence The originall of the Philosophicall Magistery Most doe otherwise now who make thir boast among others that they have the clear knowledge of it when it is only but imaginary and so hinder themselves by their credulity and perswasion so that they cannot profit or proceed to learn any more which they did by turns to cloak the matter for their safety Those more ancient and skilfull Phylosophers who were born in a happy signe the children of Hermes who first found out the science among whom nothing was more ancient than Truth nothing more filthy and abominable than falshood and deceit and who have even judged it a thing more safely worth their labor to have it indeed without the witnesse of a sottish ignorant multitude then seeme or be supposed onely to have it who also have endeavoured to leave behind them an unspotted memory to posterity not as many too credulous imagine that being deceived with their own vaine imaginations they would deceive others in like manner which is not the property of an honest man In the first age of the world God made it known by the Light of Nature I say these private not publick Secretaries of Nature who have in the Naturall Light fresh and flourishing in them followed Reason the best guide according to the ability God gave them all of them with greatest attention both of body and mind pressing chiefly to one and the same end and scope of Virtue accounting nothing more glorious than that they might peaceably rejoyce prudently and in Quiet Silence with a Mind truly Sound in a Sound Body according to the Fear of God and Love of their Neighbour This is Phylosophy Adept which Paracelsus in the Tincture of Physicks explaineth them to be Long Life and free from all infirmity even till the Naturall death and an honest support of that long life in this vale of miseries that we might serve God without poverty and prejudice of our Neighbour Though there may be many hunting after this happinesse with a kind of great and continued greedinesse of mind yet have been perswaded that they should never attaine the same either by other means or any Arts but by a wonderfull and most abstruse comprehending of all the vertues of the whole Creation flowing and running together in one certaine masse in this Rode or Kings Highway and Phylosophical Reason is to be accomplished The defect of Nature must be supplyed by the industry of Art seeing Nature with her off-spring alway tendeth unto laboureth breatheth after their perfection Prov. 3.16 All these spirituall virtues and active qualities being by great help of ingenuity and Art like the lesser world heaped up together and concentred into one masse as united force is stronger dispersed besides a kind of sweetest and admirable illustration of the Mind for the Light of Nature is glittering in the Darknesse of the world as also the knowledge of all Naturall things and Heavenly seerets and a perfect operation yea they have even miraculously use of this choycest and admirable Magisterie together with a flowing plenty and Abundance of all Things Of which the Phylosophers our predecessors that have been train'd up in Hermes school They durst not under paine of Anathema to speak of it but in a picture of Aenigmaticall words because the Master of Nature gave them not leave lest they should indanger themselves and give an occasion to others of a wicked hurtfull study or practice Prov. 10.10 It exciteth motion in our bodies and reviveth the Elements now the Elements are excited unto their acting for the Naturall life is nothing else but the actings of the Elements though they have been altogether dumb in keeping close the secret of the Art by a constant Taciturnity knowing to what dangers the searchers out of difficult Arts and the publick Secretaries of Nature are obnoxious that full of despaire concerning their safety and peace they have been compelled to deny the same yet usually give this Reason because the greatest Medicine being artificially prepared with the help of wise Nature the Mistresse of Science should be or is the Life and inlightning Light and that which quickneth or maketh alive our Balsom that is the spirit or celestiall not visible vapour of life it may be the Essence of our Life the Fift Essence compounded of the four Elements in which are all the Elements actually and all their arts with greatest agreement made equall with true equation according to all possibility of Nature and bound together with a golden chaine without any contrariety But all things are aggregated in so subtile a Matter and a Form so subtile and so near to simplicity in a respective manner in the curing of diseases and the metamorphosis of Mettalls like as in Lightning and the eye of a Basilisk as is manifest by Experience This is so in respect of the four qualities of the body as the Heaven is incorruptible in respect of the four Elements The most High created this Fift Essence as the root of life in Nature for the preservation of the four qualities of the Humane body The life of natural things is the Union of the Ideall Light as also with the Ideall of Heaven and Earth as he did the Heaven for the preservation of the universe The celestiall Fire that burneth not is the soul and life of all Creatures the subject in which besides the force and operations of the Elements even all the celestiall virtues of the Firmament as well of the Fixed Stars as of the Planets are infused and imprinted after an invisible manner for the Influences of all celestiall bodies which are communicated to the sublunary to every one in particular these are concentred in this one The Theater of
Paracelsus in that he promisedlong life to others but scarce came to full age himselfe Many more such devices they devise revile out of their malicious ignorance which Paracelsus never thought of the Balsamick Mummy the Vitall Body the liquor of Life the Native or Radicall Humor which the Spirit of Life moveth or acteth may be restor'd strengthned and preserved as in corrupt even to the very utmost consumption of it that is to the last gasp of Life without any sicknesse paine and griefe which thing though he performed in curing the most desperate and dangerous diseases of other men yet was he stopt from continuing so doing any longer being Poysoned in his body by his malicious and inhuman adversaries who had often attempted the same before they could effect it for he came to the Naturall Terme of his Life by an untimely and violent death of a draught of Poyson and not as many maliciously scoffe in their strange fictions that he by this his medicine would presumptously prepare himselfe an entrance and way to the immortall health of his body which the dead Phylosophers his Ancestors in this wicked world and true vale of miseries of which they as strangers and Pilgrims of this world never so much as dreamed God is to be seen beyond the horrizon of Eternity 〈◊〉 the other side the wall of Paradise which is the proper place of those that contemplate him He that continueth united with God in Christ doth like God and the Angels never wax old In vaine will those husks scraps of Paracelsus rise up that use to do who exclaime that this interpretation is forced and far setch'd GOD is the Centre of all Creatures by how much the more any draw near to him by so much the more blessed and lesse variable and mutable is he But the farther any thing departeth from that Centre or One to wit the immutable will of God to the circumference variety and plurality of the Creatures the more unhappy imperfect and mutable is it Blessednesse is in unity not in the circumference in Christ not in the world is Peace and the Rest of Soules He therefore that by the immense Goodnesse of God which runs before us without intermission shall forget all Things and leave sensible and Temporall things behind him which are to be used but onely in our passage and shall be united to that one Centre he waxeth young rather than old And this is the true Long Life of the Cabalists and of Paracelsus which he so often and so earnestly begg'd for by Prayer and holy hope in his Hymns and Soliloquies the true Enochean Life As on the contrary he that is not united to this most united Fountain-like and only Unity by adhaesion must of necessity perish for ever and be separated from the Light and Life by the second death and be cast into the utter Darknesse of the Caliginous world which deprivation and want of the sight of God is the most bitter of all punishments To know GOD himselfe the maker of all things and passe into him with a full image of his likenesse as with a kind of essentiall touch without a bond whereby thou mayest be transform'd and made as it were a God this at last will prove the True and sollid Phylosophy The MIND therefore of Adept Phylosophers whose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or conversation is in Heaven Phil. 3.20 The Mystery of Divine Matrimony with Man they having enough of the Terrene Life to whom one is All in all and All are one in One and who alwayes look upon these transitory things with the left eye but on Heaven with the right The MIND I say By the access of this beam ray or celestiall Stone all drosse is purified and the darknesse of ignorance is driven away Eccl. 18.9 10. Psal 90.10 Rom. 8. of these Adept Phylosophers hath ever been far off and estranged from the Cavill above mentioned For when through Divine Grace cooperating they have by a quiet and religious meditation been raised up out of the sepulchre of their body or out of the dead Works of Darknesse the world that lyeth in the malignant one being cast behind their back they could open the Eyes of their Heart and be turned to God in the Sabbath of their Heart by a separation of the Minde from Terrene obsticles in themselves and see all things in one by a most Blessed Spectacle to wit Whatsoever is not God is Nothing and ought to be esteemed as nothing one simple intuitive vision or sight from within a kind of an Essentiall touch of the Divinity and to contemplate the beauty of the Chiefest Good in the Light of GOD as in the glasse of Eternity which beauty is incomprehensible to the Old Creature INFORTUNIUM they have esteemed it the Vnhappines to stay so long in this Vale of miseries and ignorance For our heart is not at Rest till we have cast behind us the most beautifull Nothing that is the shadow and region of Darknesse and Death and returned to the BEING of BEINGS from whom we are wandred as to the prefixed scope of all our desires and will towards whom every Creature panteth and breatheth Therefore being stript and forsaken of every Crreature they leave themselves and totally go out from themselves contemning all things corporeall and incorporeall in sighing and earnest desire they hasten from the imperfect to that which is one and perfect the knowlege and contemplation whereof that which the most wise Hermes and most pious Phylosopher of reverend antiquity the Antesignan of Naturall Phylosophers and first Prophet Lactantias mentioneth Hermes not so much among the Naturall Phylosophers as among the Sybylis and Prophets as the true Orpheus doth also acknowledge in his Monade is a sacred Heavenly and hid silence the quiet or Rest of the sences and all things when at length after the task of miseries labors and peregrinations is ended all minds by an unanimous friendship after an unutterable manner shall be altogether but one thing in one MIND which is above every MIND All things are seen and lookt into with one presentiall glance It is the intimate vision of GOD and the Intuitive knowledge of GOD which also hapneth by the Light of Grace to the separate Soul even in this world if any man set himselfe about it now and be subject to God Thus many holy men by vertue of the Deifick Spirit have tasted the First fruits of the Resurrection in this life and have had a fore-taste of the Celestiall Country I mean that spirituall Death of the Saints which the Jewes call the kisse of Death which is precious in the sight of God Exod. 33. Es 6. 2 Cor. 11. Psal 116.15 if the fulnesse of Life may be called death We must die to the World Flesh Blood and the whole Animall Man who would faine have got into those Inmost secrets and entred into Paradise by the excesse or going
out of the MIND the Man that liveth in nothing but the Mind is as an Angel as I may so say conceiveth and apprehendeth God after a sort in his whole breast The scope and mark unto which all the most dear beloved holy and intimate Friends of God who live after the Image or inspiration of the most High and not after the Limus Terrae the Eearthy Mind doe bend who from Divine Love willingly cast themselves headlong into the fountaine of the Abysse and into the Sea of Nihilitude or Nothingnesse and enter into the Holies of Holies by the Life of Christ that in the Sabbath they may live with God in Rest and Blessednesse and so drink of the everlasting Ambrosian Nectar of Eternity By the Soul abiding and standing stedfast embracing its Image of Divinity or MIND united to GOD by Christ we enjoy actuall Blessednesse T is possible to extend a long life farther Therefore Porta reject the opinion of those that cast mens fortune from the day or houre of their nativity prefixing the bounds of life affirming that he that is wary of his infirmities and avoydeth those things that are hurtfull may live a longer life Parac chap. 7. of the Labyrinth of Physitians Though it may go for the discourse of Vaine men that the life may be lengthned yet it is repugnant neither to Nature nor Reason that a Man may prolong his life beyond the common ordinary age of Men even to a long time and that for two Reasons First Because in NATURALS there is no certaine appointed Terme apparent what day we shall die but it is in our own hand and power to put an end to our life if we will and to prolong it without offence to GOD if so be we may and have wisdome so to do I speak here Phylosophically of the Naturall death which is onely the wasting of the Naturall Moysture and Heat as may be seen in a burning lamp not Theologically of the Fatall death and utmost Terme which God hath prefixt to every one by which we are inforc'd not onely to pay the debt of Nature but are compel'd also to undergoe the punishment for sin Death is the bound which we cannot passe nor is there any day or hour for by the Grace of God we live the Terme without houres As God hath numbred our hairs so also doth he reckon our years leaving them in our power And because it was the good pleasure of God that Man should live for ever thence it is easie to discerne that for the lawfull matrimoniall propagation and augmentation of Mankind a long and lasting life of Man in this world is not displeasing to him especially if it be spent in the Fear and Service of his Creator yet alwayes short of that utmost and fixed Terme or determined poynt of DIVINE PREDESTINATION which is unknown to mortalls See Paracelsus of long life imposed on our first Parents and their heires for their Fall from Originall Righteousnesse beyond which bound no man can goe See Paracelsus in lib. 8. As Man many wayes may not attaine to the appointed Terme of life it being compassed about with diseases Archid. of the Elixirs It is the conservation of the Human body from all accidentall corruption Death Gods minister expecteth our intestine war There is a two fold death from the Iliad or first principle and from the Ens or Being The Soule of perpetuity or the Spirit of Light joyned to Nature with the light is perpetuall and will not suffer such a conjunction and such a life to be short and so his time may be shortned so may he prolong his life by removing these impediments so that at last he may attaine to the appointed Terme of the Nature of life Secondly Because God hath created the aforesaid Medicine for the preservation of life which may preserve our body as well from the corruption of our Parents as from the defect of our own government cure its infirmities and repaire what is wasted yea chase away from us all diseases which cause the naturall death untill ultimate death the most Terrible of all Terrible things which is the destruction of the Mummy which God the most high Creator hath ordained as the wages of sinners Therefore Paracelsus saith that the death which is from the resolution of the Iliad may be hindred by the industry of the Physitian but that which is from the Ens or Being cannot as we may preserve a little fire by laying on more wood so also may our life be prolonged by administring such Remedies and secrets as are derived from the fountaine of Gods gifts with which the Rayes or little beams the weaknesse of the Moysture and innate heat is nourished and cherished as the Fire with wood This at least is desired in us because we being destitute of wisdome know not that wood wherewith our life might be cherished and prolonged Adam who was full of wisdome and the perfect knowledge of all Naturall things and many more of his time who lived a more frugall life than we did attaine to so many ages not by Nature and property of Time for then all had been Long-liv'd but by the help of Secrets and by Wisdome which was revealed but to few and by speciall knowledge which God gave them in this particular whereby they lengthned out their life to so many years beyond the ordinary time that men lived Many holy men used this universall Medicine before the flood which Adam also had in his Family as Lactantius witnesseth which strengthneth the Internall Balsom and like Fire congregateth Homogeneous things and segregateth Heterogeneous which are of a contrary nature Nor are we to relie upon their judgements who being ignorant of the Mysteries of the Element of Water dream that the Deluge washed away the efficacy of fruits of growing things or that the power and strength of mens bodies was spoyled by the Water For all things that grow by the benefit of Water do yet sprout and spring forth in the same vigour and with the same efficacy as they did in Adams time When men multiplyed in the world wise men lived together in the Centre reserving wisdome among themselves but banished those that had it not into the circumference Paracels Wherefore we want nothing but the knowledge of Secrets and their use And thus the Flood did not wast the things that grow but wash'd away our wisdome of knowing them These most secret of secrets have ever been hid from the common sort of them that professe Phylosophy and especially sincemen began to abuse Wisdome using it to an ill end which God bestow'd upon them for their health and advantage But as few reach the Naturall Terme so also few have known the reason of prolonging the life And hereof there are many Causes For the life is broken off or shortned two manner of wayes MENS ENS abrumpunt nobis vitam First Either by the MIND whence arise mentall
great mystery yet n = * or They were ordain'd from the beginning are they ordained by the Eternall for judgement both to themselves and us TEXT 2. Now if it were necessary that all things that were made should consist of and proceed from four only The four Elements are the mothers of all things as by the seperation we know it was those four only must be the matrixes of all the creatnres which we call the Elements And though evere creature be yet an Element or may have some share of the Element yet it is not like the Element but like the Spirit of the Element Nothing can subsist without an Element Nor can the Elements themselves stand together There is not any thing that consisteth either in four three or two Elements but one Element standeth by it selfe apart and every creature hath but own element They are altogether blind who take that which is Moyst for the Element of Water or that which burneth for the Element of fire We must not limit an Element to a body substance or quality What an Element is That which we see is only the snbject or receptacle The Element is a Spirit of lives and grows in those things as the soul in the body This is the first matter of the Elements that can neither be seen nor felt and yet is in all things What the first matter of an Element is The sttst matter of the Elements is nothing else but that life which the creatures have If any dye that subsisteth no more in any Element but in the ultimate matter wherein is no tast force or vertue TEXT 3. All things consist of the four Elements Whereas althings that could be created were made of foure mothers viz. the four Elements Take notice further that those four Elements were fufficient for al things that were to be created nor was it requisite that there should be more or lesse In things mortall there can no more but four natures subsist But in things immortall the temperaments may subsist though the Elements cannot Whatever is as I call it an elementure that may be dissolved Wherein the Element differeth from the temperament But on the contrary the temperature cannot be dissolved For such is the condition thereof that nothing can be added thereto or taken from it nothing thereof can putrifie or perish And seing that condition is mortal as hath been said we must know that all things do subsist in four natures and that every nature retains the name of its Element As the Element of fire is hot The names of the four Elements the Element of earth cold the Element of water is moyst the element of aire dry Where we must as well consider that every of the said natures is peculiarly such a one by it selfe apart For fire is onely hot and not dry nor moyst The earth is onely cold not dry nor moyst The water is onely moyst not hot nor cold The aire is onely dry not hot nor cold And therefore are they called Elements The nature of the Elements is simple having onely one simple not a double nature But their manifestation through all the creatures must be understood as an Element that may subsist with a substance and body and can there work The highest knowledge concerning the Elements is this that every one of them hath but one onely simple nature either moyst or dry or cold or hot Which is from the condition of spirits For every Spirit hath a simple The elements and simple Spirits not a double nature and so have the Elements too TEXT 4. Though we mortalls have compounds in us as hot and moyst yet far otherwise then the Ancients imagined The Colick whence it is For the Colick is of the Element of fire yet not compounded of hornesse and drynesse but is onely hot And so the other complexions Therefore if we find any disease mixt with heat and drought we may suppose that two Elements are there one in the liver another in the spleen and so in the other members There are not two Elements in one member For certaine it is that every member hath a peculiar element which we leave to Physitians to define But this cannot well be affirmed that two elements should consist both together or that one and the same element should be both hot and moyst Nor can there be any such compound There are no compounded Elements for the reason before given Where there is heat there is neither cold nor drought nor moysture So where there is coldnesse there is none of all the rest The same may be said of moysture and drynesse Every Element is simple and solitary by it selfe The Elements are not mixt not mixt in composition The possibility which Philosophers talk of concerning a conjuction of the Elements is as much as comes to nothing For no Element of water hath any heat in it Nor can there be any heat in moysture Every Element is alone by it self So also cold cannot of it self indure driness It subsisteth pure by it self And thus much be spoken to be understood of the proper essence of the Elements All drynesse is a dissolution of cold As moysture and dryness cannot be mixt so much lesse can coldnesse and dryness or moysture or heat and drynesse close or consist together For as heat and cold are contrary things so heat and cold have a contrariety against moyst and dry TEXT 5. Because all things are constituted of the four Elements therefore to goe about to prove that those Elements must necessarily be mixt together is very erroneous For every mixture is a composition Therefore they cannot be a Mysterie because they are compounded Every mysterie is simple and one onely Element Now the difference betwixt the elements and compounds is this How an Element compounds differ An element and so may a mysterie too can generate n = * Divertallum something else out of it A compound can generate nothing but what is like it selfe as men beget men But a mysterie doth not produce a mysterie like it selfe but a contrary thing as a divertallum The element of fire is the generatrix of the Stars What fire is and doth Planets and the whole Firmament yet neither of them is mede and form'd like this The element of water made water which is altogether contrary to the Element of water for that of it selfe is not so moyst as the element of water The Element of water soâ—tneth mettalls and stones The very element it selfe of water hath such moysture that will soften stones and hard mettalls The substantiall water taketh away that excellent vertue of mollifying that its power is not perfect The element of aire is so dry that it can dry up all waters in a moment The Element of aire dryeth most scorchingly But that force is taken away and broken by the substantiall aire The element of earth is so cold that it would