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
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
grow Neverthelesse the fruits of those Astra's or Caelestiall Ayry Earthy Watry seeds doe indeavour and bend to one generall Good as Citizens of the same Anotmy and therefore doe mutually cherish and succour one another by a sweet felloship and vicissitude of actions Plato's Rings and Homers Chaines are nothing but a Divine Series and Order serving Providence a graduall and concatenate Sympathy of things This visible and invisible fellowship of Nature is that golden chaine so much commended this is the marriage of heaven and riches these are Plato's rings this is that dark and close Phylosophy so hard to be known in the most inward and secret parts of Natare for the gaining whereof Democritus Pythagoras Plato Apollonius c. have travelled to the Brachmans and Gymnosophists in the Indies and to Hermes his Pillars in Aegypt This was that which the most ancient Phylosophers studied which by the Light of Nature that singular inspiration of God they also obtained wherein the wonderfull and infinite power the incomprehensible Wisdome of our Creator so shineth that we canot sufficiently admire and extoll his inestimable goodnesse in the Creatures and the unutterable infinitnesse of his Mysteryes It is also to be considered that there are THREE Principles of all things which are found in every compound body For it is most certaine that those things into which every naturall body is resolved had their being from the beginning of their composition and also those parts of which they did consist No body compos'd by Nature can by any dissolving skill be parted into more or lesse then Three viz. Into Mercury or liquor Sulphur or Oyle and Salt every created thing is generated and preserved in these three For the Holy Triunity when it spake that Triune word FIAT created all things Triune as in a Spagiricall resolution is plainly to be seen i. e. A seperation of purity from impurity or truth from falshood By the word FIAT or Let there be God produced the first matter which is threefold in respect of the three Principles contained in the first and afterward these three Species are seperated into four divers bodies or Elements just as if a skillfull Artist should out of lead make red lead white lead Glasse and the Spirit of lead So the world with all created bodies in it is nothing else but a fume or smoak coagulated or curded together of the three substances Sulphur Salt Mercury which three are the matter out of which all bodily things are created The Spagyricks can make this plaine by visible experience and uncontroulable certainty In green wood also there are three kinds of moystures the first watry like fugitive Mercury or Quicksilver which preserveth the wood from burning Another very fat and oyly making it like brimstone to flame and burne these two are consumed by the fire The third viz. the Salt is unctuous very little thin and lasting and remains in the ashes Thus also the Earth as it is indued with that threefold substance of Salt Mercury and Sulphur is the cause of the materiall body of man The Salt by coagulation gives Solidity Colour and Tast to all bodies The Sulphur by a pleasant mixture tempereth the coagulation of the Salt and gives the Body Substance and Transmutation Mercury which like the Elixir giveth the vertues When the Salt or Mummy is spent things brâ—â—ed nothing but wormes Operations and Secrets by a diligent and constant supply of the vital and vegetative moysture doth cherish the two former which by frequent action continually grow dry and old making every mixture easily by a fluid and slippery substance These three Principles which are in all bodies are altogether distinct in use and properties by reason of the mixture of the vertue or operation although to sence they present but one simular substance of bodies Some Theophrastaeans who have more narrowly and exactly searched out the causes of hidden things doe add a Fourth The Spirit of God upon the face of the waters which they call the Spirit which though it may be got out of Mineralls and Vegetables yet in Animalls by reason of its subtility it is subjected unto nor can it be extracted or seperated by the skill of Art and therefore cannot be had thus Sulphur or brimstone may answer to Fire Salt to the earth Mercury to Water Spirit to Aire And seeing we have entred into a Discourse of the Elements we shall add a few things concerning them out of that short Treatise of Severinus The true and purely spirituall Elements are the keepers nurses places Mines wombs and receptacles of the whole Creation yea the very essence existence life and act of all Beings Places are not without Things but are filled with their properties which administer life and nourishment to the things that are in them to wit to the Seeds that they may produce out of themselves the things that were secretly treasured up in them These places are divided into two Globes viz. the superiour Fire or the Firmament and Aire much like the shell and white of an egge the inferiour Water and the Earth like the yolk of an egge In these four incorporeall empty voyd Natures the Creatour by vertue of the Word opening the united multitude Gen. 1. and of the Spirit moving upon the face of the Waters did plant the Light and Seminall causes of all things which he once filled by his heavenly Benediction and shall ever be supplyed by an incomprehensible Magick out of the Eternall Treasures of Divine Wisdome knitting the Principles of bodies together wherewith they might be covered as with a house or garment and which are to last as long as this worldly frame The Seeds and Astra's those bonds of things lay hid in the invisible Treasures of the Elements from the beginning of the Creation as in a great deep springing up in their appointed times joyning visible things to invisible the highest to the lowest by whose advantage the Elements conspire and agree and the whole sympathy of Nature is preserved by their help the World is governed indeavoring to imitate Eternity by a continuall addition of fresh supply The knowledge of the Elements cannot be attained unto without these Seeds because they declare or open the use and services of the Elements and as the seeds are to the Elements so the Principles of bodies are to them which Principles being the inseperable companions of the Seeds cleaves to them as intermingled by an indissoluble tye and are furnisht with incomprehensible variety of gifts for the service of Generations For the Seeds and Principles of Things receive strength of Generation and Multiplication from the authority of His Word whose command all things obey Hippocr in lib. de Antiqua medic But as the Seeds and Elements can hardly be seperated one from the other by the sharpest wit All things proceeds from their powers so neither can the Elements and Principles of bodies the lawes of Nature scarce ever
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
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
preserveth nourisheth and cureth him When the fruits of the Earth Aire Water and Fire of the Microcosm are sick they must be restored by fruits like themselves of the Macrocosm Thus Nature doth strengthen and help its own Nature For Nature strengthened and assisted by its own Nature doth more forcibly drive out all its enemyes seeing every Nature is Naturally the best preserver of it selfe Thus Nature is not onely our companion but our friend and ready helper it alone being the genuine Physitian of all diseases as Galen witnesseth in his 13 Book of Method It is the First Mover of every cure without whose strength and vigour all Physick is in vaine and to no purpose Nature continued in its Temperature is in it selfe medicinable and it selfe healeth its own infirmities by the innate Mummy when that inward Nature is not the medicine all diseâ—ses prove mortal T is weâ—â— enough known that every thing by a kind of naturall instinct desireth to be perfected and preserved On the contrary it doth most vehemently abhorre the destruction of it selfe and desireth as much as may be to be kept from it dayly experience makes it plaine as when any part of our body is wounded with a sword or other weapon for those that are wounded perceive a presentaneous succour from Nature as of one hastening to helpe and so unwearyed that it will never be at quiet till it hath first cured the ugly wound and restord the wounded part to its former soundnesse And whereas some say that contraryes are to be cured by Contraryes they are not much mistaken if they have not respect to the qulaityes but the vertues of a contrary Nature For there are as many crosse and hurtfull vertues to nature as there be good and healthfull for it the goodnes of these is always busyed about and consisteth in the preservation of Nature as the continuall malice of the other is to the destruction of Nature If they therefore would destroy those are sent to succour strugling Nature that by their goodnesse they may preserve the twofold goodnesse of Nature but chase out and overcome the malice of the other Tâ—us the crosse and contrary vertues which are hurtfull to Natuâ—e are vanquisht and driven out by the adverse and contraâ—y vertues in Nature but contrary qualityes are not rooted out by contrary quallityes but rather are irritated and provoked to strife by each other by which discord Nature is more weakned then strengthned because Nature is not a quality but a vertue and chooseth to be assâ—sted rather by vertues then qualityes when it would succesfully prevaile and fight against its cruell enemy for it s not the Physitian that hunteth out the disease but Nature her selfe who is the Internall Mummy or inward Balsom expelled all ill contrary to her selfe when her own inward strength fayleth shee is to be supplyed with outward helpe by her servant the Physitian Though sometimes it may be the best medicine not to use any medicine at all but to leave the ooperation to the sole Archaeus or Art of Nature The Inward Physitian doth the work when the Naturall Physitian faileth for the Nature of the inward body cureth more diseases then the Physitian doth with all his medicines Wherefore if any be preserved in a raging pestilence by Opium which is most cold it is not by the coldnesse of Opium but but by the Specifick venemous vertue of the Opium which hath a greater degree of poyson then the occult venomous power of that Pestilence Thus Nature destroyeth one poyson by another it subdueth a weak evill by a stronger and fighteth against her enemy both with healthfull and hurtfull weapons that so shee may keep her own things in safety and beat her enemy out of her posession by any meanes whatsoever As winter doth not destroy summer nor summer winter but one gives place to the other so one quality doth not destroy another for without vertue the quallity is dead and wholly accidentall and consequently cannot afford any life or substance which the medicine must of necessity do if it would succor Nature indeed And here also it is worth the noting that Roots of diseases in the body of Man are neither hot nor cold but whereas nothing can be without heate therefore the disease also is said to be either hot or cold though those Accidents and Excrements are but the signes of the disease and not the disease it selfe For the most pernitious diseases and Traytors of the body do not spring out of the matter of the body or out of the four Humours but from the Nature of the Seed or Astra's and Invisible mechanick Spirits of the Three principles which Spirits also build their outward house and habitation with shells These Forgers and Invisible Astra's of diseases were not knowne to the Ancients Physick is a Spirit not a body which the Magician or wise man only can discerne Therefore the body or Earth of Simples is to be cast away and the vertue Heaven or Astrum of it only to be taken For in the Microcosm Medicine it is necessary that the life should worke upon the life and the Spirit upon the Spirit by sepration of the impure body as the intangible Sun Melteth Snow and causeth it to vanish away Such is the Nature of all Secrets that they worke without the matter and body because the diseases also are not bodyes This is the true and lively Anatomy This Mechanick and Forger of diseases is to be subdued and destroyed in his Roote and originall Paracelsus in the Tincture of medicines as the whole Tree cannot be destroyd in the branch but in the Seed thus the Mechanick Forger or principle of a Pear's generation hath his habitation in the Roote not in the branch So the grasse which groweth of its own accord is hindred from growing not by evultion but corruption of the Earth See the first Tract of the second book of great Surgery Degrees and complexions are not considered in diseases when the Centre Root and Seed of diseases are pluckt up and removed the worke is done Not the smoak arising from fire but the fire it selfe is to be quenched That Physitian which cureth by complexion is like him that would extinguish the hurtless flame and let alone the fire in the coals That which springeth from the seed is not to be taken for the disease but in doing the cure the Roote of the seed which containeth the vertues is to be taken in hand In his Book of ancient Physick When Paracelsus saith that like preserve their like and are destroyed by their contraryes he doth not meane the first nor second qualityes which he alwayes calleth Recollaceous and invalid ones but the substance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at least the Cherionic Hippocraticall powers and vertues as appears in the 18. Chap of â—he first Tract of the second part of his great Chyrurgye and in other places Like things are said to be the Remedies of
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
Tob. 12.7 nor doe I thinke their miserable life is to be desired whose felicity is their ruine and who loose by that that should advantage them and who in the height of fortune do yet desire fortune for the chains and fetters sake even when the indulgents of Fools could scarce add any greater happinesse and on whom God bestoweth somethings as a punishment when he is angry which he denies as a blessing when he is pleased Yet since the works of God are to be published and celebrated and that by this monument here left it may hereafter appear that that Divine Benificence hath not been denyed to men of our age also who did not begrudge posterity their felicity I cannot but in attestation and confirmation of the Truth here remember that singular Divine Clemency to me which not without the clear favour of God was shewed to me as an eye-witnesse in my travells which was denyed to many others who earnestly desired it that I should see and taste it at some Great mans house Cui in aeternum bene sIt Cumprimis egregium Helioch Antharum bor EaLem nunc in Christo quiescentem cujuSmodi lENtis DenIque consueVerunt latitare tempOrum currIcVlis Which I forbear to English The Physophycall Basilisk like Lightning suddenly and unawares burneth up any imperfect mettall whatsoever and on a sudden Produceth another new forme Therefore the searching it out is most to be commended to all that are studious of the Truth Whence being a long time astonished and amazed at the greatest miracle of Nature wrought by Art among the various and manifold metamorphosis of the Inferior Astronomy made in the cold the Moyst way of the Ancients not as yet intensly exalted to the eye of the Basilisk this one prodigie passing the admiration of all wonders seemed strange and most worthy to be seen that by giving one onely drop of that Latex or liquor in which as in a storehouse the dispersed vertues of all Celestiall and Terrestriall bodies were by a wonderfull artifice invisibly gathered together in an heap nay in which the whole world was centred a man desperately sick and at the point of death was recovered by its Fiery Astrall and Celestiall Invisible Nature conveying to the Heart a beam of the Naturall Life and renewing the organs of Life and repairing Nature which by an accidentall sicknesse causing a remotion was spent and wasted restoring him to firme and perfect health in one night For this Kingly medicine and the Empresse of all other causeth Humane Bodies immediately and as it were miraculously to rise againe from what desperate diseases soever There is no Physitian can cure death but Christ if God hath not otherwise decreed for many diseases are a Divine innate punishment for which there is no cure in Nature For surely this whole new regenerate world is able by vertue of its Regeneration to renew the little old corruptible world Man to restore whatsoever is amisse in Mans body to consume what is superfluous to mend what is defective and reduce the whole Microcosm into a true Temperament and preserve it therein till the appointed Terme of death imposed on mortalls for their sin Imperfect and impure mettalls are cleansed from their infirmities and accidents by the same spirit of the world by the same Heat of Sun and Moon as mens bodies are they are restored to their True Health which is aureity or goldness without a new motion of generation and corruption by way of alteration onely and remotion of accidents which are the cause of the sicknesse and distemper for mettals doe not differ in specie but onely in accidents This incredulous doubtfulnesse will fall out to the gaine rather than to the losse as heretofore to our ancestors so hereafter to all posterity because there are few that believe that this Art is true and with 〈◊〉 stedfast confidence are perswaded of it for upon that account God provideth for the security of those that give themselves truly to the study of Phylosophy Exod. 32.20 Job 14.19 No marvell if this secret by reason of the proclaimed uncertainty of so great mysteries shall seem incredible and justly not to be made known though it be truer then true to our Vulgar sort though Athenians of a clean nose as being ignorant because they never heard any thing in all their life of the Heat of the Sun and Moon who know not these Vulcanean metamorphoses and this Power of GOD joyned to Nature but admire the Heathenish Physick who to excuse their own ignorance doe foolishly enough account the sayings of Prudent men but as fables and fictions no marvell I say when the understanding of the intelligent clouded with no precepts or traditions of foolish men can hardly apprehend it much lesse that the Element of EARTH should by the help of Mechanick Magick swim upon the water To know this Phylosophicall Secret truly is principally necessary to an Astrall Physitian none of which Physitians can come to any operation or knowledge of wonderfull effects nor be certaine in his Art except he cleave to this Science especially in the cure of desperate diseases in our body to wit the four Monarchs of all diseases the Epilepsie Gout Dropsie Leprosie These four chiefest kinds of Diseases Paracelsus It is not Christian-like to ascribe to the Devill a greater possibility and power than to the Infinite divine Wisdome omnipotence The chiefe Foundation Scope of true Physitians because it is not the first but second birth that produceth it through the help of Christ not of the Devill cured by a wonderfull Art proving in some of his works that God taught him the medicine for he did it not by our common ordinary medicines but by Restoring or regenerating ones which are known to very few by which Nature being renewed afterward of her own accord she expelleth all things that offend her as his Epitaph at Salisburg doth truly and sufficiently witnesse to posterity All diseases proceeding from the corruption of humors how great and desperate soever their cures be are healed by this universall medicine as a Carpenter that squareth all kind of timber except the party be at the utmost Terme appointed him by the supream Being or the disease be inflicted by God besides Nature as a punishment and speciall affliction But no man as hath been said can make use of this peculiar and celestiall Gift but he on whom God himselfe hath bestowed it who onely both inlightneth the obscurity and darkneth the clearnesse of these mysteries so that none can understand the plainest things except he enlighten them nor be ignorant of the darkest if he illustrate them for so great a faculty is there given by the rich and peculiar Grace of the most high Creator Therefore Lullius that Divine and most perfect Phylosopher rightly concluded that between the Artist and God the first cause there ought to be an agreement without contrariety that the first mover as the principall Forme
sustentation and multiplication of Individualâ—s The Spirit is the life and Balsom of all Naturall things therefore it ought to hold the first degree in the order of Physick and the Man that useth it with the moderation of other meat may live as long as the ancient Fathers From those two fountaines the SUN and MOON as Suchtenius learnedly discourseth springeth the Naturall and Vitall Spirit of the world which runneth thorow all Beings giving life and consistance to all things by which as a mediator every occult quality all vertue all life is propagated into the inferior bodies into hearbs mettalls stones animalls so that there can be nothing in all the world that may or can be without a spark of this Spirit The Life of Man is the Astral Balsom the Balsamick Impression the Celestiall and Invisible Fire the Aire shut up and the Tincturing Spirit of Salt This Celestiall Spirit which is one and the same with our Naturall spirit when its breathing in our body is not lesned or hindred by outward things is that Naturall Heat of ours whereby every thing is digested for the sustentation and multiplication of every particular It digesteth the nourishment that Man taketh and breeds good blood in all the members so long as the blood is pure it continueth and is the strong vitall pure and sound spirit of the Heart so that the whole body liveth orderly and well But if it be hindered by sicknesse that it cannot so well doe its office the nourishment is not well concocted and that breeds bad blood by which the vitall spirit of the Heart is weakned Whence comes Old age that house of oblivion at last followeth a full extinction consumption and dissipation of that spirit which is the Naturall Death that the consumption and dissiapation of the said spirit may be prevented as much as by Nature may be that spirit and Naturall Heat in Humane bodies so weakned and hindred must be increased and strengthned that it may be the better able to do its duty But seeing every agent when it begins to act doth not move toward any thing below it selfe but to that which is equall like and sutable to it Therefore this strengthning also must be by its like that is by that Celestiall Heat of the Sun and Moon and the other Planets or with those things in which the Virtue of the SUN and MOON is most potent and doth most abound or is lesse restrain'd by matter The Celestiall or that Spirit of the world and the Naturall Spirit of our body is one and the same Spirit and therefore the Heat of the Sun and Moon generated of the very stroke of the spirit is a â—bing more concoct and by consequence more perfect For these things work more quick and perfectly and doe more readily beget their like and what is more easie the spirit or that supernall Fire is got out of them by art to which the Heat that burneth not like the Elementall but that which maketh all things fruitfull and Light giving life to all things are proper But burning Heat consuming all things and darknesse making all things barren are proper to the Elementall and Inferior Fire That same Heat therefore is excluded as also with it all divers and contrary things such as are all the inferior Elements For this and all things else that include a Naturall composition in them so far as they are yet drowned in a thick grosse matter and as yet not separate from it are subject to corruption and transmutation But Medicines ought to be preserving and very durable and remote from corruption For whereas they should preserve the Human body from corruption they ought first to be of a long and lasting nature otherwise they would corrupt rather then preserve Besides t is but in vaine to think to preserve a corruptible body by a putrid and corruptible thing to cure the weak by a feeble thing to form a Thing by a thing subject to deformity Every corruptible weak and feeble thing added to its like augmenteth it One Like added to its like maketh it more Like and so that corruptibility is increased not diminished as we see some and truly too many Physitians of our time who labor in vaine to cure Men of their maladies by their grosse and corporall compositions of Medicines but a higher speculation is here required The vitall spirit in Man the Elemental is one spirit For whereas diseases are not corporall but spirituall and lurking in the spirits they also call for spirituall medicines They therefore that would preserve that vitall spirit which is the Radicall Moysture and Heat The Innate Heat and Radical Moysture of the Microcosm are sustained by the MacrocoMacrocosmicall Heat and Moysture of the Sun and Moon as being thatoâ—e the same Celestial and Naturall spirit of ours the innate Mummy and hath its seat in the midst of Mans heart as the sustentacle of all our life in young men and repaire it languishing in old men and as much as may be make them young againe and so bring Mans life into the greatest health they must seek after not the Elementall but that Celestiall Heat of the Sun and Moon that dwelleth in the more incorruptible substance that is to be found under the Globe of the Moon to make this like our heart or spirit which is done when it is prepared and made up into a medicine and most pleasant meat so that being taken by the mouth it may presently pierce and passe throughout the human body keep every thing incorrupt especially the flesh that is united to it nourish the power and spirit of life increase and restore digest every raw thing lop and prune all excesse of every quality make the Naturall moysture abound and strengthen inflame and augment the weak Naturall Heat or Fire This is the duty of a true Physitian and of the more sound Phylosopher The Tincture doth so cleanse the Balsom that our children in the tenth generation may see the effect of it living so long Paracels For thus he might preserve our body from corruption retard old age keep youth flourishing in its vigour to the very poynt of death and were it not for the wages of sin withstand death preserve our body in perpetuall health and defend it from destruction Paracelsus calleth it the Element of FIRE which like the Sun of the Terrene or inferiour Firmament may be the greatest Secret for the removing all diseases and refreshing the cold benummed members for that Essentiall Fire worketh in the body as the Flame and Nettle doth without the body Whose meaning was that of right he may here be vindicated from the unjust calumny wherewith he was branded where he treateth of the vertues of this perfect Fire of Life that the Balsom of Nature The Humors of life do nourish the spirit of life See Paracel in the sift Tome among his Physicall fragments sol 162. Cease therefore henceforth to blame
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
the body but by the life TEXT 5. Again we are as well to understand how every thing receiveth its essence This cannot more fitly be compared to any thing than to fire which we strike out of a hard flint flaming and burning contrary to all naturall knowledge As that hidden fire breaks forth and burneth in the same manner and form is the essence brought into its nature Here consider that in the beginning there was but one thing without any inclination and form from which afterwards all things came forth An example from colours to explain the Great Mystery That rise or originall was no other but as a temperate colour suppose purple having no inclination in it to any other colour but plainly to be seen in its just temperature Yet in it are all colours The red green azure yellow white black colour cannot be separated from it And every one of these colours have many dark colours come from them yet every one throughly and rightly tinctured by it selfe And though various and contrary colours lie hid in them yet all are hid under one After the same manner every thing had its essence in the great mystery which afterward the supream workmaster separated Chrystall will strike fire not from a fiery nature Chrystal hath all the Elements in it but from solidity and hardnesse This also hath the other Elements in it not essentially but materially viz. the burning fire the breathing aire the moystning water And colour too the black and dry earth Besides all these it hath all colours but hidden in it in the mixture of their qualities as fire in steel which discovereth it selfe neither by burning nor shining nor casting any colour In this respect all colours and all the Elements are in every thing If any be desirous to know how allthings should thus come and penetrate into all things he must believe that all this came to passe and was exactly and accurately ordered by that onely one who is the former and Architect of all things TEXT 6. Invisible things are made visible by bodies Although nature as we have said be invisibly in bodies and substances that invisibility comes to a visibility by means of those bodies As is the essence of every so is it visibly seen in vertues and colours Invisible bodies have no other but this kind of bodily consideration Therefore observe that invisible things have all the Elements in them and do operate in every Element They can send the fire and vertue of their Element out of themselves they can send forth aire as a man doth his breath also water as a man doth urine they have the nature of earth too and came from the earth Take it thus the liquor or moysture of the earth doth boyle dayly and sendeth an high that subtill spirit which it had out of it selfe Hereby invisible things and the Firmament it selfe are nourished How the Firmament and things invisible are nonrished which without a vapour cannot be Things incorporeall can no more live without meat and drink than corporeall things Therefore stones grow out of the earth but from a spirit like their own nature Every stone draweth its own spirit to it selfe Whence fiery Dragons and Ghosts are From such like proceed Ghosts and fiery Dragons and many more If then invisible things as well as visible be conversant in their essence it is from the nature of the great mystery as wood is set on fire by a candle or taper which loseth or wasteth nothing thereby And though it be not corporeall yet it must have that which is corporeall to preserve it selfe alive Things invisible are sustained by visible things to wit wood Likewise all invisible things must be sustain'd nourished and increased by something visible With which also at last they shall perish and come to an end all alike yet neverthelesse still keeping their operation and activity in them without losse or damage of other things except there be an effusion of those corporeall and visible things Although that be done by the invisible and found out or known in the visible c. The rest for doubtlesse the Author wrote more are not to be found READER WHat I have done in the Version of these two singularly eminent men Paracelsus and Crollius hath been rather as a Translator than an Interpreter that the Authors sence more than mine might be searched out Although the translation be not so elegant and significant as the originall yet if my judgement faile not the matter is preserved intire and sound In both Tracts thou wilt meet with some uncouth and unusuall words which for thy better understanding who art not acquainted with such language I have here alphabetically explain'd as followeth A ADECH is our inward and invisible man which first shapeth those things in the mind that afterward are done with the hands Arcana secrets or mysteries Arcanum a secret or accordiâ—g to Parac the hidden incorporeall vertue in naturall things Archaltes the prop or pâ—â—lars of the earth Archeus the chiefe exalâ—â—d invisible spirit the occult virtue artificer Physitian of nature in every one Astra Stars also the force and virtue of things by preparations Bisemutum the palest or worst sort of lead it is Tin-glasse C Cabala that most secret knowledge which the Hebrew Rabbins say was given by God with the Law of Moses Caleruth a note or signe of the desire when a thing tendeth to its first matter and would returne whence it came Cobaltum a stone whereof matter is made behoofull to Medicine It is a Minerall D Derses a secret vapour of the earth whence wood groweth Diameae spirits living among stones and rocks Divertâ—ilum the generation that is from the Elements Dramae Duelech a kind of tartar in mans body a spongy stone very precious Durdales spirits that have bodies and live among trees E Enur the occult vapour of water from which stones are bred Evestrum is that perpetuall thing of the Firmament in the Elemementary world it is taken for a Propheticall spirit foretelling things to come by precedent signes and tokens to Evestrate is to speak by that spirit F Flagae spirits that know the secret and hidden things of men G Gabalum Gebalum a thing repair'd restor'd or curdled Gabalis homo such a man Gamahaea is when a living thing is affected or wrought upon by its figure as when a Pigeon is cast dead from the top of the house onely by thrusting a pin through the picture of it on paper Gnomes Gnomi are little men dwarfs or rather spirits with bodies living under the earth Pigmies scarce halfe a foot high Gonetick H Hilech astrum medicinae or the spirit hid in medicine I Iliaster the first matter of all things consisting of salt sulphur and mercury generally it is taken for the occult virtue of nature by which all things increase grow multiply and are nourished Vid. Lex Chym. L Leffa Leffas is the juyce of the earth newly drawn into the root of the vegetables by which they grow Lemores Lemures are the spirits of the element of water not the shapes and ghosts of dead men as the heathen imagined Limboan alias Lymbus is the first matter or seed of the world or all things in it Lorind is the moving of the waters with a musicall noyse and is a signe of some change at hand M Marcasita the raw or unripe matter of mettalls Mechili Melosinae despairing women now living in a phanstaticall bruitish body nourished by the Elements into which at last they shall be changed unles they chance to marry with a man Vid. Lex Chym. Montans N Nesder Neuferani spirits living in the aire P Penates spirits of heaven and the element of sire Pyrotechney the Art of preparing or working things by fire R Relollaceus Relolleum is the vertue from the complexion there is a three fold Relolleum of which see Lexicon Chymicum S Samies Spagyrick that separateth the false from the true the impure from the pure Stannar is the mother of mettalls a secret fume of which mettals aremade Sylphs are pigmies or dwarfs Sylvesters airy men airy spirits living in woods and groves Syrenes sea-monsters bred of the Nymphs T Talcum a bright clear matter of which oyle of Talk is made there are four sorts of Talck of which see Lex Chym. Trarames the actions of the spirits and ghosts of dead men heard but not seen Tronum caelestiall dew made of the aire Truphat the occult vertue of mineralls preferring every mettall Tura Turban an innumerable multitude of Stars in the firmament of heaven also a presage from all things which the fourfold inferiour world of the elements containeth V Vmbratiles bodies once rotted and after made visible againe by the Stars by a magicall vertue Vndenae airy men and earthly spirits W Woarchadumie Z Zonnets fantasticall bodies of the Gnomes Zundell somes in English tinder FINIS
the way in the places of the paths at the entry of the city at the coming in of the doors with plaine words of righteousnesse without frowardnesse or perversnesse unto us men the Sons of men c. Doth not Christ Jesus stand all the day long in the broad way to stop and turne men from destruction calling and crying unto them Turn yee Turn yee why will yee die yee children of Adam but they with a stiffe neck like their Fathers doe alway resist the Holy Ghost Is any part of the Creation destitute of the glorious presence and power of Christ Psal 19.6 can any thing be hid from the heat and light of this Sun of Righteousnesse Rom. 10.18 Is there any place where the Evangelicall Trump hath not sounded why then doe we close our eyes and stop our eares against the glad tydings and ministry of our salvation What care and cost and charges are many men at to purchase their own vexation at how dear a rate doe they buy their misery who accumulate to themselves Teachers after their own lusts 2 Tim. 4.3 who yet after a multitude of Academicall expences are not able to guesse aright at earthly things Wisd 9.16 or find out that which is hard at hand With what care and industry then ought we to pursue the knowledge of things above which are more noble to be had at a cheaper price and because of a better guide with more ease and safety we need not ascend or descend or send to Athens for it the things that doe not appear are present in the things that are seen T is not incredulous or rediculous that a true Chymist so much now in derision should find light in darknesse darknesse in light bitter in sweet sweet in bitter good in evill evill in good body in spirit and spirits in bodies and by a Spagyrick extraction separate each to its proper use and end distinctly drawing out the great Mysteries of Godlinesse and Iniquity In the high way and open streets the common Roade concourse condition and conversation of men doth Wisdome stand and call to them Turn yee Turn ye why will ye die Christ the great Angell of God standeth as an Adversary like the Angell in the way of Balaam Num. 22.22 to withstand men in all their wayes of iniquity excesse and vanity the madnesse of the false Prophets in us is rebuked by the voyce of Man that Son of man speaking in the dumb Asse of insensible and irrationall creatures Pet. 2.16 Thus the Wisdome of God standeth in the drunkard 's way to turn him from wine Eph. 5.18 wherein is excesse that he may be filled with the Spirit It would have the Covetous man to covet earnestly the best things 1 Cor. 12.31 it perswades the lascivious wanton to abandon his uncleanesse and entertaine the modest kisses and chast embraces of the celestiall Bridegroom Cant. 1.2.16 2.6 it bids the Thiefe steal no more Ephes 4.28 nor consent to thievery Psal 50.18 but labour with his hands the things that are honest Rev. 16.15 watching for the coming of that good thiefe it forbids the Tyrant the hypocriticall ambitious perjur'd self-seeking Tyrant to oppresse and do mischiefe Psal 52.1 but rather to take the Kingdome of Heaven by force and violence Mat. 11.12 it exhorts the treacherous undermining by-ended souldier to put no man in fear Luke 3.14 nor accuse any man falsly not to make the pretence of Religion or Civill Right a stalking horse to proud and imperious designes and ends but to fight the good fight of Faith 1 Tim. 6.12 Jude 3. 2 Cor. 10.4 and earnestly contend for it not with carnall weapons but spirituall It stands in all the Creation to poynt out the Creator Mal. 4.2 in the Sun to shew us the true Light in the springing Fountains Psal 36.9 to tell us of the Well of Life in the Rocks to shew us our refuge in the trees of the field Psal 18.2 Isa 26.4 Ps 92.12 13. 1.3 to put us in mind of the planted of the Lord and the Tree of Paradise and of what the Crosse was made in the seasons of the year at Fall and Spring to preach the Death and Resurrection of Christ the mortification of our vile and quickning of our pure body in the Clouds and Raine to open to us the Mediatorship and Intercession of our blessed Lord who took upon him the dark nature of the earthy Adam John 1.14 Col. 1.19 2.9 which dark cloud the likenesse of sinfull flesh Rom. 8.3 was full of grace and truth the fulnesse of the Godhead when the Heavens are as iron and the earth as brasse Lev. 26.19 when wrath is over us and judgement under us when we see nothing but vengeance and indignation above or below Gen. 9.12 13. then this faederall Cloud elevated to the middle aire John 3.14 12.32 as the true Mediator between God and man 1 Tim. 2.5 doth rend the vaile of his flesh Mat. 27.51 Heb. 10.20 and showreth down the Gracious raine and heavenly dew of Divine love through the eternall Spirit upon the parched soul to cool and quench the fierce anger of the Almighty Nubes est vapor humidus crassus à Sole ad medium acrum elevatus c. Arist 1 Met. c. 9. and cause the heart to bud forth and grow in the grace faith knowledge love and obedience of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ reconciling all things in Heaven and Earth throughout the Passion of his Crosse Col. 1.20 Thus every part of the Creation doth its part to publish the great mysteries of mans Salvation Rom. 1.20 else how should the Gentiles be left without excuse Let all the Works of God praise him in all places of his Dominion Psal 103.22 145.10 O earth earth earth hear the word of the Lord. Isa 28.22 Be not mockers least your bonds be made strong blesse magnifie extoll and praise the Lord in all the works of his hands Enter into his Gates with thanksgiving Psal 100.4 into his Courts with praise be thankefull unto him blesse his Name Psal 92.13 flourish ye in the Courts of the House of our God Let your knowledge love obedience and thanksgiving spring forth and increase abundantly by these outward and visible things Rom. 1.21 Rev. 11.2 which the unbelieving Gentiles like bruite beasts tread and trample under their feet set God alway before yee preserve the faith of his Omnipresence so shall yee never be moved Psal 16.8 draw something of him out of every thing which he hath made O rare Art that can rarifie the condense and mixt bodies of earthly things into a sublimate Purity of Divine knowledge and use Heretofore when Kings Princes and Potentates studyed their neighbours Good more then their own Greatness the Hermetick Philosophy was more Venerable and he that listed himselfe a
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
are digged out of the Earth For the Astrum of every Element brings forth and bayes its fruits in a strange region or matrix By a singular Providence all things seem to tend to the Earth and to further its fruitfulnesse Thus the fruits of the Firmament are perfected in the Aire and from hence imparted to the lower Globe as Snow which is bred of Fire is found in the Aire and Earth The fruits of the Aire proceed from the Centre to the Circumference and there attaine to coagulation and perfection The Seeds of the Water doe bring forth in the inner part of the Earth and from thence tend to the superfices or outside For the Earth wherein we live and flourish bringeth forth its fruits into this Circumference for the corne that grows in the Earth is reaped upon the Earth in the Aire so the procreations of all the Elements doe voluntarily and earnestly bend toward Man-kind as to their desired limit and by a liberall supply of moysture doe cherish all the parts of Nature So also we see that by an imutable decree of Eternall Law it comes to passe and is so ordered that the Water doth not bring forth more then the Earth can bring up Astrers saith that the Aire was created befoâ—e any Creature All mâ—yst things â—tâ—râ—cted by the Sun from the Eâ—â—â—h are consumed in the Aire whose fruits are the likeness of the Tereâ—iâ—biâ— or far of Manna the Aire cherish and the Fire consume The Aire also is twofold for it hath its Element as an Inhabitant in it selfe It is the Balsam of all created things and the life of the other three Elements nor is there any Element that God created more subtle or thin which liveth of it selfe and giveth life to all without which neither Firmament nor Water nor Earth can bring forth their fruits the Fire cannot so much as burne without the Aire much lesse can the coales of Heaven those Crescences of Fire shine The Element of Fire according to Paracis the Firmament of Heaven The Firmament or Fire is likewise is twofold and hath its own Element as an Inhabitant in it selfe which Element hath in it all Astra's and Seeds The Element of Fire or the Corporeall Firmament sends the bodies of the Stars Sun Moon and Planets out of it selfe For as hearbs flowers trees did grow out of the Earth and yet remaine in the Earth so at the Creation did the bodies of the Stars grow out of Heaven and yet abide in the Firmament or Heaven swiming in their Orbs as birds fly in the Aire The twelve Caelestiall Signes in the Zodiak with the other Stars of Heaven are the fruits of Fire and come from the invisible Astra's of Fire By how much the Firmament is more subtle or thin then the Earth by so much the fruits thereof are more subtle and operative then the fruits of the other three Elements Thus the seven Rulers of the world are nothing else but the fruits of Fire As the flowers in earth shew the Colours of the Stars so the constellations in Heaven shew the field or meadow of the Earth which fruits are separated from the Element of Fire and by separation doe increase as flowers and hearbs in the Earth onely the flowers of the Earth abide immovable in their place but the Stars doe not so in the Firmament for they move up and down in the Firmament and those Sphaericall bodies doe by the Providence of God swim in their Orbs as fish in the water or a feather in the Aire and are nourished by the Heaven These like all other created things are twofold we see their visible body as a shining light the invisible Astrum or Sydereall Spirit in the Stars we cannot see so that not the body of the Sun but the Spirit in the body is the Sun properly the like also may be said of Man Moreover the four Astra's of the said Elements are the Seeds in the four matrices or wombs and always two are together and in one to wit the Body and Astrum the invisible and visible The Bodily growes out of the Spirituall and abideth in it and so the invisible vertues Seeds and Astra's are propagated into many Millions through the corporeall Visible body as fire increaseth in wood or in convenient and fit matter one Fire alwayes proceedeth from another Angels cannot increase themselves because they want a body but Man may because he hath a one All things that grow as hearbs trees fishes birds living creatures may augment themselves by the help of the body after this manner for the Seed or Astrum can doe nothing without the body so soon as ever the Seed or Astrum dies and rots in its matrix or womb the Astrum goes forward into a new body and multiplyeth it selfe as Christ himselfe sets it forth by a similitude and example in a graine of Wheat John 12.24 and afterward bringeth forth much fruit or many grains which in time come to have the same power or virtue that the former had out of which they grew Putrefaction consumeth and separateth the old Nature and bringeth new fruit Therefore Eternall life cannot be in any but where the body is first dead because death is the cause of the glorifying of the body in eternall Life as Corruption is the cause of the new generation of a Divine substance 'T is necessary that the first life of hearbs and medicines should die that the second life by the Chymists help may be attained through Putrefaction and Regeneration wherein the Three First discover themselves with their hidden vertues which are necessary for a Phisitian to know for without Regeneration no hid Secret of Physick can be attained to which is without all complexion of qualities When the externall World is known the Phylosophicall Physitian doth also understand the Physicall body of Man which is nourished from the Earth and Sydereall body which liveth by the Firmament he sees that the Physicall body is nothing else but Sulphur Salt and Mercury for all bodily things are contained in these Three as hath been said a little before and that the things that grow doe not spring from the four visible Bodies nor from the four humors but out of the invisible Seed as an hearb or tree groweth out of its seed The Anotomy of the diseases of the body is to be fercâ—â—c from the internall Astra's or impressions which cause the diseases and is more necessary for a Physitian them that Locall Anot of Carkasses It is not the Locall Anotomy of a man and dead corpses but the Essentiated and Elemented Anotomy of the World and man that discovereth the disease and cure The Members or parts of the great world are the Remedies of the members and parts of man by an agreement between the externall and internall Anotomy not setling one degree against another As there is but one Anotomy of a man and a woman so the Anotomy of the diseases and of the medicines
is but one As in Man Man is the Anotomy of the disease so also in Physick Man is the Anotomy of the Physick Anotomy is the Basis of true Phisitians Diseases and Things And though the hidden virtue of Hearbs or the Stars of that Physitian Heaven may be known to us yet the chiefest thing that the Physitian is also to consider is to know the Concordance of Nature viz. how he may make the Astrum of the Physick or of the magicall Heaven agree with the internall Astrum and Olimpus of Man because of the like Anotomy it is that Mummy will stop the bleeding in Man The Nightingale that is subject to the deseases of Spiders is cured by eating them The cause subject of diseases the externall leadeth to the internall as in the great so in the little world He therefore that knows the things that grow and the fruits of the Earth as of hearbs trees c. Viz. that all things proceed out of the seed or Astrum he likewise knoweth that there doe such various diseases lye hid and lurk in the Physicall body which diseases doe not proceed from the four fictitious humours or qualities but rather from the Seed by reason of the Analogy or proportion that is between the great and little world he that knoweth the diseases of the great world cannot be ignorant of the distempers of man As many kinds of Mineralls as are in the world Many diseases proceed out of the mineralls of man which Iliad containeth all things in it selfe so many there be in Man So many kinds of diseases are there as there be sorts bodies and seeds of things that grow No man knows the number of diseases but he that can tell the number of all things that grow The Seeds which the Caelestiall Airy Watry Earthy Astra's are succoured in the Element which agree with mans Nature which in fit and certaine seasons bring forth fruits as messengers of health or sicknesse The Originall of all diseases is from the Three First upon which the Astra's câ—n make some impression as upon wood or Straw or Saf fron upon water So that the Three First are the cause of all diseases for in what body soever they are united that may be concluded to be a sound body but where they are not united there we may be sure that sicknesse and the root of the first death hath taken footing Hereditary diseases which proceed from the Seed or Astra's are partly Elementary because they are known by hot moyst or cold qualities There are other diseases whereof the most part are Astrall or Firmamentall Elementary diseases are cured by Elemental means and Astrall have Astrall remedies The Galenists doe know nothing of these Astral cures which the grave experienced Physitians do well understand which spring out of the Firmament of Man which is as integrally contained in Man as the Elements are And as the visible body hath its meat from the Earth so also the Syderiall spirit of Man or the invisible Man which is the In-mate of the body hath its food from the externall Aire and Fire or Firmament viz. from the Fire of the Firmament as all arts workmanships faculties of the tongue For Heaven is the Father and teacher of all Arts except Divinity and holy Righteousnesse which cannot be learned from the Stars but from the holy Spirit immediately for all Believers and Regenerate men are hid from and unknown to Astronomers as you may find in the Sage and deep Phylosophy of Paracelsus Iron sheweth that man is divided into the externall and internall in the externall dust and earth the matrer of the diseaseand that which afflicteth us doth lye hid therefore the cure is to be sought for in a medicine that is like it seperated from the dregs Spagyrically The internall and Astrallman also hath his proper medicines which the skillfull Physitian knows well As the Loadstone by drawing the Iron to it doth suck out the spirit thereof and leave it rusty so man in respect of the body hath a twofold Loadstone For partly he draws the Astra's to himselfe from which he sucks his food as Bees do hony from flowers and hearbs viz. wordly wisdome sence cogitation c. And partly by his attractive power he inticeth and allureth to him the daily nutriment of his flesh and blood from the Elements And as the Elementall body draweth the Elementary bodies to it by hunger and thirst so the syderiall spirit of Man attracteth all Arts sciences and faculties and all humane Wisdome from the Rayes or beams of the superiour Stars or constellations for the Firmament is the Light of Nature which naturally supplyeth man with all things Furthermore the Astra's or Elements which are Spirits are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is without any quality neither hot nor cold nor dry nor moyst but the things that are produc'd out of them are indued with qualities That whereof any thing is bred of the same doth it live is fed nourished preserved cured made sick punished and â—â—stroyed For out of the Earth grow Poppy Opium cold Darnell the hearb Trinity or Heartsease hot biting Arsesmart thus contrary things grow out of the Elements From the Fire proceedeth Snow Raine Dew Winds Rainbow Thunder Haile Lightning all such Meteor-like impressions proceed from the supreame invisible Spirit of the Firmament out of the Three First i. e. Mercury Salt and Sulphur For as Paracelsus saith they are the fruits and egestions or disgorgings of the Stars of the Firmament the fruits of the invisible Astra's which are in the Stars and make that which is invisible to be visible for the Stars succour and supply their fruits as the Trees of the Earth doe theirs Hence it is plaine that diseases are not cured by contraries as if heat were to expell cold as though man were to have the Elements banished and driven out of him but by the secret things or Astra's which the Chymist can reduce out of the last matter into the first These Arcana or hid things are actually neither cold nor hot yet removeth all diseases as the Axe cutteth down the tree which is neither cold nor hot Of this sort are the Fift Essences Magisteryes and the like Now by Gods assistance I shall say something concerning the Generation Dignity Excelency OF THE MICROCOSM Or Little World MAN For a man to know God lightly esteem of his own selfe is the highest and profitable knowledge AS the most excellent Phylosophy is that which enlightens the mind to the right knowledge of it selfe so to be ignorant of that knowledge is the greatest shame and most pestilent disease of the mind Ignorance saith Trismegistus to his Son Tat is the greatest Enemy and principall Tormenter in every Man Woe be to thee ô Man Luke 16. who neglectest the large patrimony and Talent and the thing committed to thy charge 2 Cor. 4. who considerest not the Treasure that is
hid in thy earthen vessell and may thereout be digged John 14.17.20 Thou seest not God in thy selfe whom the world seeth not neither can receive though he be more in us then we are in our selves inasmuch as the Spirit of God dwelleth in the midst of our hearts And to speak truly we can learn more in the whole course of our life then that Divine lesson that God hath set us KNOW THY SELFE 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore Agryppa holily and learnedly reasoning about the right way that leadeth to true Wisdome and Eternall Happinesse The first knowledge of God is to know what man is August saith it is for a man to know Himselfe according to the Oracle of Apollo written over the doors of his Temple at Delphos Because man hath the true and Reall possession of all things and Natures in himselfe as also the speciall and perfect Image even of the Creator of all things He that knoweth himselfe knows God for God will dwell no where but in man in whom he is most plaine to be seen We see God from within Therefore the knowledge of all things and natures and of the Creator himselfe wherein alone true Wisdome and Blessednesse consisteth must take its rise from the knowledge of a mans selfe So that Man when he doth rightly understand himself may in himselfe as in a kind of Deified glasse behold and understand all things In which respect David saith Psal 139.14 I am fearfully and wonderfully made marvellous are thy works On the contrary He that knoweth not himselfe cannot have any true intrinsecall and essentiall knowledge of things but like a bruit beast what he knows without him shall remaine without him For there is no knowledge whether infused from the Heaven or attained to by labour of industry and earthly diligence that will abide in the soule for ever but is subject to forgetfulnesse and will vanish but that onely which is inwardly received by Essentiall knowledge in the secret understanding which Essential intrinsecall knowledge is not from flesh and blood nor from the multitude of Books and reading nor from the abundants of Experience and old age Dionys lib. Divinors Nominum nor in the inticings of mans Word or wisdome and warangling of reason but the mind of man is perfected and compleated by a passive reception of Divine things not by study and paines but by patience and submission The whole businesse stands in knowledge because we are of every thing and doe carry about every thing in us even as God himselfe our Father The Son doth equally posesse all things with his Father Joh. 4. 17. Therefore all Naturall and Spirituall good things were and are in man at first but as by sin that Divine Character was darkned in us so sin being satisfied for done away that Character shines out againe more and more The Notion of all things is created together with us and in us and in the very middle of the Spirit by all things hid we are onely to awake out of our slumbring and snorting who through sin have fallen asleep in the gifts that God hath bestowed upon us so that we can neither see or perceive and believe that these good things are at present in us The Understanding of man is capable of the highest learning and attainments or according to Plato it is full of all Sciences before it be joyned to the body which being oppressed by the body lyeth hid as fire rak'd up in ashes but being rouz'd and stirred up from the said humours it shineth forth and discovereth those riches which before lay hid in their Treasures Unlesse all the Treasures of Heavenly and Earthly wisdome were in us before surely Christ would never have commanded us to seek nor should we ever find any thing if God had not given and laid up something in us When we therefore know our selves aright according to both kinds of Light God is known when the Light of Nature iâ— well understood Apoc. 3.20 1 according to the Spirit and Nature then by Gods help we enter into the gate that is opened in us and we open to God who stands and knocks at the door of our heart living according to the will of God we have all things necessary as well for wisdome as for life both for present and ever hereafter From this diligent contemplation knowledge of a mans self the true knowledge also of God doth immediately arise for neither can be absolute compleat without the other from the consideration of himselfe a Man may attaine to a good and great measure of the knowledge of him who IS all men being indeed bound to know according to the measure of their capacity Dionysius saith that we cannot know God from his own Nature but from that most orderly disposing of all the Creatures proceeding from himselfe which creatures hold forth as it were images and similitudes of his Divine Presidents or Examples Man that doth not know God is not known of God and he that forsakes and rejecteth the knowledge of God is rejected of God He that knoweth not God is inexcusable He that doth acknowledge God but not serve and worship him iâ— accuâ—sed The more we know God the more we love him and stedfastly belive in him He that believes God by loving of him doth cleave to God he that doth cleave to God is one Spirit with him To be ignorant of God is the Rise or Spring of all diseases the root of wickedness by which all vices are increased and grow ripe As on the contrary the perfect righteousnesse true wisdome and chiefe happinesse of Man is to know his Principle God the Creator of all things and to love him in all purity and uprightnesse To which purpose our Saviour saith truly John 17.3 This is life eternall to know the Father the true God and JESVS CHRIST viz. That the Believer should acknowledge and worship the Trinity which knowledge onely giveth eternall life for he that liveth the life of Christ is born the Son of God he that is born the Son of God must of necessity have the Father he that hath the Father is sealed with the holy Spirit He that knoweth the Son knoweth the Father also for they are but one thing The knowledge of God is Blessednesse and eternall life for he that knoweth God in Christ is made the habitation and Temple of God and so is Deified for he is the Son of God born out of God And as by the knowledge of the visible world we come to the knowledge of the invisible Workman so from Christ visible or the life of Christ we learn to know the Father for he is the way to the Father And as none can come to the Son unlesse he hear and learn from the Father so none can rightly know the frame of the world but he that is taught of God Hence it is plaine that what the Heathen wrote concerning Nature is for
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
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
so hath he given to his Name to have life in it selfe and the Name also to the Letters Great things have been affected by True Magicians by whom I doe not mean Nicromancers or them of the Black Art those accurate searchers out of Nature by a Word written and Characters or Signes Such Names are the Divine Power framed at a certaine time according to the power of Heaven far from all superstition which ariseth onely from ignorance without any prophanation or scandall of the Divine Majesty or any wrong to Faith and Religion otherwise it were better for us alwayes to be sick then to be cured with the dishonour of God For Characters or constellated Names according to Agrippa have no force from the Figureors Pronunciation but by reason of the Vertue or Office which God or Nature hath ordained to such a Name or Character There is no vertue or power either in Heaven or Earth which descendeth not from God nor can it give or actually exercise any thing it hath but by his permission Medicines are visible bodies Words are invisible bodies whether the Hearb or Word healeth it is by God the Naturall Vertue thereof to wit Paracels saith that Characters are â—â—e Compounds and Syrups of Spirits by the Spirit of God made One with Nature by his Word FIAT Concerning Characteristicalll Cure which affecteth Naturall operations by words pronounced written carved and hanged about the neck by the caelestiall properties of the Stars through a marvellous Influence agreeing with our bodies if any desireth to be satisfied herein let him read Rog. Bacon of the wonderfull power of Art and Nature Physitians also have wrought great cures by the Created Word or the incarnate Mercy for all these things are done by the efficacy of the Triune and Divine Word onely which healeth and preserveth all things Luke 11.14 as we see in our Saviour miracles who when he restored the deafe and dumb to whom the Pills and Syrups of all the Shops in the world could doe no good he did it not by Nature but by himselfe he did it by One Word and he is that Word to wit the increated Mercy of God John 1.3 Not by bread alone Mat. 4.4 Grace exceedeth Nature and the thing signified excelleth the signe by which are all created things from which all simples flow which also with the Father dayly worketh all in all What vertue and operation soever there is in the Creatures as well in the great as in the little world all that for certaine is wrought of God incarnate in his explicit and manifest bond of one Spirit filling all things inseperably gathered into one which Spirit therefore is the only fulnes of the whole world Eccl. 24.8 9 10 11. and may well be called The Fulnesse Nothing is made out of God for in him all things live are moved and doe subsist This WORD of God the First begotten of every Creature is truly our Dayly Bread for which our Saviour commanded us to pray it is the supercaelestiall Mummy the supernaturall Balsome comforting poor Mortalls more then Mans own Mummy or naturall Balsom Without this benediction the staffe of bread is broken a God threatned his people by his Prophets It is of mere mercy and goodnesse not of justice that we have both the bread of nourishment and of healing The vertue in bread is the blessing of God yea God himselfe the Word in our Earthly food is the true Bread which is given to good and bad Man liveth not by bread alone but by that which is in Bread So that our Food and Life are not of the Earth but of God by his Word If the Word were not or of it selfe were not the onely Bread then the Earth would be our God but that may not be therefore is it not of the Earth but of God by his word This Word then is the true medicine that healeth all things but is not known to every one nor can every Scholler treat and write of it though plunged over head and eares in the dusty learning of School-Divinity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our friend Theophrastus Paracelsus a Disciple of the Mosaicall and Living Phylosophy hath written of the Secrets of Nature and the Wonders of God to wit of the WORD of God INCARNATE which may be found in the Creatures John 1.10 Heb. 11.3 Psal 107.20 and is the Physick and Staffe of our Life by this Word FIAT the seed of the whole world were Heaven and Earth created and this is that which is efficacious in all the Creatures and to which the Creatures are justly in subjection as to their own soule Whatsoever therefore the Physitian doth effect Naturally or by HEARBS working successively by the space of time The explication of a common saving 1 in Hearbs Stones and Words there are great vertues that the MAGUS the Wise man or Caelestiall Physitian performeth suddenly and much sooner by Characters and Stones with a most powerfull impression to wit the Gamahaea of Influentiall Wedlock to the Terrestiall signe by matrimoniall combination of the Superiors and Inferiors ASTRALLY For such is the mutuall tye and continuity of Nature that like a stretched cord all the Superiour vertue floweth through every inferiour thing even to the utmost dispersing its beams by a long and continued order and succession on the other hand the inferiour passe through all to their Superiours because the working Vertue is one and the participation of the species is diffused through all Divine Matrimony Hence is that wonderfull tye continuity influence and simpathy between inferiour superiour Naturall things many things may be done in Magick and Cabal by the intercession of the worlds marriage And the True Cabalist whom Paracelsus calls the Naturall Divine who is equall to the Prophets and whose mind being united and coaequant to God doth whatsoever he will for he willeth onely what God doth he doth above Nature DEALLY or like God accomplish complish in a moment by firme confidence and strong faith Every Creature feareth and reverenceth his Name that made it the very GATE of miracles in that Only Divine Name ISHUH in which all things are reckoned up and contained that is he doth performe it in the WONDERFULL WORD by the Mind Faith and Prayer to wit prayers made in Spirit and in Truth The New Birth is the Field of Caelestiall Physick which healeth with a word without Externall means that one operation is in respect of God as the Artificer and in respect of Man as the Instrument every creature is at the beck and command of their faith who are men innocent and taught in the Law of the Lord Read the books of the Kings 1 Kings 3.12 Wifd 7. who are heard in all things whatsoever they pray for witnesse Elias Elisha c. By prayer in Faith we obtaine all things I mean not a lazy sluggish prayer but a constant asking seeking knocking by faithfull Prayer we ascend in
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
mystery the Quint-Essence which is the true Internall sutable freindly and correspondent Balsom of our bodyes that so at least that quickning essence may be got whose faculty mounts more high and quick being loosed from its chaines and brings forth far greater vertue and more efficacious to then before All Venemous things have a Balsom agreeable to Mans Nature and there is no poysonous Creature but hath in it an Antidote against its own poyson and in its kind is good though it be poyson to Man yet many times is it common food to another Creature Spiders are good for hens and Sparrowes Toads for Serpents Serpents for Staggs and Storks but these Formes of Physick work better when they are extracted then whilst they are drowned in Matter which alwayes hindereth and restraineth the power and operation of the Secret Even the Soule or Form of every kind of thing hath not onely more but more excellent vertues and operations by far than either the very body or the matter of the same thing For as every thing hath its being from the Form by how much the more it hath of the Form by so much the more is there of the Entity And this the very Enemyes of Chymistry are forced to confess being compel'd by their own conscience and convinced thereof by ocular demonstration Hence many advantages follow Reasons why the Spagyrick Physick duely prepared is to be preferd before other Hetroclite mixtures in the shops First Because many sick people will take it more easily and willingly for many sometimes are so unwilling that they had rather dye then drink such a deale of those muddy and pudly potions which spoyl the complexion of a mans body and which the Physitian himselfe that prescribed it and the Apothecary that mingled would abhor and altogether refuse to drink in the like case Secondly Though these medicines be often used yet they hurt not the stomack seeing nothing hindereth but that they may doe their work and quickly both affect the body and be affected by it for being separate in the stomack they are by a naturall force carryed without hinderance to their known lodgings that so the harsh and Earthy parts of them sticking to the inwards might not ulcerate nor make them sickly who take often as it falls out with the common use of vulgar medicines Thirdly Because all the hurtfull quality is altogether cast out of or at least easily kept under in these Essences by the permixture of other most exquisite propertyes And which cannot be denyed this Spagyrick art is so necessary that he can be no safe Physitian who hath it not For many times in one simple thinge there are different substances somtimes of contrary qualityes whereof one may be hurtfull the rest healthfull as we see in Opium and honey which can no otherwise be knowne but by seperation of the substances which cannot be done without this Art By this Art only the Galenists may make good their Axioms who affirm that all bitter things are hot whereas Opium though it be exceeding bitter yet the stupefactive vertue is predominant Roses also and Succory though they be bitter yet are they applyed as coolers The knot of this Answer must be cut with an Anatomicall knife fire for thus we come to understand the temperature of simples by making a seperation of the substances and so we finde that in Opium there is a sweet Narcotick Sulphur and a bitter hot Salt penetrating by a subtile resolution and causing sweat without any stupefactive vertue Poyson reduced to its Arcanum is not poyson but a soveraign nedicine thus the earthy â—lnets are healed of their Leprâ—sie and stinking smells by degestion are turned into sweet savours And which is much to be admired though the poyson of mettalls is most peâ—nâ—â—ious yet may it be so corrected and amended by the help of this Art and of Fire that it may be taken into the whole body without danger as skilfull Physitians well know who can tell how to pick and cull the best things out of the worst this is plaine by the example of Arsâ—eck which being of an unruly malignity yet it is tamed artificially with Salt-Peter by the assistance of Fire Mineralls whose spirits exceed ours in subtilty and precious stones ought to be accounted medicinable which rightly prepared doe much excell all Vegetables in effecting cures First Because so great vertue and strong operations cannot be stampt upon such soft matter as is that of Plants and living things so as to retaine and hold such impression Nor can it be that Vegetables which are obnoxious to corruption should so free Mans body from corruption as the Spirits of perfect mettalls doe which are not subject to corruptions Secondly It is clear that Miniralls and imperfect mettalls are indowed with great medicinable vertues as appeareth in Chyrurgical medicines there being scarce any Oyntment prepared that is not made of an imperfect mettall or minerall Therefore perfect things doubtlesse have received of the Omnipotent far greater force and vertues Thirdly Because Nature which desireth to bring forth living things and Plants fit not for any one action onely but for many vertues and performances could by no means so contemper the mixture of those bodies that they should attaine to such admirable power and admit of the solid and stable Nature of a Balsom Fourthly Because stones require a long time of generation but perfect bodies are generated in a shorter space Nature therefore by length of time can adorn precious stones and other metallary bodies with a greater faculty of working for they are not distracted with the variety of sensible and movable offices Adde also That precious stones are more to be commended then others for their excellent temper and splendor which in the Bohemian Garnat is such that it can hardly be spoyled or corrupted by any force of Fire and that onely because of the fixation of spirits that may be seen in it in which respect it striveth to be as medicinable as Gold and may well be preferd before the Orientall Rubie in Physick which can scarce indure the Fire as many hours as the other can months Gemmes are Elementary Stars This also by the way is to be observed that precious stones have the Colour Forme and Tincture more or lesse from Mettalls by formation of the Stars for they are transplanted Mertalls Rubies and Garnats have the Tincture of Gold Saphirs and Turcoides of Silver Emeralds and Chrysolites of Copper the Jacint and Topaz of Iron the Diamond of Tinne-Saturn addeth a gluish matter to the weight or heavinesse as may be ocularly demonstrated from those factitious and fictitious gemms that are made of the powder of red lead and white flints proportionably mixed receiving a mettallick Forme from Fire And though they are no whit inferiour in splendor to those that are Naturall and genuine yet the skilfull Stone-gravers can easily discerne the cheat and fraud by their softnesse and lightnesse See
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
was in his life and cost him nothing contrary to the determinate assertion of Physitians Aphorismes and shortly after he was marryed Likewise in the year 1606. at Prague a certaine Silesian to get mony did in the presence of many swallow six and forty white flints which he gathered at banck side weighing almost three Physick pounds the least of which was about the bignesse of a Pigeons egge all of them being almost four of my handfulls by this bold adventure without impairing his health he went up and down getting his living for many years together c. CHAP. V. The Duty of Natures Minister the Physitian ALL common Philosophy was not bound up in Aaistotle as P. Ramus hath soundly proved nor was the whole Light of Nature drawne into Galen and limited in him only witnesse Paracelsus No man ought to deprive another of the liberty of human ingenuity that Light of Nature the power to discern and judge as well as himselfe the Grecian Monarchy is at an end Therefore he that would be an Excellent Physitian he must be free from every kind of Sect. for no man can be said to be truly and throughly learned who is bound up to the rudiments of any one faculty only not to be tyed to the opinion of any one Author but to follow the naked Truth and subscribe to it alone alwayes remembring that of Horace Quo me cunque rapit tempestas deferor hospes-Nutlius addictus jurare in verba magistri I think and judge as cause I finde My rule is not anothers minde Not that other mens inventions are altogether to be slighted by stickling onely for one sect for all sects be they never so many may well be admitted because in every one of them there is some thing excellent which is not common to another as said that most noble and wise Picus Mirandula the Phaenix of Phylosophers the inimitable patterne of most profound ingenuity and variety of learning There is no book so base and bad but hath some good in it which the best Authors have somtimes let slip without taking notice of it This latter age saith Fabius hath endeavored to make the former more compleat and because knowledge thriveth as ingenuity is improved therefore many loathsome errours of the Heathen have been as by a second song All Secret are by divine Ordination to be discovered wip'd away by men of greater wisdome coming after them Doubtlesse there are more secrets yet concealed in the Treasures of Wisdome and Nature then we perceive which being ordained for Times and Nations by an immutable decree to the end of the world are to be sought out by wise-hearted men For Nature certainly being Circularly can hardly be wholly comprehended by any mortall man by reason of the shortnesse of his life The case so standing neither the Physick of the Ancients nor that of Theophrastus is totally to be rejected Many errours of the Ancients are discovered by dayly experience which yet hath not attained its end neither nor yet so to be imbraced but that if there be a better found out it also is to be received for one day teacheth another to morrow may be master to this day both should be compared together what is best in both let that be cetained For being but men they have their failings in some places they mistake in other they write one thing contrary to another and thwart each other sometimes they differ from themselves in many things they are deceived nor doth every man see all things The holy Spirit alone hath the plenary or full knowledge of all things who distributeth to every man according to his particular measure blowing where it listeth and reserving many things to himselfe that we might alway acknowledge him to be our only teacher A true Phisitian should be the minister not a master to Nature and a Philosopher skilfull to cure acording to the conclusion of Hippocrates Galen But since there are severall sects of Phylosophers some after the Vulgar manner will be looking below the Moon after the Elementary Nature of things others far more excellent and more truly deserving the name of Philosophers investigate the Arcana and more secret things of Nature they go into the very inner roomes and Sanctuary of Nature and have the true knowledge and Expeeience of Nature's Light which maketh a true Physitian indeed A Physitian is compleated by 3 things the Naturall innate vertue of things that grow of the Earth the Celestiall influence causing that vertue the uniting of it by Chymistry with the Constellation of the firmament the dexteriâ—y of the Phisitian mediating the same In Chirurgia magna But first as Paracelsus saith let him be the legetimate INTERPRETER of NATURE who alone searcheth out its oeconomy and the universall latitude thereof prying into all the Species and kinds of all the Creatures that may by themselves be known and then comes to consider and looke into man A true Phylosopher haâ—h the originall from the knowledge of Heaven and Earth whose Nature and quality he doth perfectly understand Phylosophy hath iâ—s Rise and Râ—â—t in Admiration Phylosophy teacheth the vertues and qualityes of the Earth and Water as Astronomy doth of the fire and Ayre Phylosophy and Astronomy make a perfect Phylosopher not onely in the great but also in the little world A Physitian should have the knowledge of Phylosophy and Astronomy Chyromancy Pyromancy and Geomancy are the Elements of Astronomy and Phylosophy Theophrasteans contemplate and admire the workmanship of Nature throughout this mighty frame of the whole Creation who give themselves to a vary examination and a wise inquisition into the qualities affections motions courses and recourses of the Heavens and fiery bodies as also into their rise fall antecessions consecutions progresses digressions stops and sudden passionate motions and lastly into the seeds principles dimensions and instincts of all sublunary bodies all which they doe with great observations and no lesse diligence by which industry and that perpetuall thirst which they have of meditation and cogitation By this meditation which is a frequent cogitation the manner cause reason of every manner of thing is found out together with their praâ—ers and earnest desires they doe at last attaine not onely to understand but also really to imitate the greatest mysteries and secrets of Nature and that which is more then all they can tell how to improve and imploy them When the Phylosopher comes to a stand in the Naturall Light of the Macrocosm then the Physitian begins to move and proceed in the Analogicall Concordance of the Naturall Light of the Microcosm with that of the great world Secondly a Physitian must be a good SPAGIRUS A Philosopher and Physitian spring one out of another are the root of each other the onely Spagyrick cook of all things Phylosophy is the mother of Physitians â—â—d the exâ—laiâ—er of 〈◊〉 â—â—â—eâ— theiâ—â—â—â—â—â—dyeâ— one that can seperate the pure
of Mans Archaeus or the Internal innate Chymist which God hath planted in Man as soon as it taketh any thing into it self it seperateth that which is impure dreggy and Tartarous from the pure Nourishment if the Stomack be strong in it's ful separative force the pure passeth to the Members for nourishment the impure goeth out by successe If the Stomack be weak and feeble the impure also is sent through the Mesaraick veins to the Liver and there separated and digested the second time The Liver therefore of these two in their course and by turne seperateth the pure from the impure viz. the Rubie from the Chrystall The Rubie is the nourishment of all the members the heart braine c. the Christall or that which is not the nourishment it sendeth to the reines The first separation of Tartar which is by the Liveâ—â—utneth into mosse the second which is of the stomack into haile the third of the kidneys and bladder into a little stone Every Man hath mosse haile but not a stone in him this is urine which is nothing else but the Salt pressed out of the Mercurialls forced into resolution by the violence of separation which the Liver resolveth into Water and then throws it out If the Liver be weak and cannot well separate it sendeth it to the kidneys mucilaginous and stony there for want of good separation that is when the spirits of Salt viz. of the flesh and of the urine are united the Spirit of the Salt coming between by the power of predestination it is coagulated into Sand or Tartar either cloddy or mucilaginous Tartar therefore is the excrement of meat and drink which by the spirit of Salt is coagulated in Man except it be mixt together with the Excrements by the proper expulsive vertue and so cast our with them whence otherwise would arise four kinds of Tartar the stone of the bladder the Sand of the Kidneys the clods or gobbets as also the Slime or lutous matter of the stomack with many other diseases which the Ancients knew not Againe Paracelsus distinguisheth Tartar into that which is strange or forraine proceeding from meat and drink and that which is innate of the cruor or hereditary blood which innate Tartarous disposition cannot be cured by the Physitian who knows not how to force Nature but onely by the Quint-Essence of Gold which reneweth the whole body Tartar therefore or the Naturall superfluity the mucilage of Salt is the mother of almost all diseases of all coagulate bodies For all kind of food Paracels saith that the Matter viz. the Tartar of diseases is twofold Bolous such as in milk meats fish and flesh and Viscous Bituminous mucilaginous such is the excrement of pulse coleworts roots fruits c. by Divine ordination hath Poyson or a Tartarous Mucilaginous Impurity hard by or close unto the medicine or Physick thereof There are four sorts of Tartar springing from the fourfold fruits of the Elements by which we are nourished The first sort ariseth from the use of those things which grow in the Earth as Pulse of all sorts Hearbs c. upon which we feed The second cometh from the nourishment which we have from the Water as Fish shell-Fish The third is in the Flesh of Beasts and Fowles The fourth from the Firmament which is most like to the Spirit of wine in its subtilty and hath the strongest impression of all if the Aire be infected by the vapours of the Earth and Water and Firmament afterward it affecteth us also as we see in those acute and pernicious Astrall diseases the Pleuresie Plague Prunells or raging burning diseases which diseases proceeding from the impressions of the Stars the universall medicine powerfull expelleth Those four kinds of Tartar shew themselves in the Urine and are judged of by the art of separation by which it appeareth from what kind of Tartar the disease proceedeth He that knoweth what sort of food any one eateth may also know his disease or he that knoweth the disease may know what he eateth The disease is cured by the same Element that was the cause of it If Galen and his followers had had the true knowledge of these Excrements of meat and drink which for the most part breed all our diseases which Paracelsus comprehendeth under the name of Poyson and Tartar Choller and Melancholly had long since been rooted out of the Physitians Garden He that knoweth not this Tartarous matter of diseases which proceedeth from the excrementitious superfluities of meat and drink cannot possibly understand how the Author of diseases afflicteth us by destroying the frame of the little world and taking away our life If we know not the Tartar we cannot tell what that is which infringeth the spirit of cogulation and separateth the Tartar from the Nourishment viz. our Naturall Heat or the microcosmicall heat of the Sun and Moon that is in us whereby the Nutriment is digested like fire that burneth up the wood and from which good blood is begotten if it be not hindered by sicklinesse and weakning of the separative vertue of the stomack Liver and Kidneys and then it must be strengthned by its like that is by the macrocosmicall Heat of Sun and Moon if it could be got even the most simple matter which the most Great God generated of the spirit of the world one and the same with the spirit of our body for the restauration and conservation of Humane Nature or with those things wherein the power of the Sun and Moon is The Vitall spirit in Man and the Elementall is but one spirit and is deduced by art into act viz. turned into such a simple spirit as is the spirit of our life which is done by resolution and conjuction with the Nutriment But if the Archaeus of our stomack liver or kidneys which separateth the pure from the impure be infected Tartar differeth according to the places of the bodies pores and passages as of the mouth and bottome of the stomack of the intestines liver bladder reins flesh blood marrow or their separative power be hindered by any externall accidents then the excrements stay in the Chylus and cause stomachall diseases in the stomack Jecorall in the liver Athriticall in the gâ—ew sinewes ligaments and joynts and breed the Gout in the hands feet knees from congelation of the glew by the spirit of Salt besides those diseases of the Reines and Intestines Therefore the Archaeus of the stomack must destroy the Tartar of the Elements least it be turned into the Tartar of Man for the spirit of the Sun which is Lord and Master of coagulation in various subjects will breed the Stone if it finde matter resolv'd or separated from the nutriment and excrement So much for Tartar Secondly Because we have more perfect medicines now then heretofore that is to say of Mineralls whose preparations and due administrations were discovered to those skilfull Chymists the Sons of Cadmus A knotty piece must
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
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
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
about the channells and hollownesse of the centre within the other Elements and the skie What the water is This is the hutch of the Nymphs and monsters of the Sea The earth was coagulated into dry land What the Earth is It is sustained by the pillars of the Arcealtes and is upheld by none of the other Elements but is propt up by the pillars of the Archaltes These are the strange and wonderfull works of God The earth is the chest of those things that grow which are nourished by it This kind of separation was the beginning of all creatures and the first distribution both of these and all other creatures TEXT 12. After the Elements were thus brought forth into their essence and divided from each other that every one subsisted severally in its own place without prejudice to one another then a second separation followed the first which procceeded from the Elements The firc's separation and its kind Thus every thing that lay in the fire was transformed into the heavens one part thereof as into an Ark or cloyster another part proceeded out of it as a flower out of a stalk Thus the Stars Planets The second Stars sprang out of the second separation and whatsoever is in the Firmament were brought forth These sprang out of the Element not as a stalk groweth with its flowers out of the earth for these grow out of the earth it selfe but the Stars came out of the heavens by separation onely as the flowers of silver ascend How the Stars came out of heaven and separate themselves So that all the firmaments are separated from the fire But before the firmament was separated from the fire every jot thereof was but one Element of fire For as a tree in winter is but a tree but when the spring comes the same tree if that be separated from it that may be separated puts forth leaves flowers and fruit which is the time of its harvest and separation Just such another harvest was there in the separation of the great mysterie which could by no means with-hold or defer it selfe any longer TEXT 13. Another separation out of the Aire followed the separation of the Elements The separation of the aire and its kind at one and the same instant with that of the fire For the whole aire was predestinated unto all the Elements Yet is it not in the other Elements of mixture in any manner and measure but it doth assume and occupy all manner of things in all the Elements onely what was before surrounded it doth not possesse For no mixture of the Elements continued fast united but every Element betook it selfe to its own free power without dependance on another As soon as this Element thus parted from the rest out of the great mysterie presently out of it were distributed Fates impressions inchantments superstitions shrewd turns dreams divinations lotteries visions apparitions fatacests melosines spirits diemeae durdales and neuferans At the separation of the things aforesaid every thing had its proper place and peculiar essence appointed it Hence things invisible in themselves became sensible unto us No Element was by the supream Secret made more thin than the Aire The Diemeae dwell in the rocks Diemes live among the stones for such there created with the Aire unto a vacuity The Durdales betook themselves into woods for their separation was into such a kind of substance The Durdales Neuferans Melosines The Neuferans inhabit in the Aire or pores of the earth The Melosinies stept aside into mans blood for their separation from the aire was into bodies and flesh Spirits The Spirits were distributed into aire that is yet in a Chaos All the rest are in peculiar places of the Aire every one keeping its place assigned to it and separate from the Element of the Aire yet so as that it must of necessity live therein nor can it change that place for another TEXT 14. The separation of the water and its kind By the separation of the Elements the water was gathered into the place which the mysterie had alotted it Thus every thing whatsoever that lurked in the Elementary vertue and property thereof was more fully divided by a second separation and the water parted into many speciall mysteries all which had their matrix from the Element of water One part thereof became fishes and they are of many forms and kinds some beasts some salt much of it sea-plants as Corals Trines and Citrons Corall trine and citrons sea-plants a great deal of it sea-monsters contrary to the manner and naturall course of the Elements very much became Nymphs Syrenes Drames Lorind Nymphs Syrenes Dramae Lorind Nesder Nesder some reasonable creatures having something eternall in their body and propagating themselves some also that die totally and some that are againe separated in time For the perfect separation of the element of water is not yet made But as the great harvest hastneth and cometh on a new increase may spring up every year in the Element of water And this separation is made at the same instant when the other Elements are separated in one dayes work and by the motion of sequestration So that every thing thus living in the water was at once in a minute and moment of time created and made manifest by the separation TEXT 15. The separation of the earth and its kind In like manner when the Element of the earth was disjoyn'd from the rest the earthy separation was made to wit the separation of all things that doe or did spring in or out of the earth For at the first creation the four Elements lay hid in all things alike in the great mysterie which things also were separated after the same manner and in one instant and were divided among themselves one after another by a second separation which is Elementary And by this kind of Elementary separation out of the Element of the Earth things sensible and insensible those that are eternall and those that are not eternall were parted from one another every one obtaining its peculiar essence and free power All that was of a woody nature was made wood The next was mines of mettalls A third became marcasite The difference of Mineralls talke bisemute pomegranate mettallick cobalt milsto and many other things A fourth precious stones of many sorts and shapes as also stones sands and lime A fift was made into fruit flowers hearbs and seeds A sixt into sensible living creatures whereof some partake of eternity as men others doe not as calves sheep c. Whereof many kinds and differences might be reckoned up for many more kinds were separated in the earthy Element than in any other Earthy things are propagated by seed For by the seed of two are all things propagated that is by the coming together of father and mother which was not predestinated and ordained in the other Elements Here also are the Gnomi
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
and it is madnesse to affirme more TEXT 17. What Predestâ—nation is When all creatures thus returne their predestinations then there will be a mystery Predestinanion is the last matter which will be without an Element and without a present essenceâ— but the things that shall then abide will be more temperate and uncorrupt This must not be understood of the spirit but of nature with this evidence that something eternall cometh in the room of that which is mortall Things mortall leave behind them that which is immortall For if insensible plant perish its place is supplyed by that which is eternal Nor is there any one frail or mortall thing in all the world which doth not substitute something that is eternall in its place Nothing is empty or vaine no corruptible thing was created without a succession of that which is eternall When all creatures come to an end then those things that are eternall shall meet and come together not only as nourishments but rather to the office or chiefe rule of nature both in the mortall and eternall Thus the eternall is a sign or token of the dissolution of nature and not the beginning or principle of things created it is in all things which no nature is destitute of And though the Fatalls also as the Melosines and Nymphs shall leave the eternall behind them yet wee shall say nothing of their corruptions at this time There is a fourfold putrefaction of the creatures As there are four worlds so we must know that there is a manifold putrefaction There is an earthy there is an airy there is a fiery and a watry putrefaction Every thing and what was created with it together with the eternall that remaineth is brought and turned to destruction Yet those four putrefactions shall bring back their eternall into one similitude with renown and glory not with its works but with its essence A solitary habitation is a kind of eternity but abounding in many seperations or distinctions TEXT 18. We are come now to speak of the EVESTRUM What the Ever is which according to its essence is either mortall or immortall The Evester is a thing like a shadow on the wall The shadow riseth and waxeth greater as the body doth and continueth with it even unto its last matter The Evestrum takes its beginging at the first generation of every Things animate and inanimate sensible and insensible and whatsoever casteth a shadow all of them have their Evester TRARAMES is the shadow of an invisible essence Trarames is the Evester of invisible things It springeth up with the reason and imagination of intelligent and bruite creatures To discourse rightly or Philosophically of the Evestrum and Trarames requireth the highest wisdome The Evester maketh to Prophesie Trarames giveth sharpnesse of wit To fore-tell what shall befall a man beast tree c. is by the shadowy Evester but the reason why it should be so is from the Trarame The difference of Evesters Some Evesters have a beginning some have not Such as have a beginning may be dissolved with the surviving eternall That which is without beginning hath power in the understanding to whet or provoke that which hath a begining towards the Traramium The mortall Evester knoweth the eternall This knowledge is the mother of a Prophet The ground of every understanding is extracted and cull'd out of the Evester as it were by the light of nature A Prophet therefore doth Evestrate that is he doth Prophesie from the Evester But if a spirit Prophesie it doth so without the light of nature And therefore may deceive us being full of guile doubtful as well as prove certain and true Thus Trarames also would be divided in the shadow of reason TEXT 19. Again when all things shall be dissolv'd then Evester and Trarames too shall come to an end yet not without some reliques of eternity The Evester is no otherwise but as it were the eternal of the firmament in the four worlds The Firmament is fourfold There is a fourfold Firmament divided into four perfect essences according to the four worlds every world perfectly respecting its own creature being just such another thing as it selfe is one creature out of the firmament in the earth one in the water aire fire The firmament that is in the Evester is dispersed those be not Stars which we see they are the firmaments of the Nymphs which are not Stars nor have any use of Stars but have their peculiar and proper firmament as the Fates they have a fiery one every one hath an heaven earth mansion habitation firmament Stars Planets and other such like which are not in the least one like anonother As water and fire substance and that which cannot be felt visible and invisible are to each other so are those things In these the Evester is divided in the fatalls and its shadow stayeth behind the essence after the dissolution and the Evester when the fire is out cleaveth to the fiery man as another to the watry A great number of Evesters and so to the earthy This Evester is that which deceiveth and maketh the world mad cunningly covering it selfe from one world to another shewing visions flashes signes forms and shapes Hence ariseth the Evester of comets the Evester of impressions the Evester of miracles The Evester Prophesieth and shadoweth But these three Evesters are Prophesying Evesters or shady Everters The high and noble mind is with the Prophetick and Umbratick Evesters TEXT 20. The Prophetick Evester is first necessary to be known For the great Turban What the great Turban is which presageth all things that are in the four worlds is of the same kind of essence Whatsoever shall fall out monstrously or happen contrary to nature or contrary to life and common expectation is known by the Prophetick Evester which overshadoweth it selfe and is taken out of the great Turban A Prophet must of necessity know the great Turban It is united to reason and hard to be found out The excellency and height of it But t is possible for man to know the great turban even to its utmost resolution From this it was that all the Prophets spake For in it are all the signes of the world Out of it are all Evesters begotten by it the comets those prodigious Stars which are besides the usuall course of heaven are shadowed All impressions have their originall from the Turban not from the Firmament or Stars When any strange and uncouth thing is at hand there are fore-runners and harbingers sent forth by whom the evill that shall befall a people is presag'd to them And those presagings are not from nature but from the Propheticall Evester All pestilences all wars all seditions have their presages from the turban He that knoweth the Evester is a Prophet and can tell things to come The most high over all doth not discourse with mortalls nor doth he
send his Angells to them from his throne and dwelling place to declare such things but those things are fore-known and understood from the great Turban The great Turban worshipped as God which many Pagans and Jewes darkened in the true sence and understanding have worshipped as a God TEXT 21. What the Umbrate Evester signifieth Sith that the shadowed Evester beginneth and springeth up with every creature we must know that the fortune and life of that thing where the Evester is may be prognosticated by it For example When a child is born at the same time the Evester is born with him continually manifest in him that it presageth from the cradle to the very hour of death and can shew what will become of that infant So when one is ready to die death seizeth not on him till the Evester hath first past sentence either by blow bruise or fall or some such other kind of example by which if a man perceive the Evester he may see a signe of his approaching death The Evester is united to the eternall The Evester abideth in the world after death For a mans Evester remaineth in the earth after his death and hinteth in its kind whether the man be in blisse or misery Nor ought we to say that it is the spirit or soul of a man as simple people speak or that it is the dead man that walketh But it is the dead mans Evester which departeth not hence till the last minute when all things shall come together This Evester worketh strange things The Saints wrought miracles by their Evester Holy men wrought miracles by their Evester onely As the Sun by his shining gives forth his heat nature and essence so is it with the divining and Propheticall Evesters in us to which we should give credit These rule and moderate sleep fond dreams prefigurations of things to come the natures of things reason concupiscences and thoughts TEXT 22. Whereas things to come may thus be known before in the Elements by that wherein the Evesters dwell some Evesters will be in the water some in looking glasses some in crystalls some in polished muskles some will be known by the commotions of waters some by songs and by the mind For all these can as I speak Evestrate The mysterious Evester of God The most great and blessed God hath a mysteriall Evester in which his essence and property is beheld Every good and every inlightned thing is known by the mysterious Evester On the contrary What the Evester of the damned is the damned hath his Evester in the world by which the evill is known and all whatsoever violateth and breaketh the law of nature Although those two may Evestrate yet doe they nothing belong to our life For we shall not know our selves but by our own Evester All creatures have Evesters Every thing hath an Evester all which likewise are Prophets either reasonable or unreasonable sensible or insensible The Evester is a spirit What an Evester is which teacheth Astronomy Not that it is learned by nativities and prognostications from the Stars but its esse as I may so say is from the Evesters its Ens or being is in these as an image in a glass or as á shade in water or the earth As growing things are increased and diminished just so it is with the Stars Not that their course is such of their own nature and that moyst and cold rise out of the earth but onely because the essence of the earth is such It is shadowed in heaven but by parts yet as an Evester but not as a power TEXT 23. Such kind of Evesters also will be corrupted yet shall they not perish without something eternall Nor shall the Evesters themselves be so much regarded for they shall fully and wholly dwell with or in those things to whom they belong Hence let every man now advise with himselfe that above all things he admonish and learn to know himselfe The infinite number of Evesters The nature and number of the Evesters is infinite These lead men about in their sleep fore-shew good and evill search out the thoughts perform work and do business without bodily motion So wonderfull a thing is the Evester A commendation of the Evester the mother of all things in the Prophets Astronomers and Physitians If the understanding come not from the Evester there can be no knowledge of nature As theft poynteth to the gallowes and the clouds to rain and urine to the disease so the Evester sheweth all things without exception The Sibylls and Prophets spake by the Evester From it the Sybills and Prophets spake but as it were drowsily and dreamingly After this manner are the Evesters in the four worlds one being alwayes a presage to another communicateth an image and a miracle which by there disolution and regeneration will be much more to be admired Nor shall we forbeare to say that the Evester is an Eternall relict the support of religions and the operation of the Celestialls Nothing but felicity blessednesse the cheifest good and the last judgment move and stir us up to seek and search more narrowly and exactly after the difference between those two things or Evesters that is between the true and false which is to be considered and known not spiritually but naturally THE Third Book TEXT 1. Nothing is without a body EVery thing that hath a Being must nf necessity have a body The manner and reason thereof is that we may know it is like a smoakie spirit that hath neither substance nor bodie nor can be felt And though it be neither of these yet both bodyes and substances may proceed out of it Thus may we conceive of fuming Arsnicke that after the generation of a body there is no more of the fume of the spirit to be seen no more then if all were turned into a body Which yet is not so for it still remaineth most subtle in that place of generation And so both the visible invisible are brought forth together by seperation After this way and manner all things are propagated How al things are imbodied Wood hath still a surviving spirit from which it is seperated So have stones and all things else none excepted For their Essence still remaineth just as it was seperated from them What man is how made Man likewise is nothing but a relique and the remainder of smoak seperated But yet note that he was a kind of spirit before Of this drosse was man made and is a thing most subtill in spirit Yea he is that very spirit that is A twofold eternall a discovery or sign of a twofold Eternall one of Caleruthum the other of Meritorium Caleruthum what it is Caleruth is a note or discovery in the first Eternall This seeketh or desireth the other that is God The cause therof is naturall Like