Enchyridion PHYSICAE RESTITUTAE; OR, The Summary of physics Recovered.  
Wherein the true Harmony of NATURE is explained, and many errors of the Ancient PHILOSOPHERS, by Canons and certain Demonstrations, are clearly evidenced and evinced.  
LONDON, Printed by W. Bentley, and are to be sold by W. Sheares at the Bible, and Robert Tutchein at the phoenix, in the New-Rents in S. Paul's churchyard. 1651.   

The authors Epistle.  
TO THE HONOURERS OF Natural Light.  
AFter I had lately with-drawn myself from public employments, & reprieved my Soul from the dangerous attendants of a COURTIER's life, and had now ancored my thoughts in a blessed retirement, I always had resounding the echo of that poetical passage in mine ears: 
Here is the Freedom the Soul gains,  
Enfranchised from her golden Chains.  Now began I to feel those thoughts of Natural philosophy, always fostered by me, though till now, as it were ill attended, to give a fresh and sprightly Spring in my Soul. I could not but upon their return, give them a wonted and merited welcome, that I might by the gain of this inward and natural Light, repair my voluntary ressignment of that outward and deceitful splendour: Besides, by this course, I had hopes to wipe off a public guilt, for now did I apprehend the charge of a desertor of public employments, and of the Laws of my country likely to fall upon me, therefore lest this might issue a deep censure, I fled to that sanctuary, the study of the Occult, and almost unsearchable Laws and customs of Nature in the Universe, the common country of all, hoping a security in this study, and a protection from this policy. For certainly civil Constitutions will not decree any remarkable Amercement upon him, who laying down the burden of those Troubles, doth retire himself to the general service of the World.  
Now was my Soul rolling within itself thought concerning the sovereignty, laws, Order, Government, harmony, Effects, Causes, yea, the unconceivable Riches of Nature; now indeed was I lost in admiration of these, which astonishment, though it be an evidence of ignorance, yet it is also an incentive to knowledge, for it causeth the Soul to soar above, by which it is enkindled with a burning desire to know what it is, as yet ignorant of, though affected to.  
My Soul being thus inflamed, brought several philosophical Constitutions to a severe Text, and upon the touch, assented not to their verity, because Nature did seem to dart some weak and waning Light, as it were breaking forth upon the confine and border of a scarcely discerned Truth, till at length, the Light began so to rise, as to break through the encompassing Fogs, and to break into my Soul, whereby it was not only made more resplendent, but also more confident, not only to view the ground, but also to dig for the Treasure.  
The first errors of the Ancients, and which are the worst and radical errors that came into my thoughts, were those concerning the Principles of Nature, concerning the first Matter and that Universal Form, from which all things flow, concerning the Number of the Elements, their Qualities, their Opposition, situation, Reciprocation; when I had seriously turned these within my thoughts, I laid hold of an Opinion different from the Current; neither was the authority of ancient Philosophers, nor their ingenious, but unsatisfactory reasonings, able to divert my mind from that perpetual devotion, in which it stood to the light of Nature. So now what I first admired, I now affected, yea, that Love, which hath no weapons but fiery rays, struck my soul into a flame, to enter into the most secret and sacred rooms of Nature.  
But I was long in a suspensive Dispute with myself, whether it were my duty to communicate to you, the Students of philosophy, those secrets I have found, suspicious lest it might prove a disgust to you, a danger to myself; for I found Experience the best counsellor to give me warning to be wise by the folly of others, and to learn to stand by their falls; for I always was musing how many had wracked their credit by scribbling, how our modern Wits are close in their commendations, but lavish enough in their detraction of other men's labours, how attempting their souls are in fancying and fostering follies, how obstinate in the retaining a conceived Truth; yea, I considered it was not only a project of difficulty, but also of danger, to pull up a received and an acknowledged Opinion, and to implant a new and divers.  
But in this Conflict, (Ye most ingenious assertors of Natural Light) the victory fell upon the love of you, and of Truth, so that I was determined, that since those had been the Motives to the Disquisition of these Truths, they should also be the Incentives to their publication. Yet let me have this Boon granted, that if you will be competent or just Judges, let not the swollen names of Plato, Aristotle, and of any other prime Philosophers, be summoned as convicting witnesses; or empanelled as a condemning Jury, but lay aside their nominal, though seemingly real authority, and bind not your souls to a continued credulity of their positions; but preserve your Souls free to yourselves.  
In the reading of the learned Monuments of former Ages, let not the popular fancy of their general Applause, bewitch you into a blind Belief of all their Notions. Far be it from me to stain their Credit, or detract from their Learning, who always had exhibited by me almost a Divine Adoration, there is no earthly glory compatible to theirs: they were the Men that first took infant philosophy into their arms, and nourished it up to so incredible a strength and stature, that those lofty souls seemed to have cut off from succeeding Ages, the hope of an Addition to their Labours, and to an advancement of Learning.  
Yet as for the deep search of the winding creeks of Nature, and for the exquisite knowledge of her concealed Mysteries, the growing Age of philosophy, even in its own judgement, did not comprehend them, these were brought forth by the fertile Brains of future Times, they brought to light Obscurities, they polished rough-hewn principles, they propped up perplexities. So did Knowledge get its accomplishment by Age, and Truth its perfection by Time, which demonstrates the vigour of our present years, and that the number of things we know, is far less than of those of which we are ignorant.  
Philosophy is not like a Garment, as that age should wear it or worse it, and they that pretend a grey head to their errors, by this seek not so much to patronize it, as to discredit it.  
Forbear I beseech you, by an unadvised censure, to condemn me without plea, if I shall seem to unsettle the boundaries of Philosophy, be not angry, and accuse me as sacrilegious, but consider whether I do not aim at their settlement rather than otherwise? whether I do not rather confirm than weaken her privileges? whether I do not rather honour than impayr her Royalty? upon which grounds I hope She will, as by way of requital, not deny me her assistance, as a buckler against the delusions of Sophisters, and a breastplate against the environed darts of either Envy or Ignorance. These Beasts will bark, the first pining at another's good, the second raging in its own clouds, both break into the cultivated Gardens of Knowledge, and the delightful paradise of Philosophy, and either snip or blast the endeavours of a more fortunate Genius. These to no purpose strive to stop my course by their frights, I am seated above their highest reach; as long as I can see the Deity of Truth, under her patronage I walk, I work secure. Only be you pleased to accept these sprinklings of my retirement, with the same soul it is presented, if any thing seem in it to disrelish, deal so gently as that you may seem rather not to comply, than wholly to refuse. I shall in the interim reach my end, if my pains shall cause you to fall upon greater attempts with better success.   

Enchyridion Physicae Restitutae. OR, A Summary of the physics Recovered.  
THE FIRST RULE.  
GOd is an Eternal Being, an infinite Oneness, the radical Principle of all things, whose Essence is an incomprehensible Light; his Power, Omnipotency; whose beck is an absolute act. He that dives deeper, is swallowed up in a trance and silence, and is lost in the abyss of unfathomed glory.  
2. Most of the Ancients conceived the world from eternity to have been figured in its Archetype, and Original, which is God, who is all Light: before the Creation of the Universe he was a book rolled up in himself, giving light only to himself; but, as it were, travailing with the birth of the world, he unfolded himself, and that work which lay hid in the womb of his own mind, was manifested by extending it to view, and so brought forth the Idaeal-world, as it were in the transcript of that divine Original, into an actual and material world. This is hinted by Trisgmegist, 
In Pimand.  when he says, That God changed his form, and that all things were in a sudden revealed and brought to light. For the world is nothing else but the disclosed image of an occult Deity. This beginning of the world the Ancients seem to have denoted by the birth of their Pallas, out of the brain of their Jupiter, by the Mid-wiffery of Vulcan, that is, by the help of divine fire or light.  
3. The eternal Parent of all things, not less wise in governing, than powerful in creating, did so orderly dispose the whole organical frame of the world, that the highest are so intermixed with the lowest, and the lowest interchangeably and inconfusedly with the highest, and have an Analogical likeness, so that the extremes of the whole work by a secret bond, have a fast coherence between themselves through insensible mediums, and all ●●●●gs do freely combine in an obedience to their supreme Ruler, and to the benefit of the inferior Nature, only being subject to a dissolution at the will of him who gave them their constitution. Wherefore it is well said of Hermes, 
In Smarag. Tab  That whatsoever is below, hath an assimulation to somewhat above.  
He that transfers the sovereign order of the Universe to any Nature diverse from the Nature of God, denies a God. For it cannot be just to conceive any other uncreated Deity of Nature, as the Cause of the production or conservation of the seve●al Individuals of this large frame of the world, besides that spirit of the ●ivine Worker, which lay upon those first waters, and brought forth the seeds of all things, confusedly rolled ●n the first Chaos, from their power into act, and wheeling them by 〈◊〉 perpetual alteration, doth manage them Geometrically by composition and resolution.  
5. He that knows not the soul o● the world to be that Spirit, the creator and governor of the World, by its cont●●●ed infusion, o● its breathing upon the works of nature, and by its enlarged diffusio● through all things, giving to al● things a set, but secret motion according to their kind: he is wholly an Ignaro of the laws of the Universe for he that created, cannot but assume the power of ruling what is created, and it must be acknowledged, that all things have their creation, generation and conservation by the same Spirit.  
6. Notwithstanding this, he thi● shall grant Nature the honour of being the second universal Cause attending on the first, and as it wer● an instrument moved by it, and 〈◊〉 giving, according to a material order, an immediate motion to ever● thing in the world, will not spe●● what disagrees with the opinion 〈◊〉 Philosophers or Divines, who 〈◊〉 that Natura naturans: i. Nature giving nature: this, Natura naturata, Nature made nature.  
7. He that is versed in the secrets of Nature, will acknowledge this second Nature the attendant of the first, to be the spirit of the Universe, or the quickening virtue of that light created in the beginning, and contracted into the body of the Sun, and endowed with an hidden faecundity. Zoroaster and Heraclit called this The Spirit of Fire, the invisible Fire, the Soul of the world.  
8. The order of Nature is nothing else than a large roll of the eternal Laws, which being Enacted by the highest Sovereign, and Recorded and written in various leaves to innumerable people of a various nature, by the auspicious power of which Laws, the frame of the Universe doth accomplish its motions, life and death always atttending on the margins of the last Volume, and the other spaces being taken up by alternal motions.  
9 The world is as it were a Smithswork made orbicular, the links of the chain enclasping it, each the other, are the parts of the world, Nature as it were deputed to sit in the middle, always present, and ever working, continually repairs the changes and motions of all things.  
10. The whole world, as it hath its constitution from a threefold Nature, so hath it its distinction into a threefold Region, viz. The Super-celestial, the Celestial, the Sub-celestial. The Super-celestial is that which is otherwise termed the Intelligible, it is altogether spiritual and immortal, having the nearest approach to the Divine Majesty. The Celestial is seated in the middle, which having allotted to her the portion of the most perfect bodies, and being replenished with spirits, doth pour out by the conveyance of spiritual channels, numberless efficacies and vital breathings, not enduring a corruption, only having attained its period subject to change. Lastly, the Sub-celestial, or Elementary Region, hath its assignment in the lowest portion of the world. This being wholly of a corporeal nature, doth enjoy spiritual gifts and benefits, (the chief of which is in life) by loan only, and upon request, being as it were to repay Heaven for it. In the bosom of this Region there is no generation without corruption, no birth without death.  
11. It is enacted and settled by the Laws of the Creation, that the lowest things should immediately be subservient to the middle, the middle to those above, these to the Subpream ruler's beck. This is the Symmetry, the order of the whole Universe.  
12. It is the excepted privilege alone of the creator, as he created all things according as he pleased out of nothing, so to reduce what he hath created into nothing: for whatsoever being or substance hath an impress from him, cannot deny subjection to him, but is prohibited by nature's law, to return to a nonentity. Therefore Trismegist did truly assert, That nothing in the world doth die, but pass into a change, for mixed bodies have their composition from the Elements, which by nature's rotation are again resolved into the Elements.  

Lucret. nu. 2.  Hence is this sequel, that by nature's cost  
All's clothed with what's its own, nothing is lost.  
13. The Philosphers did believe a first matter to be of an elder birth to the Elements, but this as it was▪ but scarce apprehended by them, so was it as briefly, and as it were in the clouds, and obscurely handled by them, they made it void of qualities and accidents, yet the first subject of them without quantity, yet by which all things have their dimensions, endowed with simplicity, yet capable of contraries, without the reach of sensible knowledge, yet the basis of sensible, drawn out through all places, yet unperceivable covetous of all forms, tenacious of none, the root of all bodies, yet not sensible but conceivable, only by an act of the intellect: lastly, nothing in act, all things in aptitude. So have they laid a fancy for the foundation of nature.  
14. Aristotle more wary, though he believed the eternity of the world, yet hinted a certain first and universal matter. In the discussion of this he used sobriety and ambiguity, always avoiding its creeks and perplexities, so that he opined it better to conceive 
* Cap. 5. l. 3. de ort. & interitu.  one inseparable matter of all things, which yet hath a respective difference, from which, the first bodies with the rest, which are under sense, have their subsistence; that this is the first principle of them, and not to be separated from them, 
† Cap. 1 & 2. de ort. & interitu  but always joined with a repugnancy, always subject to contraries, from which the Elements are produced.  
15. The Philosopher had been righter, if he had asserted that first matter free from the conflict of Contraries, and disengaged from that pretended repugnancy, since there is no contrariety inherent in the very Elements, but what is the result of the intention of their qualities, as we are informed by the daily experience of fire and water, in which, whatsoever opposition there is, ariseth from the heightening of their qualities. But in the proper and true Elements, which couple in the generation of mixed bodies, those qualities which are in a remiss degree in them, are not repugnant each to other: for their temperature doth not admit a contrariety.  
16. Thales, 
De Sariis Philo's Sopinion.  Heraclitus, and Hesiodus accounted water the first matter of all things, to whose opinion the Writer of the holy Genesis seems to consent: This they call an Abyss and Water, by which I guess they understood not our ordinary water, but a kind of sum, or moist and dark vapour, roving here and there, and driven in an uncertain motion without any certain order.  
17. I am not at present able to lay down any positive determination concerning that first Principle of things, since it being created in the dark, could never by man's invention be brought to light, therefore whatsoever the troup of Philosophers and Divines do opine, whether these things are so or no, the author of Nature alone knows, therefore pardon is to be allowed to him that in dark Doctrines hits what is most likely.  
18. Some of the rabbins agreeing, conceived an ancient, but obscure and inexpressible principle, the matter of all improperly called Hyl●, which is more properly termed not so much a body, as a large shadow, not a thing, but a dusky image of a thing, or the smoky appearance of an Entity, a most dark night, a covert of clouds, actually all nothing, potentially all things which cannot be found but in fancy, and understood in a dream. Our imagination cannot exhibit to us this doubtful principle, this depth of darkness, no more than our talk can through the ears imprint the knowledge of the Sun into a man that was born blind.  
19 The same men had an opinion that God brought forth and created the nearest approaching matter of the Elements and the World, to wit, that dark, formless, and indigested Abyss out of that farthest Principle: the Scripture calls this Mass sometimes Earth void and empty, sometimes Waters, although actually it were neither, yet potentially and by way of assignment, it was both: we may give a probable guess that it was not unlike to a dark smoke or vapour▪ in which was closed a stupifying spirit of cold and darkness.  
20. The division of the higher waters from the lower, expressed in Genesis, seems to be done by the severing the subtle from the thick, and as it were a thin spirit from that smoky body; there was needful therefore of that lightsome spirit proceeding from the Word of God. For light, which is a fiery spirit, by separating things of a diverse nature, did drive down the thicker darkness from the nearest and highest Region, and uniting the matter of one and the same kind, being of a thin and a more spiritual substance, inflamed it as an unquenchable oil, to burn before the Throne of the Divine Majesty. This is the Empyraean Heaven, seated between the Intellectual and Material heaven, as the Horizon and Finitor of each, receiving spiritual endowments from that above, and deriving them down to the inferior adjoining middle heaven.  
21. Reason required that this dark Abyss, or next matter of the World, should be watery and moist, that it be the better subject to be attenuated, and that by this flux of the matter by attenuation, the whole frame of the Heavens and of the rest of the fabric, might issue forth, and might be laid out in a continuous body. For it is the property of moisture to flow, and the continuity of everybody is the effect of the moisture of it. For moisture is the glue and jointure of Elements and bodies. But fire acting upon moisture by heat, doth rarify, for heat is the instrument of fire, by which it doth act two opposite works by one and the same labour, separating the moist nature from the earthy, & by rarifying that, condenseth this: So that by the separation of the things of a diverse, proceeds a congregation of things of the same nature. By this first principle of chemistry, the uncreated spirit, the artifex of the world, did distinguish the confused natures of things.  
22. The Architectonique Spirit of the world began the work of Creation from two universal principles; the one formal, the other material, for otherwise what is the meaning of the words of the Prophet, Gen. 1. God created the Heaven and the Earth? &c. unless that in the beginning of the information of the matter, he distinguished it into two chief principles, a formal and a material Heaven and Earth; by the word Earth, is to be understood that dark, and as yet unshaped mass of the waters and Abyss, as is apparent by the subsequent words, (The Earth was void and without form, and darkness was upon the face of the depth, &c.) which the creator did shut in and comprise within the highest, to wit, the Empyrean Heaven, which is nature's first formal, though farthest principle.  
23. For the Spirit of God, which is the brightness of the Deity, being poured out upon the Waters, that is, upon the moist and large surface of the depths, in the very moment of creation, light presently broke up, which in the twinkling of the eye, surprised the highest and more subtle part of the matter, and encompassed it as it were with a fringe, and border of light, as that lightning is which is darted from the East to the West, or like a flame which fires the smoke. So was the birth of the first day, but the lower portion of darkness devoid of light, continued night, and so the darkness had its division into day and night.  
24. Concerning that first Heaven, that formal Principle, it is not declared to have been void, empty, and wrapped in darkness, which is a sufficient evidence, that that Heaven which was first spread out, was forthwith severed by the light from the subjacent dark Mass, by reason of the nearness of the Glory and Majesty of God, and the presence of that lightsome Spirit flowing from it.  
25. There was therefore in the beginning two Principles of all things created, one full of light, and bordering upon the spiritual Nature, the other wholly corporeal and dark; the first, that it might be the Principle of motion, light, and heat; the second, of a drowsy, dark, and cold being: the first active and masculine, the other the passive and feminine Principle. On the part of the former comes a motion in the Elementary world to Generation, from whence proceeds life; from the other part comes the motion to corruption, the principle of death. So that is the double fringe or border of the lower world.  
26. But because Love is extensive, and acts without from itself, the Divine Nature impatient of its solitude, and taken with its own beauty in the light already created, as in a mirror, and earnestly desirous to enlarge it, and to multiply his image, commanded that light to be extended and propagated. Then the light, the fiery spirit issuing from the Divine understanding, and rolling itself in a Circulation, began to work upon the nearest darkness, and having prevailed upon it, and sunk it down towards the Centre, and there sprung forth the second day, and there was seen the second mansion of light, or the second Heaven, comprising all the airy Region, in whose higher Region are so many Torches kindled and scattered: In the lower are seated the seven wandering Stars according to their order, that they might, as so many precedents and Rulers, give orders by their light, motion and influence to the subjacent Nature.  
27. And lest any thing should be defective in this great work, already drawn out in the mind of God, the same Spirit by his glittering and fiery sword beat off the banded darkness, and that shade that lay under him, and thrust it down into the Centre of the Abyss, so the lowest part of the Heavens was enlightened, which we rightly term Air, or the lowest Heavens: Then was the third day. But the darkness which at first did overcast the whole face of the Abyss, being thrust down by the supervening light into the lowest Region, was so thickened by reason of the straitness of the room, and the binding force of the Cold, that it passed into a huge mass of a watery Nature, the Kernel and Centre of the whole workmanship, as it were a dale and heap of darkness, being poised in the midst of the waters, and bound up of the dregs and thick matter of the Abyss, into a firm and dark body of earth. After this, upon the driving of the Spirit, the waters fled from the surface of the earth, casting themselves about the borders of it, and there appeared dry land, that it might produce almost an infinite number of several sorts of Plants, and receive as guests so many kinds of creatures, especially Man the lord of all, and provide to them food, and to man a plentiful sufficiency of all conveniencies. The Earth therefore and the Water made one Globe, by reason of whose thickness, the shadow, the image of the dark Abyss, doth continually beset the whole Region of the Air bordering upon it, and opposite to the Sun, for it shuns and flies the assailing light, and so in the assault is upon a continual retreat.  
28. That Light, 
The creation of the Sun  which upon the conquest and destruction of the darkness, had seized upon and spread itself upon the parts of the Abyss, it seemed best to the great creator to contract into that most resplendent and illustrious for quantity and quality, for bigness and beauty, that Globe of the Sun, that as the Light was more narrowly penned, so it might be more efficaciously powerful, and might dart its beams with more vigour, as also that the created Light, the nearest approaching nature to the divine glory, proceeding from an uncreated unity, might through its unity be poured out upon the creatures.  
29. From this glorious lamp of the world do all the other bodies borrow light; for that dark shade which we sensibly perceive in the Globe of the Moon, by reason of the neighbouring earth, and the extension of her shadow, we may credibly guess the like to be in the other globous bodies, though not perceivable by reason of their distance. Indeed the prime and most principal nature of sensibles, the fountain of light, aught to be one, from which these things below might receive the breath of life. Whence is that true saying of the Philosopher, The Sun and man beget man.  
30. It was not an improbable assertion of some of the Philosophers, That the soul of the World was in the Sun, and the Sun in the Centre of the whole. For the consideration of equity and nature seem to require, that the body of the Sun should have an equal distance from the fountain and rise of created Light, to wit, the Empyrean Heaven, and from the dark Centre the Earth, which are the extremes of the whole fabric, whereby this lamp of the world, as a middle Nature and Joyner of both extremes, might have its scite in the middle, that it may the more commodiously receive the rich treasuries of all powers from the chief Spring, and upon a like distance convey them to things below.  
31. Before the Contraction of this light into the body of the Sun, the earth spent an idle time in its solitude, looking for a male, that being impregnated by his copulation, it might bring forth all sorts of creatures, for as yet it had been delivered only of abortives and embryos, to wit, of Vegetables only. For the weak and faint heat of that scattered light, could not get the conquest of that moist and cold matter, nor put forth its virtue in any higher actings.  
32. From the light therefore the Elements, as well as the first matter, had their information, and so attained a joint nature of light, and by kindred a fast friendship betwixt themselves, not according to the vulgar opinion, an hatred and quarrel; they embrace each the other with a common bond of friendship, that they may join themselves to the making up of several mixed bodies, according to their several kinds. But the light of the Sun being of a far greater power than this former, is the Form of all forms, or the Universal form which doth convey all natural forms in the work of generation, into the disposed matter and seeds of things. For every particular nature hath within it a spark of light, whose beams do in a secret manner attend with an active & motive power.  
33. It was necessary that the entire portion of the first matter, allotted to this lower Region, as well as the Elements who did flow from it, should be seasoned from the beginning with a light tincture of that first Light, whereby they might be the better fitted to receive that greater and more powerful light in the information of mixed bodies. So fire with fire, water with water, light with light being homogeneous bodies, have a perfect union.  
34. From the sight & efficacy of the Sun, we may infer that he is in the stead of an heart to the Universe, for from him is life derived to all parts, for light is the Chariot of life, yea, the fountain and next cause, and the souls of creatures are the beams of that heavenly light, which do breath life into them, exempting only the soul of man, which is a ray of the Super-celestial and uncreated Light.  
35. God hath imprinted in the Sun a threefold image of his Divinity, the first in his unity, for Nature cannot away with a multiplicity of Suns, no more than the Deity can with a plurality of Gods, that so one may be the spring of all. Secondly, in its Trinity, or his threefold office. For the Sun, as God's Vicegerent, doth dispense all the benefits of Nature by light, motion, and heat: from hence is life, which is the supreme and most accomplished act of Nature in this world, beyond which cannot go, unless backward. But from Light and Motion issues heat, as the third in the Trinity proceeds from the first and the second Person. Lastly God, who is the Eternal Light, Infinite, Incomprehensible, could express and demonstrate himself to the world only by light. Let none therefore wonder, why the Eternal Sun did beautify that most excellent draught of himself, which was his own making, that heavenly Sun with so great endowments, for in him hath he pitched his pavilion.  
36. The Sun is a transparent mirror of the Divine Glory, which being seated above the sense & strength of material creatures, did frame this glass, by whose resplendency the beams of his Eternal Light might be communicated by reflection to all his works, and so should by this reflection be rendered discernible. For it is beyond the capacity of any mortal to have any immediate view of that Divine Light. This is the Royal eye of the Divinity which doth confer by his presence, life, and liberty to his suppliants.  
37. The last work of this Great Worker, and as it were the corollary and shutting of all, man enters 〈◊〉 Summary of the world's fabric, 〈◊〉 small draught of the Divine Nature. The creator deferred his making to a part of the sixth Light, ●nd the last of all his working, that the rich Furniture of Nature, and ●ll endowments of things both above ●nd below, might bring their confluence to the human nature as to another Pandora. Thus the things of the world being ordered, man wanted only to be annexed as the perfection of all; whereby nature, being now strengthened by a various light, might bring into his perfect temperature more refined Elements, and that there might be the best Clay for the forming of so exquisite a Vessel. Yea, the lower Globe and the inhabitants of it did require such a governor, lest otherwise they might refuse his Rule.  
38 Upon the sixth day from the Creation, the third day of the Suns rising, did man rise out of the Earth: by the time of his production, and the number of the days is shadowed forth a great mystery. For as upon the fourth day of the Creation the whole light of the Heaven was gathered into the single body of the Sun, and on the third day from the making of the Sun, which was the sixth day from the beginning of the Creation, the Clay of the Earth received the breath of life, and was formed into a living man the image of God: So on the fourth Millenary day from the beginning of the world the uncreated Sun, viz. the Divine Nature, infinite and never before comprehended within any bounds, was willing to be comprised, and in a manner shut into the cage of an human body. Upon the third day or millenary (for a thousand years with God are but as one day) after the first rising of that Sun, and about the end of the sixth day, to wit, of the millenary from the Creation, shall fall out the glorious Resurrection of the human Nature in the second coming of that supreme Judge, which was also praesignified to us by his blessed Resurrection on the third day. So did the Prophet in his Genesis roll up the secret age and destiny of the world.  
39 Although the almighty, according to his pleasure, created the World, yet could have brought it out of darkness into light (if his will had so been) in a moment, and by a beck: for he said, and it was so. Yet the order of Creation of principles, and successively of the natures according to their times, was set in the mind of God, which order, rather than the work itself of Creation, that sacred Philosopher seems to describe in his Genesis.  
40 There seems to have been in the beginning a threefold way of the information of the first matter. For in what portion of the matter there was an irrational lightsome form, and without proportion above the rest, as in the Empyrean heaven, where the light first seized upon the matter, than the form having as it were an infinite virtue, did swallow up its matter, and translated it into a nature almost spiritual and free from any accident.  
41 But where the virtues of the form and matter did meet in an equal poyz and a just equality, according to which, the aetherial heaven, and the celestial bodies are informed, there the action of the light, whose force in acting is of greatest power, did proceed so far, that it did rescue its matter from all original blemishes, as also from the loathsome infection of corruption after a wonderful sort, by illumination and attenuation, and this is to be accounted as a truly perfect information.  
42 The third way of informing the matter is, in which a weaker form remains, as it often happens, though after divers ways in this our elementary region, in which the appetite of the matter, which is an evidence of weakness and imperfection, luxuriating, and lavishly springing in its basis and root, cannot be sufficiently satisfied, by the reason of its remotion and distance from its former principle, neither can this weakness be cured. Hence the matter not being fully informed according to its desire, languisheth under the desire of a new form, which having attained, it doth bring to it, as to its husband, the dowry, a large wardrobe of corruption and faults. This sullen, perverse wrangling and inconstant matter, doth always burn for new beds, greedily wooing all forms which it longs for if absent, hates, if present.  
43 By which it is evident, that the leaven of alteration and corruption, and at length the fatal venom of death do happen, not from the repugnancy of qualities, but from an infected Matrix, and from the menstruous poison of a dark matter, and this causeth it so to fall out both in elements and in the mixed bodies of this lower region: because the form weakened and insufficient by its defilement and imperfection, and being not of a just poiz and assize, could not purge it out in its first and radical union. This is confirmed by holy Writ, in which we may observe our first Parent was not created according to his matter immortal, but that he might be guarded from the tincture and corruption of the matter, and therefore God set in Paradise a Tree abounding with the fruit of Life which he might make use of as his assertor & guardian from the frailty of his matter, and the bondage of death, from the presence and use of this he was sequestrated after his fatal fall, and final sentence.  
44 Two there were therefore first principles of Nature, before which were none, after which all, to wit the first matter, and its universal form, by the copulation of which issued the Elements as second principles, which are nothing else but the first matter diversely informed; out of the mixture of this is made the second matter, which is the nearest subject of accidents, and doth receive the various turns of Generation and Corruption. These are the degrees, this the order of the Principles of Nature.  
45. Those who annex to the Matter and Form, a third Principle, viz. Privation, do blast Nature with a calumny, far from whose purpose it is to admit a Principle that shall go counter to her intention, but her end in Generation being to obtain a Form, to which Privation is adverse, certainly this cannot be part of nature's aim: They had spoken more to the purpose, if they had made Love a principle of Nature, for the matter being widowed in its form, covets eagerly the embracing of a new. But Privation is the mere absence of a form, upon which ground the honourable title of being a principle of Nature, is no way due to it, but rather to Love, which is a mediator betwixt that which desires, and that which is desired, betwixt what is beautiful, and what is deformed, betwixt matter and form.  
46. Corruption is far nearer than Privation to the principle of Generation, since that is a motion disposing the matter to generation by successive degrees of alteration; but Privation acts nothing, is of no work in generation, but Corruption doth both promove and prepare the matter, that it may be put in a capacity of receiving the form, and as it were a mediatrix, doth act Pander-like, that the matter may the more easily get a satisfaction for its lust, and by his help may the sooner obtain the copulation of a form: Corruption therefore is the instrumental and necessary cause of Generation. But Privation is nothing else but a mere vacancy of an active and formal principle: and darkness was upon the face of the depths, to wit, of the uninformed and dark matter.  
47. The harmony of the Universe consists in the diverse and gradual information of the matter. For from the poized mixture of the first matter and its form, flows both the difference of the Elements, and of the Region of the world, which is briefly, but truly set out by Hermes, when he said, That whatsoever is below, hath an assimulation with somewhat above. For things above and below, were made of the same matter and form, differencing only in respect of their mixture, scite and perfection, in which the distinction of the parts of the world, and the latitude of all Natures, are handled.  
48. We must believe that the first matter, after it had received information from the light, and was distinguished by it into several things, did go wholly out of itself, and was transmitted into the Elements, and that which was compounded by them, and was wholly exhausted in the consummation of the work of the Universe, so that those things which were closed in her, being brought forth, and exposed to view, she began wholly to lie hid in them, and we must acknowledge it is not to be found in a separation from them.  
49. Nature hath left us a shadow of that ancient confused Mass, or first matter in dry water, not wetting, which rising out of those impostumes of the earth or Lakes, doth spring forth big with a manifold seed, being also volatile by reason of its lightness through its heat, from which being coupled with its male, he that can take out and separate, and join again ingeniously the intrinsical Elements, he may well boast that he hath gained the most precious secret of Art and Nature; yea, a Compendium or brief of the Heavenly Essence.  
50. He that searcheth for the simple elements of bodies, separated from all mixture, takes a labour in vain, for they are unknown to the most piercing judgements of men, for our common elements are not the simple element, yea, they are inseparably mixed one with another. The Earth, Water, and Air, may be more truly called the Parts that perfect and complete the Universe, rather than Elements, yet they may be rightly termed the Matrix's of them.  
51. The bodies of Earth, Water, and Air, which are sensibly distinguished by their spheres, are different from the elements which Nature maketh use of in the work of Generation, and which make up mixed bodies, for these in their mixture in respect of their thinness, are not discernible, but are barred from the senses, until they conjoin in a condensed matter and body.  

Lucret. lib. 2.  There never hath a creature been,  
Whose principles were to be seen:  
But those things which fill up the inferior Globe of the Universe, as too thick, impure, and indigested, are debarred from the right of perfect generation, for they are rather the shadows and figures of elements, than true Elements.  
52. Those Elements which forming Nature makes use of in her mixtions, and in making bodies, although they are not to be found out before mixtion, yet in the finished work, and in the completely mixed body, because their parts have a correspondence proportionable with the parts of the world, and have a kind of analogy with them, we may call them by the same names, the more solid parts, Earth; the moister, Water; the more spiritual, Air; the inborn heat, Nature's fire; the hidden and essential virtues; a man may safely term Heavenly and Astral Natures, or the Quint-Essence, and so every mixed body may by this analogy triumph in the title of microcosm.  
53. He that did appoint the first Elements for the generation of bodies, alone knows how out of them to make all particulars, and to resolve them, being made, into them again.  
54. Let not them therefore refuse the Light, who working about the Elements of Nature, either in the production of some body from them, or the resolution of some into them, create their own trouble, since these Elements are only subject to the dominion of Nature, and delivered to her only from their beginning, altogether unknown to all our art, and not compassible by our endeavours.  
55. The Element of Nature may be termed the most simple portion of the first matter, distinguished by its peculiar difference and qualities, constituting a part of the essence in the material composition of mixed bodies.  
56. By the Elements of Nature, are denoted the material principles, of which some have a greater purity and perfection than others, according to the greater Power and Virtue of that form that gives the completement. They are for the most part distinguished according to their rarity or density, so that those that are more thin, and approach nearer to a spiritual substance, are therefore the more pure and light, and so are the more fit for motion and action.  
57 Upon this ground it was that reverend Antiquity did sign, that the whole Empire of the world was divided between the three Brothers, the Sons of Saturn as coheirs, because it acknowledged only three Elementary Natures, or rather three parts of the Universe. For by Jupiter, the Omnipotent, who shared heaven as his portion, armed with his treble-darted thunderbolt, superior to the rest of the brothers, what did those professors of mysteries understand, but that the Heavens, being the Region of heavenly bodies, do assume a privilege of Sovereignty over these inferior beings. But they placed Juno, wife to Jupiter, to praeside over the lowest Region of the Heaven, or our Air, because this Region troubled with vapours, being moist and cold is as it were in a manner defiled and impure, and nearest approaching to a female temperament, as also because it is subjected to the orders of the higher Regions, receive their effects, and communicates them to us, twisting itself with more condensed natures, and stooping them to the bent of Heaven. But because male and female differ only in sex, not in kind, therefore would they not have the Air, or the lower Heaven to be distinct in its essence and kind, as another Element from the higher Heaven, but only diversified in place and by accidents. To Neptune the god of the Sea, they attributed a dominion over the waters. By Pluto, the lord of the lower parts, abounding in wealth, they denoted the Globe of the Earth replenished with riches, with the desire of which the minds of men being inflamed, are bitterly tormented. So that those wise men admitted of three parts of the Universe, or if you please, of three Elements, because under the Nature of Heaven they comprised the name of Fire, and therefore did they draw Jupiter armed with his Thunder.  
58. We are scholars to experience in this, that all the bodies of mixed beings, have their analysis and resolution into dry and moist, and that all the excrements of creatures, are terminated by the same differences; from whence it is clearly evident, that their bodies are made up only of two sensible Elements, in which notwithstanding the other are virtually and effectually. But Air, or the Element of the lower Heaven, is not the object of our sense, because in respect of us it is a kind of spiritual being. The fire of Nature, because it is the formal principle, cannot be wrought to any separation or comprehension by any destruction by way of resolution, nor by any art or artifice of man. For the nature of Forms is not subjected to the censure of the Senses, because of its spiritual being.  
59 The Earth is the thickest body of the Universe, therefore is it accounted the heaviest and the centre of it, we must assert its nature contrary to the received opinion, to be accidentally dry, because it doth retain most of the close and dark nature of the first matter, but a shade and darkness are the coverts of cold, from whence they fly the light, and are diametrically opposite to it, but the Earth, in respect of its extreme density, is the mother of shade and darkness, hardly passable by light and heat, therefore roughly knit by an heightened cold. And for this reason black choler is to be esteemed the coldest humour of all, because it is under the power of the Earth, the Earth under Satur's, who is accounted the author of a cold and melancholic temperature. Further, those things that are engendered in the bowels of the Earth, of the substance of the Earth, as Marble and Stones are of a cold nature, although we must otherwise conceive of metals, because they are rather of an airy nature, and have in them sparkles of the Fire of Nature, and a spirit of Sulphur congealing their moist and cold matter. Yet Mercury surpassing the rest in moisture and cold, is beholding to the Earth for his coldness, and to the Water for his moisture. It is otherwise with those things that are produced in the Sea, as in Amber and Coral, and many other things that have their beings from the Sea and fresh Waters, which as it is apparent, are of a hot temper, so that we have this instruction both from reason and experience, that the greatest coldness is to be attributed to the Earth, not to the Water.  
60. But dryness doth agree to the Earth accidentally only, and in a remiss degree; for it was created in the midst of the Waters, and the order of beings required, that in respect of its gravity, being sunk in the Waters, it should never separate from them; but the creator using his Prerogative, having removed the Waters, gave to it an open surface, that so there might be room made both for the creation of mixed Beings, and for their habitation. The Earth therefore was enfranchised from its natural yoke of bondage and subjection to the Waters, not by any order of Nature, but by a privilege of favour, that so having its face wiped, it might lift up a dry visage to the view of the Heavens, and might partake of the welcome light of the world.  
61. Every cold and dry is averse from the faculty of Generation, unless it be helped out by some eternal helps; therefore it was the will of the supreme author of Nature, to heat the cold womb of the Earth with an heavenly fire, and adjoined to the dry globe of the Earth the moist nature of Water, that so by the mixture of two generative causes, moist, and hot, the sterility of the Earth might be helped, and that by the mediation of the concourse and mixture of all the Elements, the Earth might be made a natural Vessel for fruitful Generation. Therefore all Elements, and all qualities are in the Earth.  
62. The body of the Earth was rightly created by the great God of a spongeous nature, that so there might be a receptacle for Air, Showers, and heavenly Influences, and also that the moist vapours being expelled by the force of inward heat, from the Centre to the Superficies, through the porous passages of the Earth, might by a mean putrefaction corrupt the seeds of things, and so prepare for generation; these being thus disposed, receive that enlivening and heavenly heat. For Nature hath sunk in the depths a magnetic love, by the actings of which they draw down, and suck out the efficacy and virtue of things above, which do increase the strength of the information, and hasten the sweetness of vital Air.  
63. The heat that comes from the innards of the Earth, is moist and impure, and doth corrupt by reason of the tainted mixture of Earth and Water; But the most pure and heavenly doth generate by excitation, dilatation, and furthering the inbred heat to life, even that inbred heat which is hidden in the seeds of things, and as nature's secret closed in their centre. But because both these heats are of the same kind, they have a joint and amicable operation in the act of generation, and are inseparably united, until they are brought forth to life and large vegetation.  
64. Water is of a middle nature, betwixt what is thick and what is of a thin nature, betwixt the Earth and the Air; nature's menstruum, a volatile body, flying and not enduring fire, drawn forth by a moderate heat into a vapour, assuming multiplied shapes, more unstable than Proteus.  
65. The moist Element is Mercury, which sometimes assuming the nature of a body, sometimes of a spirit, doth attract to himself by his revolutions, the virtues of superior and inferior Beings, and as it were receiving their instructions, doth trade in commerce as their agent or factor, amongst the remotest natures of the Universe, neither will he leave his trafficking till all the Elements of the corruptible Nature receive their fixation and purgation by fire, and there issue upon it an Universal Sabbath.  
66. Water, being the nearest in nature to the first matter, doth easily receive her impress. The Chaos, the ancient Parent of all things, was a kind of subtle and dark vapour, a kind of a moist dark substance, like a thin smoke, from whose most subtle part the Heavens are drawn forth into order, which a threefold difference divides into a threefold province; to wit, the supreme, which is the noblest, the middle which assumes the second place of dignity and honour, the lowest is inferior to the other two both in scite and honour. The thicker substance of the matter went to the making of that watery heap, which is a middle nature. The thickest part, which is as it were the dregs of the whole Mass sat down to the bottom, and was settled for the globe of the Earth. The extremities of this artifice, to wit, the Heaven and the Earth, did recede more from the first state of their matter, and from their ancient shape; the Heaven in regard of its great rarity and levity, the Earth in respect of its great density and gravity. But the Water, which was a mean betwixt them, continued a nature more like the first formless Abyss from whence it proceeds, so that with ease it turns itself by rarefaction into smoke or vapour, which is the image of the ancient Hyle, or first Matter.  
67. Moisture is more proper to Water than Coldness, because Water is of a greater rarity, and more lightsome than Earth, but those things which communicate most of light are farthest off from cold; the mor●rarity there is in any thing, the nearer vicinity there is to light. Wate● retained the symbol of moisture from the first matter the Abyss, as the Earth coldness. For the Architect Spirit of the World divided the more thick parts into those two nearly-allied Natures.  
68 Coldness woos dryness, and invests itself with it where it is vigorously predominant by the constriction of moist beings, and by the desiccation of them, as is evident in Snow, Ice, and hail. For it is the work of Nature to bind and dry the Water, than which nothing is more humid by the proper instrument of Cold; yea, the principal and common subject of Heat and Cold, is humidity, by both which it is so strongly assailed, till it be conquered: from whence it falls out, that in Autumn so many dry leaves fall at the first cold, that the stalks of feeble Plants upon the strength of Winter, in the height of Drought, are void of moisture, and dry away: The cold penetrating doth so scorch, and makes so furious an assult upon the vital humours: hence proceeds flaggy and withered age, at length death comes and cuts down all with his well-set sickle, and sweeps you into his general Granary. How then can any one conceive Cold to be friendly to Moisture, and to be its inherent property? Since Nature suffers not the Elements to act against each other, lest they should destroy and oppose each the others powers, but an intense Cold quickly would bring under a remiss and weak moisture, and would swallow it up all by a violent constriction: so that by this means one of the Elements being lost, there would necessarily follow an imperfection in the work of the rest, and a deficiency in the generation of all things. It is therefore not suitable to the Law of Nature, to invest Water with the property of being cold in the highest degree.  
69. Out of these solider Natures of Earth and Water, doth Nature extract her Elements, by which she compacts Vessels and corporeal Organs: for out of the commixture of both is made a clay, which is the next matter of things in generation: for it is in stead of the Chaos, In which virtually and confusedly are all Elements. Out of this clay was the first Father of mankind created, and after all Generation issued from it. In the Generation of creatures, is a clay made of the seed and the menstruum, from whence proceeds the living Creature. In the production of Vegetables, the seeds do first fall into a subtle clay by putrefaction, and then are wrought up to a vegetable body. In the generation of metals, there comes forth a clay from the perfect mixture of Sulphur and Mercury, and their resolution in a fat Water, by which means the mettallick bodies are indurated by a long decoction. In the Philosophical resolving of metals, and in the creation of that Philosophical Secret, first is brought forth a clay out of the seed of both parents purged and mixed.  
70. Water is the base and root of all moistures, yea, it is moisture itself: from which all moist things receive their denomination, therefore Water may be rightly defined the Fountain of the moist Element, or the Spring of moisture, whose property it is to wet by its liquor. But those things are termed humid, which do in themselves according to a less or greater degree, contain a moisture, or a watery liquour. Moisture is receivable of all qualities, so blood and yellow choler are humours, endued with their own heat, although they have their foundation in the Element of Water. aquafortis and the like are empowered with a burning and a fiery nature. The burning Water, and many other essences which are extracted from oils and water, do abound in heat, although the root of them, which is Water, be cold, because Nature doth first imprint in a moist element various resemblances and signatures of its powers, and doth in it en-root and infuse its principal and choice qualities. Moisture is the first subject of Nature, upon which her prime care is bestowed, her first charge laid out, by whose liquor it doth dilute and mingle various colours, and indelible tinctures: To it first do the spiritual qualities communicate themselves, in it first do they take up their being and actings.  
71. The lower Waters being divided into two, do occupy a double seat, for one part of them brimming the Earth, doth lean on it as it were as its proper Base, and with the Earth makes but one Globe: the other part flying upward, doth range up and down the Region of the neighbour Air, and there making to itself many masked fancies of bodies, and various figures of several phantasms doth reave hither and thither, over-hanging the lower Region.  
72. Always there is a great part of the Waters that keep above, and being driven to and fro by the caroche of the Wind, doth post over divers parts of the Air, which was in this manner ordered from the Day of the Creation, by the enacting of the Wisdom of GOD, that so the uncumbered and plain face of the Earth, might be unmasked and fitted for the generation of things. For the Channels of the Sea and Rivers were not sufficient to receive the whole Waters, but if all should break the confining Bars of the Heavens, and come tumbling down, it would not only cover the plain face of the Earth, but it may be, overtop the highest Mountains. Such an enloosening of the Cataracts of Heaven, we may guess, did occasion the old Cataclysm or Deluge.  
73. Water is not only sublimated into a vapour by heat alone, neither is it only bound up in a cloud by cold, but to both the virtues of the Sun and the Stars do contribute their aids, not only by multiplying the vigours of the Elements, but also by a kind of magnetic virtue, attracting and retaining a moisture much or less, according to their different position, and the diverse figure of Heaven: from whence we observe the various ordering of years and times; for indeed that Mass of Waters is not kept in, so poized only by the solidation of Cold or the Air, but by the powerful order and regiment of superior bodies.  
74. Lest there might seem to Divine Justice a want of judgements for the execution of his wrath, he made that Ocean which is poized over our heads, to be volatile or flying, and withal brought into his Armoury those fiery darts, his thunderbolts, that so the presumptuous sinners that cannot be won by love, might be wrought about by fear.  
75. They are much out of the way, who do attribute to Air moisture in the highest degree, upon this ground, because it is easily kept in within the bounds of another, but hardly within its own; for this is the property of light and liquid bodies, not of moist, and so doth better agree with fire and Heaven, which natures are more rarified, than with Water and Air: for bodies that are rarified, because they of their own will flow everywhere, cannot be comprised within their own bounds, and therefore stand in need of another. Only firm and solid bodies are kept in within their own compass and superficies, which cannot be done by those things that are of a subtle nature, because by reason of their thinness they melt and are fluid, and so less consistent. From whence this flows that the Air is a body of greater rarity, but not of greater humidity.  
76. The Air from itself hath no quality intense and in the highest degree, but sometimes hath them upon loan elsewhere. The nature of Air is a middle nature betwixt things below and above, and so doth with ease assume the qualities of those that border upon it, from whence it happens that its inferior Region, according to the diversity of times, hath a variety of temper, which inconstancy is occasioned by the changes of the neighbouring and thicker bodies of Water and Earth, whose state is easily altered by heat and cold.  
77. The whole Air is the Heaven, the floor of the World, nature's sieve, through which the virtues and influences of other bodies are transmitted: a middle nature it is that knits all the scattered natures of the Universe together: a most thin smoke kindled by the fire of Heaven, into a light, as it were an immortal flame: the subject of light, and shade of day and night, impatient of vacuity: the principal transparent: the easiest receiver of almost all qualities and effects, yet the constant retainer of none: a borderer upon the spiritual nature, therefore in the Tracts concerning the Mysteries of Philosophers, it is called by the name of a Spirit.  
78. The lower Region of the Air is like unto the neck or higher part of an alembic, for through it the Vapours climbing up, and being brought to the top, receive their condensation from Cold, and being resolved into water, fall down by reason of their own weight. So Nature through continued distillations by sublimation of the Water, by cohobation, or by often drawing off the liquor being often poured on, the body doth rectify and abound it. In these operations of Nature, the Earth is the vessel receiving. Therefore the Region of the Air that is nearer to us, being bounded by the Region of Clouds, as by a vaulted Chamber, is of a greater thickness and impurity than those Regions above.  
79. The middle Region of the Air is not that, in which is the gathering of the Clouds, from whence are lightnings and Thunders, which is only the higher part of the lower Region, and the border of it: but that which is above the Clouds is to be styled The Middle Region, whither the watery Being, by reason of its gravity, cannot reach, yet whither sulphureous exhalations, disburdened of the load of their Vapours, do climb up, and there by a motion, either of their own, or another's, being kindled, burn. Such are the flaming Meteors of divers sorts, which are viewed in the middle Region, whence we may guess, that it abounds with a hot and moist, though not a watery, yet a fat Being, which is the food of fire. In this Region is much peace and a good temperature, because it is not hurried with the tempests of any wind, and only the lighter excrements of the inferior Nature are sucked up hither.  
80. The higher Region near the Moon is all airy, not fiery, as it hath been taken up, though falsely, in the Schools. There is the peaceable habitation of the purest Air, and as it borders upon the Heavenly Region, so it approacheth it in nature, for it is not defiled with the least ●mut of the lower Abyss. There is a temperature in the highest, a purity but little inferior to that of the neighbouring Heaven. In this place to fancy a sphere of fire, is the shame of a Philosopher, which breaking the Laws of Nature, would have long ere this ruined the fabric of the Universe.  
81. The Fire, as a fourth Element of Nature, was placed in the highest Region of the Air, as in its proper sphere, by the chief Philosophers, being led by an argument, from order and by conjecture, rather than truth. For let no man fancy any other fire of Nature than the celestial Light, therefore the blessed Philosopher in his Genesis, makes no mention of fire, because he had before told of the creation of the Light upon the first day, which is the genuine fire of Nature, and truly he would else not have omitted Fire, if it had been a principle of Nature, having specified Earth, Water, and the Fowls of the Heavens.  
82. Let not any therefore fancy, unless sleeping, a Region of Fire burning next the Moon, for the whole Air would not be able to bear so great an abundance of intense fire, but it had long ago fed upon, and ruined the whole fabric of the World, for whatsoever it falls upon it feeds upon and devours, being the designed ruin of the World and Nature.  
83. Such a Devourer of Nature is not lodged as an Element of Nature, neither above the Air, nor below the Earth. Only he doth tyrannize in the kingdom of Nature, either in the height of the Air, or the depths of the Earth, or else being kindled, upon the superficies of the Earth. Therefore Lullius, a man of a raised wit, did justly account it amongst the giants and Tyrants of the World. It may also be termed to be an Enemy to Nature, because whatsoever is destructive to Nature, is an adversary of Nature.  
84. Our common Fire is partly natural, partly artificial. It may be man borrowed it for the accommodation of life, and for his necessity, from the Celestial, by an unition of the beams of it, and a multiplication of its vigour, or else by attrition or the collision of two bodies, the Spirit of God suggesting the project to man.  
85. The Sovereign creator of all things, did place the fiery spirit of a kindly heat in the Globe of the Sun to inspire light, and an enlivening heat to the rest of the bodies in the Universe, wherefore many have thought him to be the heart of the whole fabric, for from him springs the principle of all generation and life. He that searcheth for any other Element of fire in the world, doth shut his own eyes against the Sun.  
86. The source therefore of the Fire of Nature, is seated in the Sun, whose heat is always of an equality, and temperate in itself, though it be felt by us either greater or less, according to his appropinquation or distance, or according to his direct or oblique beams, or according to the situation or nature of places. The Sun hath been elevated by most Philosophers, as the Soul of the World, breathing in motion, and a faculty of generation to Nature.  
87. The Sun is not the Eye of the World, as some Ancients termed it, but is the Eye of the creator of the World, by which he doth sensibly view his sensible creatures, by which he conveys to them the sweetly-affecting beams of his love, by which he renders himself viewable to them: For scarcely could a sensible Nature have comprehended an insensible creator, therefore he formed for himself, and us so noble a body roabed in his own glory, whose rays, that nearest approach Divinity, are Spirit and Life.  
88 From that universal Principle of life, all the inbred heat of Elements or mixed Beings is derived, which hath gotten to be called by the name of Fire, for wheresoever a free heat, a natural motion or life lodges, there Nature hath hidden Fire, as the principle of them, and the first mover of the Elements, by which the sensible Elements, or the Portions of the World are elementated, and receive their animations, yet doth it cleave close to the womb of the Earth, being bound up by the earth's density and coldness, exciting an Antiperistasis.  
89. That Fire of Nature which is seated in mixed bodies, hath chosen the radical moisture, as its proper seat, the principal residence of which is in the heart (although it be diffused through all the parts of the body) as in the prime organ of life, and the centre of this little world, whence that Prince of Nature, as commanding from its Castle, doth move concordantly all the faculties, and the rest of the organs, and doth in-breathe life to the humours of the mixed Being, to the spirits, and finally to the whole Elementary Mass. And being the Sun, and Vicegerent of the Sun doth act all in this little, that the Sun doth in that large World.  
90. As the Sun, being in the midst of the rest of the Planets, doth enlighten them with his light, replenish them with his influential virtues, beget an harmony of life by his enlivening spirit, so doth the solar spirit in the middle of the Elementary Nature, giveth it an influential light, and gathers the Elements together in the work of Generation and doth unite and enliven them.  
91. The first Agent in the World is the Fire of Nature, which being seated in the Globe of the Sun, doth diffuse that vivifical heat by means of his rays, through all the dominions of Nature, working in the seeds a power of activity, and settling in them the principle of motion and action, at the removal of which all motion ceaseth, and also the faculty of life and action.  
92. The heat of Nature, and the light of Nature, are really one and the same, for they have a continual and uniform effluence from the same Fountain, i. the Sun, but are distinguished by their office, for the heat is to penetrate into the most inward parts of Nature, but light is to manifest, and open the outward parts: the office of heat is to move the occult Natures of things, that of light, to set before the eyes sensible accidents: both of these is wrought by the rays of the Sun. The Sun therefore is the first Organ of Nature, by whose approach or distance, all the operations of Nature are variously governed, intended, or remitted, by means of light and heat.  
93. The second universal Agent is that same light; not so immediately issuing from the Fountain, but reflected from solid bodies, enlightened by it as the heavenly, yea, the Earth itself: for the light of the Sun beating upon those bodies, gives a motion to their dispositions and faculties, and altars them, and diffuseth their several and different virtues by the reflection of his rays, through the whole frame of Heaven and of our Air: for by those rays, as by so many conveyances, are the various effects of several bodies dispersed everywhere for the benefit and harmony of Nature, which are called by us Influences. These are the true and first Elements of Nature, which because they are spiritual, do communicate themselves to us under some airy, or also some watery Nature, to whose good act, as to the roots of the Elements, we are beholding for the gift of every birth, and of all life.  
94. Love, styled by Plato the Eldest of the gods, was breathed into nature, begotten by the Divine Spirit, and hath the place of a Genius in her dispositions. In the first Division of the World, betwixt the first brothers, she gave the judgement for the partitions of their families, and after had always the prefecture in Generation.  
95. The God of Nature did fix the first bond of Love in the things of Nature, between the first Matter and the universal Form, the Heaven and the Earth, Light and Darkness, Plenty and Poverty, Beauty and Deformity. The second degree of Love from the first couple, which is as it were the loving embraces of the Parents, issued into the Elements, which having a fraternal tye to bind them, have divided betwixt them the whole right of Nature. The third and last degree, is completed in mixed bodies, which excites them by the inborn and inbred sparkles of love, to a propagation and multiplication of their like. The Divine Love hath appointed this treble Love-knot, as a kind of Magical tye, that it might deliver itself by traduction into all and every part of his workmanship. Love is the Base of the Universe, the Cube of Nature, and the fastening bond of things above and below.  
96. Let those avaunt therefore, who do attribute the concordant motions of Nature to Discord; for Nature is peaceable and pleasant in all her workings, yea, she is delightfully tickled in her actings. The very Elements of things in their coition are wholly lost in love, that they may knit themselves together by their mutual embraces, and of many be made one.  
97. Let the Academies stand up, and tell us how the first Matter can be the first subject of contraries, and how Love can lie amongst the brawlings and jars of Enmity! or that eager appetite, which the Prince of Philosophers acknowledgeth residing in the heart of this Matter, 
Cap. 9 l. 1. De Mat.  whereby it doth as earnestly lust for its form, as a man for a woman? Will not those enemies, constituting the seeds of Beings and the mixed bodies, by their eternal food, at length force Love and Concord to yield to their ruin.  
98. They that placed a lust between the Matter and the Form, and yet an hatred and repugnancy in the Matter itself, and in the Elements, in making these contraries, have made themselves so: for according to the dictates of their School, the Soul in all things generated (Only man excepted) is brought forth out of the power and privy virtue of the Matter: But how can this be without love? If the Matter radically doth lie under the dissensions of contraries, must not the Form, which springs from her very root, feel the same portion? Nay, would it not be stifled by them in its first birth and cradle? What man therefore that stood right in his wits, would acknowledge the rule of these bandetties, to be chief in the nuptials of Love and Nature, in the very juncture of the mixture of the Elements, and of the information of the Matter? Yea, who would expect an uniform, and not a monstrous issue from the heterogeneous seed of opposite parents?  
99 Let therefore the Philosopher surcease to place the cause of the alteration of Elements, of the corruption and failing of mixed beings in the repugnancy of the Elements, but rather lay the fault upon the penurious weakness of the first matter. For in the first Chaos. 
twixt moist and dry there was no battle fought,  
Nor any enmity twixt cold and hot.  It is indeed the Vulgar conceit that there was, whereas only two, no way contrary, of those four qualities, to wit, Cold and Moisture, agreed to the female, & the matter, and were in it: The other two, which are Heat and Drought, which are masculine and formal qualities, came forth out of the part of the informing light. And the Earth was not called dry Land before the drawing off the Waters, and the coming on of the light Being, which was first moist and covered with Waters.  
100 Therefore certainly reason itself doth evidence, that those four qualities, which by the Vulgar are accounted repugnant, are not extant in the first matter, unless after information. And lest she might endure some contrariety in its solitude, she had other diseases, to wit, Darkness, Confusion, Deformity, Coldness, & an indigested Moisture, with an impotency, which are all evidences of a diseased and languishing body: Therefore being infected from its creation with that corruption, it derived it down to its posterity, lodged in this lowest and weakest Region of the elements. Therefore it is not set down in Genesis of that Abyss of Darkness, that it was very good, but reserved that graceful elegy for the Light, and for the rest that were created.  
101. But who is there that hath the least dram of knowledge, will conceive that this contentious repugnancy did flow from the form into the matter, after the union of the four qualities in the matter being informed? Since it is essential to and the intent of the form, to add a perfection to the matter, and completely to perfect it into an harmony and consent, and a temperament according to its ability.  
102. The first contraries through opposing qualities, were Light and Darkness; Light hath two qualities Heat and drought; Darkness as many, Cold and Moisture, wholly opposite each to other, because of their intention. But after those two aged principles of Nature came together, and the dark material and female principle was informed by the lightsome, formal and masculine principle, and impregnated by the light, the whole matter of the Universe; and all the Regions thereof received this privilege of light, though distinct in the degrees and differences: for that fiery tincture of the Spirit of light left nothing unpierced, and the four qualities also at first being in their highest degree, were brought down to a remission in the informed matter, and so closing sweetly, contracted a fast friendship, and consented to a temperature: and so being made friendly, they were entered into the homogeneous family of the Elements, that so there might nothing of repugnancy or enmity lurk in the generation of mixed bodies, whereby the pleasing motion of Nature might be disturbed.  
103. Neither in nature are those four qualities contrary one to another, but only divers and unlike one to another, neither do they ruin, but unite into a firm league one with another: So Heat and Cold in a remiss degree, do amicably agree and commix in one and the same subject, that a middle and temperate quality, to wit, a lukewarness might be produced. But if in the intense degree they couple not without a fight and combat, this proceeds from the excess and tyranny of the intention, which cannot endure two qualities equally heightened and adverse, to be partners and sharers of one and the same Sovereignty, but there will fall out a tumult. But indeed Nature casteth out intense qualities, as bastards and strangers.  
104. Let not therefore any fancy that Nature admits fire intense into the family of her Elements, for such a fire would be fit for destruction, not generation, would not be according to, but against Nature, which avoids violent things, and delights in a temperature, in which is no fighting, no contrariety. For the Rule of Nature cannot away with the rage of a scorching heat, or a wasting cold, or the distemper of moist and dry, but doth pleasingly lie down in a composed temperature. Let not any therefore search for the intense qualities in the Elements of things; he will find them in them either less or more remitted.  
105. He is deceived therefore who says that hot and cold, moist and dry, are simple contraries. For the Earth, which by Aristotle is laid down as dry in the highest, should always quarrel with the Air, which is said by him to be moist in the highest: Also Water that is cold in the highest, according to his opinion, should be opposite to Fire, that is hot in the highest: and this repugnancy would enclose by force every one of the common Elements, or every Region of the World within the verge of its sphere, and by reason of this antipathy, would destroy all hospitality betwixt them. But we are convinced of the contrary, both by reason and experience. For ditches and all hollow places under the Earth, yea, the very bowels and pores of the Earth are replenished with Air, and the intrinsical moisture of the Earth, by which, as with their mother's milk, all Vegetables are nourished, is nothing else but an hot and moist Air, cleaving close to the Earth, and handing it as a nursive and nourishing faculty: the pores of the Earth are the dugs, and the airy moisture the milk, by which, she, the Mother and Nurse of things, doth nourish her offsprings, and give them growth.  
106. They, who settle four Elements in as many humours, do grant, that Nature being moist, is receiveable, yea, is the subject of four Elementary qualities: how then can they hold a contrariety in them, which they place in one and the same subject? For though those four humours are distinguished by their respective differences, yet have they but one base, one common root to all, to wit, Humour: for yellow choler which resembles fire, is no less an humour than phlegm, which resembles water: and the same may be said of adust choler and blood, although they do not absolutely, but comparatively confound the four Elements in a moist Being.  
107. If there were any repugnancy in the qualities and elements of Nature, the greatest would be betwixt hot and cold, and so betwixt Water and Fire, but the nature of these are not adversary, many generations which are under the Waters, do evidence: for wheresoever there is any generation or life, there must be fire, as the nearest intrinsical, efficient, moving and altering cause of the matter for generation: 

Aeneid. 6.  Hence Men, Beasts, and the Fowls their Being have,  
And ghastly Monsters rolling on a wave;  
A fiery vigour to their seeds is given,  
The homage for their birth is due to Heaven.   
108. There fore certainly he will be in the right, who shall acknowledge those four first qualities, inborn and essential to the things themselves, and to their Elements, to be apt to a mixture by the direction of Nature, and not contrary, for they are as it were four Organs or instruments which Nature makes use of in the perfecting of her alterations and generations.  
109. Nature sets up a potter's trade, for she is wholly taken with making her matter circular, these four qualities are as the wheels, by which she doth by degrees and wisely inform her works through a circular and slow motion.  
110. Of those four Wheels, two, viz, those of Moist and dry, are most agreeable to the matter, because Nature doth turn and work the matter between these two: those two qualities are nearest the matter, because more subject to be passive, and to a change. But the other two, to wit, of Hot and Cold, are more of action, because by their turns they alter and change the former; these are passive, those active, & are as it were the active instruments of Nature, working upon her passive matter.  
111. Let us therefore cast off that tenant of Contraries, as contrary to nature's concord, and dash out it with a pen of iron, with the good leave of learning, from the depraved table of Philosophy, and let us in the room of it, inscribe the symbol of Concord, which Nature doth acknowledge of the same standing with herself, by whose help the delightful copulation of actives with passives is procured in every Generation.  
112. Those, who according to the flying opinion do stand for four Elements contrary each to other, do necessarily introduce a fifth, as the knot or bond-tie of concord, as the peacemaker, otherwise they could not receive any perfect mixture, or any temperature in the work of generation, but without a rudder or a ruler would float a drift through the vast Ocean of Nature, never able to reach a port, or bring forth a birth: and so would they cheat the common Genius of Nature of her proper end.  
113. For these four being acknowledged by reason of their repugnant qualities to keep up an eternal war betwixt themselves, cannot be united or appeased in the generation of mixed Beings, but rather with their mutual conflict rushing in, will procure an Abort, than a birth in Nature, unless their contrary actings be composed to a peaceable love by the part of some fifth heavenly and tempering Nature, which may introduce a temperature void of Hot and Cold, dry and Moist.  
114. That fifth Element, as they call it, or heavenly and incorruptible Spirit, springing from the light, motion, and virtue of the heavenly bodies upon these lower Beings, and preparing the Elements for motion and life, and stopping from ruin particular individuals, as far as their settledness will permit, hath merited the name of the salt Nature, the tie of the Elements, the Spirit of the world, to be given it by the searchers of occult philosophy.  
115. If there were any contrariety between the principles of things, certainly it was between Light and Darkness, by reason of their opposite qualities, but those qualities were tempered by the coition of both principles, and from the extremes became a middle temper, and such were they when they dislodged from the first, and went into the second principles or Elements.  
116 The extremes are contrary each to other, only by reason of the intention of their opposite qualities, but those things that spring from the mixture of these extremes are not ●dverse, because they are of a middle nature, and the ●fflux of the union of the two extremes, to wit, of Light and Darkness.  
117. That out of the mixture of Contraries, to wit, of Light and Darkness, do not come contraries forth but in a temperature, is plain by that of the Kingly Prophet, breaking forth into these words of the Eternal Light, 
Psal. 18.  He bowed the Heavens and came down, and Darkness was under his feet, &c. He made Darkness his Covert, his Pavilion in the midst of it, &c. The very fountain of Eternal Light, that he might exhibit the brightness of his infinite glory to mortal eyes, did wrap it up in a cloud and dark mask, and brought the Darkness to the Light, that he might make of the two extremes a moderate light, and so allay the splendour of so great a light, as was not to be gazed on without the ruin of the spectator; yea, Philosophers do affirm, the rainbow that was given by God as a sign and token of a Covenant made with man, to be produced out of a mixture of Light and Darkness, that so that symbol of the temperature of God's wrath, existing out of contraries, might be tempered of various coherent and friendly colours.  
118. Those that have delivered that the Earth, Water, Air and Fire, in their spheres are distinct Elements of the World, and are turned each into other, by mutual reciprocation, did but slightly look into the depths of Nature; for it is more safe to call them the completing parts of Nature, or the Shops of the Elements: for the Elements of the world do not lie under our view or senses, as separated in their proper Regions, but do lie hid and keep close in their wombs, till they come together in the generation of mixed bodies, and make up a body. But those parts of the World, as so far mutually different, can never have a conversion in them, neither can that one common quality, whereby those natures are linked together, beget such a change, that out of things of a diverse, should be formed a like nature, yea, that they should be turned into the same.  
119. If those four Elements asserted by them, do change and barter their rooms, natures and offices, all the compact frame of the World, devoted to a chance and motion, would be in a perpetual fluctuation, which we know is established by God in a certain and constant order and scite, and distinction of parts: For Earth will quickly be made Water, Water Air, Air Fire, and so backward, and by this the Centre shall run out to Circumference, and the Circumference run into the Centre, the farthest and the middle parts of the World, shall of their own accord remove out of their places, that so after a long time the order of Nature shall be inverted, whilst the top and the bottom, and the bottom and the top change places, and clash together. He who doth fancy this so fair composure of a World, doth not deserve to have so fine a piece termed a World, but a Chaos, an Abyss, which Nature, a friend to Order, doth absolutely detest.  
120. They which do say that those extreme bodies of the lower World, Earth and Fire, (supposing, not granting a sphere of Fire) are turned into each other, do wrong themselves and truth too. For their distant and repugnant natures do disagree from such a change, for the heightened cold, thickness, and gravity of the Earth are so opposite to the same degree or heat, subtlety, and levity in Fire, that they can never be brought to change. Besides, the Earth, a fixed body, will not yield to fire, but slighteth its virtue, if we may believe the opinions of chemists and common experience, neither doth any thing fly out from it, but a fat and marry humour, both of them not natural to the Earth: but if any thing is to be turned into elementary Fire, it must necessarily be light and volatile, that it may be translated into its Orb and Nature. The Earth therefore being most weighty, and so the Centre of all, being most fixed, and so least volatile, how can it be turned into Fire, and be carried up into the sphere of Fire, or how can Fre, the highest and lightest of all, be beaten down to be essentially united with the Earth, contrary to the laws of Nature? It were a more easy conversion of Water and Fire, because they are nearer by one degree than Earth and Fire.  
121 They that believed, the exhalations from the region of the earth drawn up into the Air, and because kindled there, to be earthy, and converted into the Element of Fire, are far out of the way of truth, for they are not earthy, but rather airy natures: for our Air being moist, through the contagion of water lying in the dry bosom of the Earth, gather a fatness, and by the consortship of the Earth, doth temper the moist with the dry, but when it exhales through the pores and crevices of the Earth being drawn by heat, or else the abundance of the matter forcing out, it breaks not forth out of its prison without a noise & crack, whence proceed earthquakes and openings not without much ruin; that exhalation, got loose, doth fly up into the region proper to light bodies, and there is set on fire, being digested by its errant motion and heat, more fully into a sulphureous matter. Therefore that matter is not truly earthy, since it is neither ponderous nor cold, but because it is made fat and combustible by the concourse of hot, dry, and moist; it may more properly be called the accidental food of fire, than the Fire of Nature, or the elementary Fire. That is a bastard, a spurious generation, which for that very reason ought not to have been placed amongst the natures, or been called by the names of Elements; therefore these Firings are rightly called by Aristotle, imperfectly-mixed things. The same we must conceive of the smoke of combustibles: For Smoke being unctuous, doth quickly take fire, which is nothing else but smoke kindled.  
122 Fire feeds upon fat and unctuous matter, but the fat moisture of the Air is contempered with drought, whence we often may see a sulfureous matter, extrinsecally dry and terminated with drought, as our ordinary sulfur, gunpowder, and the like; which though they seem to be outwardly dry, do close within them a fat moisture, and upon the firing are resolved into it.  
123 And truly they slip to purpose, that have taken an opinion, seeing stones and heavy bodies sometimes generated in the Air, and shot down thence by lightnings, thunders, and breaking of the clouds, that the Fire turns to a stone, or is converted into earth, or have a conceit, that the Earth is carried up thither. This is done far otherwise; for that hardened matter was never fire or earth, nor proceeded from the Orb of Fire (if there be any) or from the body of the earth, but an unctuous and viscous humour, in a manner clayish, shut up in a cloud as in a furnace, is so hardened and decocted, as an earthen vessel by the heat of the burning exhalations, that it turns a stone: Hence proceed those darted thunderbolts. Such meteors as these are the wens, weaknesses, and diseases of Nature, not Elements. In the same, though after a slower manner, is the stone generated in the body out of phlegm in the reins or bladder. For the Microcosm hath also his meteors.  
124 The fire of nature is far different from our artificial or accidental fire. The fire of nature is double, either Universal and Particular, or Individual. The Universal is diffused through all the parts of the Universe, doth sweetly excite and move the propensive virtues of the celestial bodies, doth impregnate and supply with engendering seed this Globe of ours, designed for the generation of things; doth infuse virtues into the seeds; doth untwist the entangled power of nature; mingles the Elements; informs the Matter; and finally doth unlock the secret of Nature: but the fountain of it is in the Sun, who as the Heart of the World doth stream forth his enlivening heat as his love through all regions. But the particular Fire of Nature, is inborn and inbred in every mixed body, and individual, which flows as a rivulet from that General, and doth work all things in this Microcosm or little World MAN, according to an analogy with the Sun in the Macrocosm or greater World. But who is there that would not style our common fire, being an opposite of all generation, living only upon prey, subsisting upon the ruins of other Beings, the destruction of life, deputing all things to ashes, rather a foe than a friend to nature, its enemy, not its inmate; and rather the ruin than the raising of Life? But those fires that are bred in the airy region, are rather engendered by chance, than by any intention of Nature.  
125 Neither are those two bodies of the Earth and Water, situated next one to the other, convertible each into the other, but only by reason of their neighbourhood are mingled together; so that the Water washeth the Earth, and the Earth thickens the Water; and hence is made Clay, being a body of neither, but a middle betwixt both; which if resolved by the force of fire, will separate itself into both these natures. The water flying out, the earth settles: neither will there be any conversion of each into the other, for that cannot be effected by that single common quality of cold, since the dryness and moisture are not less powerful to resist, than the mutual consent of cold can bring them to a conversion. Besides the dryness and fixation of the Earth, are quite opposite to the moist and volatile nature of the Water, so there is but one quality agreeing to an alteration, and many disagreeings, which will prevail in the combat. Besides, here is the help of nature always ready to conserve itself, and doth never incline, unless upon force and conquest to its ruin or change.  
126 We may guess the whole Globe of the Earth, not to be of a less settled nature than the Heaven, the Moon, or the Stars; for it, if it be the centre of the World, as it is generally received, then certainly the constancy is not less necessary to it than to the rest of the bodies of the World. Besides the earth is the same without any essential immutation of what it was from the beginning, and what it will be to the end of ages. But if it did suffer any notable detriment by the universal deluge in the general, or any accidental in particular, as by some chasm, or by the breakings in of rivers, or the Sea; this falls out by the supreme order of him that doth change at list, the laws of the whole and every region: or by the discordant harmony of the World, or by some disease of some distempered nature, rather than by any propensiveness or viciousness of the Earth. For all the bodies of the Universe do lie under their burdens and diseases, although they be diversified according to the disagreement of Nature, and difference of perfection, yet the accidents do not change the nature and constancy of them in respect of the whole. Absolute constancy and impassibility do only suit to God alone: but the Heaven, Water, Earth, and the rest of the bodies of the Universe shall stand firm, in regard of their essence to the designed period of their age.  
127 If any one of those four natures have a propensity to conversion, it will be strongest in the mean qualities; for Water and Air are joined in greater affinity between themselves than with the rest, or the others amongst themselves. For they seem not to differ so much in their qualities, as in the intention and remission of them, not so much naturally as accidentally. For since Water doth by a right of nature challenge to itself moisture and coldness, it doth also communicate them to the lower region of the Air by way of commerce, (for Air obtains no proper quality almost besides the highest tenuity, yet capable of receiving the rest, therefore is it of an heavenly nature, being of itself most temperate, and not addict to any proper quality, doth readily receive and-despence the dispositions, influences, and virtues of the heavenly bodies.) Density and rarity, which in a remiss degree are of kin, seem to make the principal difference between Water and our Air; for which reason God is said in Genesis, to have separated the Waters from the Waters; as if by reason of the unity of their nature, it seemed more truly to be a division of their situation, than a mutation in respect of their essence.  
128 Yet these bordering natures, do not entertain any true and essential reciprocation, but only according to some respect, not altogether changed, but after some manner▪ and this change is acted in the lower region of the Air, which is bound in by the cover of the clouds, and reacheth not the middle, much less the highest region. Water being rarified into a vapour flies up, and is rather raised then turned into Air; and that vapour condensed doth resolve, and fall down again. The ancients, being led by the legerdemain of sense, more than the light of reason, conceived this circulation, and returning into itself of one and the same nature, to be the turning of nature into another: but it is found to be otherwise by those that have and use a sharp insight into the depths of Nature. He is also deceived that shall call the Air simply a thin Vapour, because a Vapour is a middle and imperfect body betwixt the two Waters, those above, and these below, betwixt our Water and Air, yet it is neither of them, because although it rarify, yet will it never be heightened to the great degree of the nobility of the Air. It may be made a spurious but never a pure Air: neither will the refined nature of the Air be so depressed and fall from its purity▪ as to thicken into a vapour, cloud, or Water. For the right of Nature never got that first separation of the Waters, which was really and actually done by that Architect spirit, and that the established bounds of the parts of the World, which God hath sealed with an indelible signature, should either be blurred or removed by any new confusion.  
129 But those that dive deeper into things, will acknowledge the Earth to be the womb of the World, the vessel of Generation, the mother of a multiplied, and almost numberless issue, which being rescued in the beginning of the Creation from the power of the covering Waters, and privileged to itself, was made and remained dry land; and her body being condensed, sunk to the foundation and the centre of the whole, and spread out her lap as a Parent to all vegetables, and all other creatures; yet did she want moisture, whereby she might be made apt for a fruitful generation. God's providence set out a remedy for this exigence: Therefore from the beginning was the water made volatile, that so it might be carried up in vapours, which being frozen by cold in this cloud, might by heat be thawed again into Waters. By this masterpiece of Divine providence, was this exigence of the Earth supplied, and that dryness, which threatened barrenness, was tempered with a large moisture, and the womb of our mother conceived. Therefore only Water hath the circulation, to the intent that it might moisten the bosom of the Earth, or more truly it is distilled in the lower region of the Air as in its alembic; that so by often pouring in, and reiterated distillations, it being abounded, and having gotten virtues both from above and below, and endued with that celestial Nectar, it might more effectually soften the bosom of the Earth, and endue it with a prolifical virtue. The chief worker of all, who maketh use of the art of Nature, hath added nothing superfluous to his work, nor left any thing defective in it.  
130 But the Water being the menstruum of the World, doth cherish and contain in it the seeds of things and their elements; but she having this circulation, the true and genuine Elements of things which are in the Earth, as in the matrix and vessel of Generation; and in the Water, as in the menstruum, are also whirled about. In the vapour therefore, are the Elements of the Earth, the Water, and the Air, & have their sublimation, and exuberation with it. They are not the bodies of Earth, Water, and Air, which have their proper spheres, and constitute the several Regions of the World, but they are the very spiritual Elements of Nature, which lie hid and inhabit in them, out of which many bodies, as stones may be generated and excocted in the Air. For where all the Elements well mixed, do meet, as they do in a vapour, there bodies may be generated; but when they find not a convenient matrix, as in the Air, there are engendered imperfect mixtures, not by reason of any fault in the mixture, but in the Matrix.  
131. The Water being seated as middle, betwixt the Earth and the Air, doth trouble both it by its flowing, and always moving inconstancy, infesting the Air with a black soot, and noisome vapours, and often drowning the Earth by floods; causing tempests in the Air, ruins to the Earth, and corruption to both; and it doth assault the Region of the one with its levity, and of the other with its gravity; and doth cross the order of Nature, and the nature of Times by its defect or excess, yea, doth shake all her borderers with her terrible claps and tumultuous ragings. Her nature being altogether female▪ the supreme creator seems to have bestowed her on the World in the nature of a Woman, or a necessary Evil, even so doth she arrogate all things as subject to her, and turns those things that were given her for a general good, to a public ruin. Finally, it is the scourge of divine Justice, revenging Nemeses, which being designed to the vengeance of sin, doth break out to punish, and sets the hopes and wealth of many the very roots of pride, under several shapes of judgements, the scoff and blast of the world.  
132. The universal Natures, the more thick they are, the more impure, the more endued with tenuity; the more purity. The Earth, because more thick than Water, therefore is less noble, and so Water than Air; and Air than Heaven: and so the highest Region of the Heavens is the most noble, because it is most subtle. For it is an undoubted truth, that spiritual Natures are more excellent than corporeal, and the more bordering upon the spiritual Natures, the more they draw nigh to perfection.  
133. The foundation of Generation and Corruption is in Moisture, for in both the travails of Nature, Moisture, of all the Elements, is the first patient, receiving the first seal of the form. The natural Spirits are easily united with it, because flowing from it, do lightly return to it, because the root of them, in that, and by that, are the rest of the Elements mixed. The moist Element hath its circulation no less in mixed and individual bodies, than in the World, both in the work of Generation and of Nutrition, for it was nature's pleasure, that both these works should be performed by the same instruments of condensation and rarefaction, and by the same means, to wit, Spirits.  
134. The Earth is the Vessel of Generation, Water the menstruum of Nature, containing in it the formal and seminal virtues, which it borrows from the Sun, the male and the formal universal Principle; from him is derived into all things the influence of the fire of Nature, and of formal Spirits, in which are all things necessary for generation, the inbred heat being wrapped up in the moist: Therefore Hippocrates did rightly affirm, That these two Elements, 
Lib. 1. de Diaeia.  Fire and Water, could do all, contained all things in them: For from them do issue two masculine qualities of Hot and dry, from the other two more of Cold and Moist, being the female qualities, which so concurring and mixing, perfect the generation of mixed bodies. Over those two principal Elements, the two greater Lights were set, the Sun the author of Fire, and the Moon the Lady of Moisture.  
135. Nature perfects the circulation of the volatile Element, by a threefold action or instrument, by Sublimation, Demission or Refusion, and by Decoction, which stand in need of a divers temperament. So doth the rightly ordered intention of Nature, wandering through various motions, directeth her interrupted actions to their designed end, and attaineth the same mark, though it trades through divers ways.  
136 Sublimation is the conversion of a moist and a ponderous nature, into a light, or the exhalation of it into a vapour. The end and benefit of it is threefold: First, that a gross and impure body might be mundefied by attenuation, and might by degrees be drawn off the dregs; then that by sublimation it might gain the higher virtues, which continually flow down. Lastly, that by such an evacuation the Earth might be disburdened of its superfluous and loading humours, which seizing upon its passages, do hinder the action of the heat, and the free pass of the natural spirits, yea, do violently choke them. This drawing away of the superfluous moisture, takes away the cause of obstructions, and gives ease to the squeazy stomach of the Earth, and makes it more fit for digestion.  
137. But the Moisture is sublimated by the impulsive operation of heat. For Nature useth her fire as its proper instrument for rarefaction of moist bodies. Therefore the Vapours that generates Clouds & Rain, are most frequently drawn up in the Fall and Spring, because then the womb of the Earth doth more abound with hot and moist; now Moisture is the material, and Heat the efficient cause of exhalations. Nature doth show a kind of intense heat in sublimation, whilst it is bound in within the terms and latitude of temperature.  
138. Demission is the second wheel of Nature; in the work of Circulation is the returning of the spirituous Vapour into a gross and watery body: or the Refusion of a rarefied and sublimated humour, being again condensed, and its descent into Earth, that it may dilute it of its exuberant liquor, and suck it up by a sweet and celestial draught.  
139. Nature doth intend three things by irrigation. First, that it might not pour out, but by degrees distil its abundant humour, lest there fall out a gulf, and by the abundance of water, the passage for the vivifical spirit in the bowels of the earth be dammed up, and the intrinsical heat of the Earth be extinguished, for that wise and righteous Governess doth dispense all her benefits in number, weight and measure. Secondly, that it might distribute the humour by divers drops, and by a various manner, to wit, a Rain sometimes larger, sometimes less, sometimes a dew, sometimes a hoar frost, sometimes pouring out a greater, sometimes a less plenty, that so it might water the Earth according to its appetite or necessity, thirsting for more or less. Thirdly, that these irrigations or waterings may be not continual, but by turns and betwixt other works; for the Sun doth in its course succeed the Showers, and the Showers in theirs the Sun, the day the night, and the night the day.  
140. The lightest Cold or the departing Heat, doth unloose and make fit to fall those vapours that are brought up into the middle Region, and there frozen. For an immoderate heat doth dissipate and hinders their condensation, and an intense heat doth so knit and freeze them, that they cannot produce a humour that may be fit to fall down.  
141. The last wheel or action of the Circulation of Nature, is Decoction, which is nothing else but the digestion, ripening, and conversion into aliment of a crude humour instilled on the bosom of the Earth. This seemeth to be the end and the scope of the others, because it is the release of their labour, and a receiving of the food, attained by the former labours. For that crude humour, by force of that internal heat, is chewed, concocted, and digested by it, being as it were without motion and in a trance, silently and without noise, moving that secret fire as the proper instrument of Nature, that it may turn that crude liquor tempered with dryness into a food. This is the complete circle of Nature, which she rowls round by various degrees of labour and heat.  
142 These three operations of Nature are so knit together, and have such a relation each to the other, that the beginning of the one is the end of the other, and according to nature's intention, they do in a necessary order succeed one another by turns. And the orders of these vicistitudes, are so interwoven and linked together, as that combining to the good of the whole, they do in their operations prove serviceable each to other.  
143 Yet Nature is forcedly sometimes drawn out of her bounds and verges, and ranges in an uncertain path, especially in the guidance of the moist Element, whose orders being interrupted do deceive, and they do easily as well as suffer wrong, by reason of the inconstancy of its volatile and flitting nature, as also by reason of the various disposition of the superior bodies, which do bend these things below, especially Moisture, and draw them from their settled tract, according to the beck of the Sovereign moderator, who doth use them as Organs and Instruments to the motion of the frame of the Universe. Hence is raised the deceitful and inconstant temperature of this our Mansion, and the changed seasons of the year. So doth the womb of the Earth, being diversely affected, bring forth either more plentifully or more sparingly, generous or castling births. So doth the bordering Air being either pure or impure, produce either health or sickness, the moist Nature rolling and tossing all things amongst us.  
144 The Rule of our Heavens is uncertain and deceitful to us, because things below receive their orders from things above, whose natures and affections are for the most part unknown to us, yet let the Philosopher set always before his eyes the intention rather than the action of Nature, the order rather than the disturbance of the order.  
145 We may observe the volubility or flittingness of the moist Nature, not only in the general harmony of the World, but also in the particular of mixed Beings. For they are generated by the revolution of Moisture, they are nourished and grow by drying, moistening, and digesting; wherefore those three operations of nature are resembled to food, drink, and sleep, because meat answers to dryness, drink to moisture, and sleep to concoction.  
146 Lest man should dream fancies to himself, glory in divers privileges, assume to himself as proper only to him the name of Microcosm, or the world's lesser draught, because there are discernible in his material workmanship, an analogy of all the natural motions of the Microcosm, or the larger Volume of the World, let him consider that every creature, even a worm, that every plant, even the weed of the Sea, is a lesser world, having in it an epitome of the greater. Therefore let man seek for a world out of himself, and he shall find it everywhere, for there is one and the same first Copy of all creatures, out of which were made infinite worlds of the same matter, yet in form differenced. Let therefore man share humility and lowliness of spirit, and attribute to God glory and honour.  
147 The inferior natures are leavened by the superior: But the Water not enduring delay, doth haste to meet the operations of the Heavens, for the Air, giving way to the vapour that flies up to it, receives it to lodge in the Region of the Clouds, as in a large Hall, but ere it comes thither, its body being in a manner spiritualised, the moist Being is divested of its ponderous nature, that so it might by this addition of agility, the sooner compass its desire, and enjoy the privilege of an ambiguous nature.  
148 In the mean time the Sun, the Prince of the celestial choir, and the rest of the superior Natures, taking care of the inferior, do instil by continual breathings enlivening spirits, as so many trilling rivulets from their most clear and pure Fountains: But the Vapours being thin, and so swimming in the Air, or else bound up into a Cloud, do most eagerly suck in in that spiritual Nectar, and attract it to them by a magnetic virtue, and having received it, they grow big, and being impregnated and quickened with that engendering seed, as being delivered of their burden, do freely fall down back into the lap of the Earth in some Dew, hoar Frost, Rain, or some other nature; and this Mother of the Elements doth receive into her womb the returning moisture, and being quickened by this Heavenly seed, sends forth in her due time innumerable issues, according to divers degrees, more or less generous, according to the goodness of the seed, or the disposition of the womb: and the inferior Waters also are made partakers of the benevolence of the superior and Celestial, because she goes with the Earth to the making up of one and the same Globe, and so they receive joint and common benefits. But by the nature of Water is the fermentation of the rest of the Elements.  
149 But this ferment or leaven is a vivifical spirit, flowing down from the superior Natures upon these inferior, without which the Earth would be again void and empty. For it is the seed of Life, without which neither man, nor any creature, nor any growing thing could enjoy the benefit of a generation or life; for man lives not by bread alone, but especially by that Heavenly food by Air, to wit, by such a spirit so breathed in, and fermented.  
150 The three material Elements being remote in the composition of things, do only obey God and Nature, and come not under the laws of Art, or of human Invention: but there are three others that issue from the copulation of these, which being extracted by resolution, do sufficiently show that they are the nearest in the composition of mixed Beings, to wit, Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury. And so it is manifested, That there is a Trinity of Elements, and a Signature of the universal NATURE.  
151 These three last Elements are the issue of a threefold copulation of the three former, Mercury of the mixture of Earth and Water, Sulphur of the copulation of Earth and Air, Salt produced out of the condensation of Air and Water, and there can be no more combinations of them named. The Fire of Nature is in all of them as their formal principle, the virtue of the celestial bodies contributing their influence and cooperation.  
152 Neither are these latter produced out of any copulation of the former bodies, for Mercury comes forth of an unctuous Earth and clear Water well diluted and mixed. Sulphur is generated of the most subtle and driest Earth coupled with the moist Air; Finally Salt is congealed of salt and thick Water, and crude Air.  
153 It may be lawful to affirm that Democritus his opinion, That all bodies were composed out of Atoms, is not far distant from truth: for both reason and experience do vindicate him from biting tongues, for the knowing Philosopher would not wholly conceal, but would unfold in an obscure and dark term, the mixture of the Elements, which that it might be agreeable to the intention of Nature, must necessarily be done by the smallest, and by actually indivisible Beings: other wise the Elements could not combine into a continuous & natural body. Experience teacheth us in the artifical resolution & composition of mixed Beings, which are tried by distillations, that the perfect mixtion of two or more bodies, is not done but in a subtle vapour. But Nature doth make her mixtions far more subtle, and as it were spiritual, which we may safely believe was the opinion of Democritus: for the grosseness of bodies is an impediment to Mixtion, therefore the more any thing is attenuated, the more apt and fitted it is for mixtion.  
154 The threefold degree of Existence in mixed Beings, doth offer to us three supreme kinds of mixed Beings, to wit, of Minerals, Vegetables, and of Animal Beings. Nature's law hath appointed a Being for Minerals in the Earth, for Vegetables in the Earth and the Water, for Animals in the Earth, Water, and Air; yet to all the Air is the principal food and foster of life.  
155 Minerals, are thought simply not to have an existence or a life, although Metals from Minerals may be said to be endowed with a principal life, both because in their generation there is a kind of a copulation, and a commixiton of a double seed, male and female, viz. sulphur and Mercury, which two, by a long and multiplied circulation, are turned and purged, and being seasoned with the salt of Nature, and fermented by it, and being perfectly mixed in a most subtle vapour, are formed into a clay or soft mass, the spirit of sulphur by degrees closing in the Mercury, at length that Mass doth grow hard, and is confirmed to a metallick body.  
156 As also, because perfect metals, especially do contain in them a principle of life, to wit, in-set fire infused from heaven, which being dulled by being bound in with the hard outside of the metal, lies hid as void of motion, and as an enchanted treasure, till getting liberty by philosophical solution, and the subtle artifice of the workman, it doth powerfully display its refined spirit and celestial soul, by a motion of vegetation, & in the issue, heightened to the sudden perfection of art & nature  
157 Vegetables also are invested with a vegetative soul or spirit, they grow by a vegetative motion, and multiply●, yet want an animal sense and motion. Their seeds are of an Hermaphroditical nature, for every particular grain doth contain in it a fruitful seed without copulation or mixture of a double seed, although in every kind, almost, of Vegetables, experience showeth, there are both sexes to be found.  
158 God also hath wrapped up in the seeds of Vegetables, a secret spirit, the author of generation ennobled with a special character, which is wholly celestial, and a ray of the heavenly light, void of corruption, in which is preserved the specifical form under the body of every individual subsistence, which being through corruption resolved & lost, that immortal spirit being called out by the vivifical and homogeneal heat of the Sun, doth rise up in a new stalk, and doth bring into it the form of the fo●mer.  
159 Animals, besides their existence and faculty of vegetation, do exceed in a sensitive soul, which is in them the principle of life and motion. Therefore an Animal, seated in the highest degree of things below, doth complete the work of Nature in her Elementary kingdom, doth live properly, generate properly, and in it hath Nature truly distinguished each Sex, that from two, a third, to wit, their issue might be produced. So in the more perfect Beings the most perfect symbol of the Trinity is most apparent.  
160 Man, the Prince of all creatures, and of the lower World, is accounted the Summary of Universal Nature: For his Soul is an immortal ray of the Divine Light, his Body is a beautified Composure of the Elements. The inward and unperceivable faculties of the Sense, by which man doth comprehend all things obvious, are altogether celestial, and as it were Stars, giving the influence of knowledge of things; the motions and perturbations of the mind, are as it were the Winds & Tempests, lightnings and Thunders; the Meteors, which break forth in the Aerial Region of the Spirit, do trouble the heart and the blood. Therefore was man deservedly called a Microcosm, and the accomplished Draught of the Universe.  
161 But not only man, but even every living creature, yea, every Plant is a Microcosm. So is every Grain or Seed a Chaos, in which are the seeds of the whole World compendiously bound up, out of which in its season a little World will spring.  
162 Whatsoever Beings of Natnre have a perfect mixture and life, they have a body, spirit, and soul. The body is made of clay, in which are all things necessary for the matter of generation, for it is most agreeable to reason, that Bodies should be made of two corporeal Elements especially, viz. Earth and Water.  
163 The Spirit is a small portion of the purest Air, or the Heaven, a middle nature betwixt the Body and the Soul, the knot and bond of both, the case of the Soul, and the conduit of the more subtle and spiritual parts of the body.  
164 The soul or form of a mixed body, is a spark of the Fire of Nature, an undiscernable Ray of Celestial Light, brought into act from the power of the seed, by the motion of generation, bound to an Elementary body by the mediation of the Spirit, giving its individual Being to the mixed body, the nearest principle and the efficient cause of life. It acts according to the disposed matter, and the qualities of the Organs.  
165 The nature or from of the Soul, because it is altogether full of light in living creatures especially, hath so great a distance from the dark and earthy matter of bodies, that this is wholly irrational in respect of that, and this unproportionably more noble, and therefore is fastened by that strictest tye which Nature makes use of in her works to the body, by reason of the disconveniency and distance, unless the conjunction and knot had been made by the virtue and efficacy of a peculiar and powerful mean, therefore did the provident creator assign a subtle mean, which is the Aetherial spirit, which receives and retains the begotten from, and is the tye of it to the body, communicating in its nature with both. These things are to be conceived to be spoken of the celestial Soul of Natural things, not of the Super-celestial and divine Soul of man, which notwithstanding is according to the good pleasure of the creator, brought into a consortship with the body of man by natural mediums.  
166 The specifical forms from the first day of the Creation, were imprinted in the first individual and particular persons, by the character of the Idaeal copy, and that divive and indelible impress was according to the direction of the creator, by the way of generation traduced to posterity, that so by the perpetual succession of particular individual natures, the privilege of immortality might be continued in the kind.  
167 It cannot, nor must be conceived, that Forms do generate in the matter their like, for to generate is the alone property of bodies, but by an harmonious motion of their Organs, they do by them dispose the seminal matter for generation, and shut up in it a ray of Light, or a secret spark of life, as a treasure: This is the office and privilege of the Form, as also to imprint its own specifical character on that vivifical spirit, wrapped up close in the seed, which in its set season, doth in the work of generation by the engendering heat, display itself into a soul, whether Vegetative or Animal, so that what was a formal and hidden spirit in the seed, is now a Form in the mixed body. So that occult thing that was closed in the bosom of Nature, is now made manifest, and brought forth from a power to an act.  
168 The Form issues not forth only out of the power and virtue of the seed, because there is an influence of celestial virtues in the generations of Beings, which do heighten the efficacies of the matter, do multiply them, and as it were midwife it to groaning Nature, yea, they do get into, and mix themselves with, and bring in auxiliary strength to the formal and seminal spirit that is in the matter, which is also by its original, celestial.  
169 There do not only meet in the generation of every mixed Being, the corporeal Elements, but also all the Virtues, all the Powers of Nature in general, and these do contribute something of their own; so are the parts of the Universe bound up together, that they have an unanimous combination for life, and couple by a mutual affection.  
170 The natural Forms of things though they are potentially in the seeds, yet are they neither of, nor generated by the substance of the lower Elements, for they have their rise from a more noble spring, their original is from Heaven, for their father is the Sun, the heavenly Nature the bond whereby these matters are knit together.  
171 The specifical Forms of mixed Beings have within themselves closed a dark kind of knowledge of their original, and are carried up by their own strength, and by a secret motion, like unto Waters, to the height of their Fountain head. So the Soul of man being derived from the divine Spring of the uncreated Light, is reflected to the same by the sharp sight of his mind, and by the soaring contemplations of his soul, but the forms of other living creatures being taken out of the privy Treasury of the Heavens and the Sun, do by the instinct of Nature, and by a weak kind of reminiscency, glance back thither. Hence we may observe the frequent prognostics of several creatures concerning the courses of the Sun, and the changes of the Heavens. But the forms of Vegetables, being for the most part airy and inspired from the lowest Region of our Air, therefore they are not able to extend or reach forth their power, or faculties beyond it, they do, according to their ability, lift up their heads into the Air, as willing to visit their country, but they are stopped so, as that they are not able to pass the narrow confines of their bodies, wanting the sense and life of a Soul, because there is so little of the sun's virtue in them, as will not carry them above the motion of a Vegetation. For in the order of creation, the Vegetables were first before the Sun, wherefore creatures are not equally indebted to him for their originals, and the aged principles of their life, but must acknowledge them received from the lightsome Air, as a nearer Agent. For the disposition of their matter was adjudged by Nature as too weak to receive so sublime a form.  
172 But for Stones, since they are not so much generated out of a true mixture of the Elements, as from a concourse of Earth and Water, by an external force of Heat and Cold, they are decocted as an earthen Work or vessel, therefore they are altogether senseless, having borrowed a feeble form from the dark and cold nature of the Earth and Water.  
173 Concerning precious Stones and Gems, we must conceive otherwise, for they derive their forms from the crystal fowtains of the Heavens and the Sun, and their bodies are the purest drops of a refined dew, engendered by celestial influences, and as it were the congealed tears of of Heaven, whence they possess and contain many sublime virtues.  
174 But the matter of Metals, because it is watery and earthy, and most compacted, by reason of the principal & subtle commixtion of weighty Elements, is therefore heavy and exceedingly ponderous, and of itself capable of no motion: but because it is sublimated and mundefied by the wonderful artifice of Nature, in an earthy and stony Matrix, as in a limbeck, and its mixture is completed in a most thin vapour, by reiterated distillations, that by reason of its exceeding subtlety and exuberancy, the influential helps of the Sun and the Heavens, get in and mix with it, especially in the generation of perfect metals; for this cause, though they fetch their bodies from Water and Earth, yet Nature performing the office of workman, doth so ingeniously make up the bodies, especially of a perfect metal, that it delivers them to the heavenly Deities, as those that deserve to be informed with the most eminent form. It is a work of long travail, but an absolute one, & heightened to the utmost of nature's actings, in which Heaven and Earth seem rather to copulate, than to consent. But the formal spirits of metals being bound up in a hard cover, do stick immovable, till released of their bands by Philosophical Fire, they do produce by their heavenly Seed in their matter, that noble son of the Sun, and at length that Quint-essence of admirable Virtue, in which the Heavens seem to lodge with, and come down to us.  
175 It was provided by the Decree of the supreme creator, that a Nature more noble should not degenerate into one less noble, or that one more eminent, into a nature that is more base, or that it should, abjuring its native privilege of birthright, come under a servile vassalage. Superior Beings are coupled with these below, and those of greater power do communicate themselves with those of a less, that they may inform and complete them by their emissary spirits, which notwithstanding in this do no way derogate from their stock or kind. Nay, when they work themselves into the seeds of things, or also into mixed Beings, they subject not themselves to a bondage, but do attain a new honour and privileged power. For every mixed Being of whatsoever kind it is, is a kind of an Empire, yea the whole world, who hath a spiritual form of her own to rule her, whose office it is to have dominion over the organs and faculties of Nature, yea over the whole frame, so that that, which being void and without distinction, did drift it rolling hither and thither in the vast Ocean of Nature, is now called to an Empire.  
176 The formal act of the first matter, as also of the Elements, doth inform nothing besides the very principles of Nature, therefore the specifical form doth constitute a perfect mixed Being, neither is it to be thought to contain any more forms, since the very Elements in their mixtion, have the charge of the fashioning, not of the informing of the body.  
177 It is most probable, that the virtue of multiplication, which lies in the seeds of Beings, doth not flow from the Elementary matter as its efficient cause, but from a celestial form: for to multiply, is the most natural and proper action of light, for from one ray are almost an infinite number darted forth; from whence it proceeds, that the Sun, who is the Fountain of immortal Light, is also in nature the first efficient cause of generation and multiplication: that therefore every form receives a natural power of multiplication from the celestial light, is proved by this weighty Argument, because it is lightful and furnished with its native endowments, Ergo multiplying; It is lightful, because it doth enlighten with its rays the sensitive and imaginative faculties in creatures, that so out of that double faculty, springs a double apprehension & knowledge of things; an external by the senses, an internal by imagination; but all knowledge is a light, as all ignorance is a darkness: but there peeps up some enlightening and lightsomeness, when there is an apprehension of the images of things, and when that, which lay unknown in the dark, is now manifested by a light of knowledge, for it is only by the good office of light, that obscure things receive a revelation. God did add to man a third light, to wit, his Understanding, by the help of which he attains by their causes, a far more perfect way of knowledge. All these things are produced by the operation of light, and of a perspicuity flowing out of an enlightened Soul. This last action of light is only proper to man, the two former are shared with beasts as well as by him, for their souls are also partakers of celestial light. Therefore reason doth convince, that the virtue of multiplication in the individual Beings of Animals and Vegetables, doth proceed from the soul's multiplication of light, and that some rays of it are included in the seed with the Aetherial spirit, until at length they are set upon the rising of the Sun of Life.  
178 Light and Darkness are the principles of Life and Death, for the rays of Light are the forms of mixed Beings, their bodies a dark Abyss. By Light all things live, yea Light is life; but those that lose their life, lose their light, and are hurried into their former darkness, in which they lay close and hidden, before they were drawn to light by the fatal wheel of Predestination.  
179 The specifical forms of Animals, as also of Vegetables, are rational, though not after the manner of men, but after a property of their own, according to the virtues and impress of their nature. For they have their vital endowments, their cognisances, knowledge, and their predestinations. The vital endowments of Vegetables, are an endeavour of generating the like, the multiplying virtues, nutritive, augmenting, motive and sensitive, and the like. But their knowledge is experienced by their wise foreknowledge of times, their strict observation of change, as of the orders of Nature, in a variety agreeable to the motion of the Sun and Heaven, in the fastening the Roots, the erecting the Stalk, spreading the Branches, in the opening the Leaves and the Flowers, in the forming the Fruit, in their beautifying, in their ripening, in the transmutations of Elements into aliments, in the inspiring of a vivifical virtue into the Seeds; lastly, in constituting a various difference of Nature and parts, according to the benign or malign concurrence of the Sun or Soil.  
180 That the souls of Bruits are endowed with knowledge, is sufficiently, by their copulations and generations upon set times, their just distributions in the forming and nourishing of the parts of the individual Beings, the distinct offices of those parts free from any confusion, the various motions of their souls, the nimble faculties of their senses, the secret spirits, harmoniously moving the members as organs, their proneness to discipline, their obsequious reverence to their Masters, the presaging instinct of things to come; in most a devout worship, an art in getting their provision, in choice of their ranges, providing their fence, their prudence in the avoiding dangers, and the rest actions so agreeable to knowledge and reason, bestowed upon them by Nature. But Nature in every individual, is nothing else but the form itself, which is the principle of motion, and rest of action, and life to it, in which it is, to which is committed the charge, direction and conservation of its body, as a Ship to a Pilot.  
181 But who will deny the certain predestination of Times for the birth of things, unless he fancy a confusion and disorder in the Nature of the Universe, for she draws forth all those things out of her bosom, according to settled and fore-appointed order, for she had a prescript from her Maker for the Law of Order, and the times of production; their quickening, birth, life and death have their set times, and do fulfil their designed seasons; those things that either this or that year receive their Being, or return to darkness, are preordained to it, which pray ordination, Nature, God's Vicegerent in the rule of the Universe, doth foreknow by the suggestion of the Divine Spirit, that she might be ministerial to the compassing of it; neither do those things casually fall out, but they have a necessary, though unknown cause, yet the Grand Ruler of all is not comprised within the Law of Necessity, but appoints all things, and changeth them according to his own will. He it is that decrees concerning all, even the least things, whose Decrees want neither certainty nor order. Therefore that Order, that runs through the series and succession of things & times, hath the law of its necessity from the divine Decrees.  
182 As all things which afterwards were actually produced and separated, in respect of their matter were potentially in the Chaos, so all individuals before they come to light, are in the World in their matter and potentiality, and will in their time and order come forth and break into act, but when they fail and die, they return as Rivers into the Sea, into that general Mass from whence they came, every Nature recovering its proper Region, and being to be brought again and again into nature's shop▪ are wrought into new Beings upon her anvil. It may be this was that opinion of the Pythagoreans, therefore exploded, because not comprehended concerning their Tenet of Transanimation.  
183 When the mixed body is dissolved, and the corruption of the frail Elements come to a loss, the Aetherial nature returns to its native home, and there is nothing left in the carcase but a perturbation and confusion of the Elements, having lost their governor, than there reigns nothing but corruption, death, and darkness in the widowed matter, until she through corruption be made fit for generation, and the virtue of Heaven do again flow down into the matter thus disposed, and gathering and mingling the wandering Elements, do rekindle the weak light of a new form, which at length breaks forth, the forces of the Elements being corroborated, and so completes the new mixture.  
184 In that corruption which tends to generation, which is a corruption in the mean, and is done with the conservation of the specifical form potentially inherent in the seed or matter, that sublime spirit departs not, but being weak and impotent, is excited by external heat, and begins to move, and withal give motion to the matter, till at length it works more vigorously, and gives information to the perfectly mixed body.  
185 The Elements as well as the Aliments of Nature, do begin their generation and nutrition, which are in most respects the same from Corruption. For both must necessarily be putrified, and by putrefaction be resolved into a moist, and as it were a first matter, than is there made a Chaos, in which are all things necessary for generation and nutrition. So doth the birth and repair of every Microcosm bear with an Analogical resemblance with the creation and conservation of the Macrocosm.  
186 The insensible seeds of things, and those mixed bodies which are begot from them, do consist of a threefold Nature, of a Celestial, Elementary, and mixed Nature. The Celestial is a ray of the Light of the Sun, endued with all heavenly vigour, the principle of action, motion, generation and life, by whose help the seeds, by their renewed vigour, do resemble the constant permanency of the Stars, and being in a manner as so many immortal grafts of celestial plants, engrafted upon corruptible nature, as upon a strange stock, do by a kind of an eternal succession, vindicate it from death: The Elementary, corporeal and sensible portion, which in creatures is called the Sperm, is the Case and keeper of the seed, which putrifies and is corrupted, and generates an invisible seed. The Radical Moisture, or the Ferment of Nature, in which lies the spirit, is a middle substance, coupling the Celestial and Elementary, in the material part answering the Elements; in the spiritual, the Form. Like the daybreak, whose cheek being covered with a dusky light, doth knit together the two extremes of Light and Darkness, and being neither, doth hold forth a mixture of both.  
187 Life is an harmonical act, proceeding from the copulation of the Matter and the Form, constituting the perfect Being of an individual nature. Death is the term or end of this act, the separation of the matter and form, and a resolution of the mixed body.  
188 These mixed bodies have the roots of their generation and life in Heaven, from whence springs their Causes and Principles, whence also as inverted Trees, they do suck their juice and aliment. Neither is it suitable for the Understanding, to be envassaled to the Rule of the Senses, which comprehend nothing but what is sensible. But the mind rangeth far abroad beyond the cloisters of the Senses, and searcheth to a greater height, for the hunting out of the bounds of Nature. The bodies are as it were the barks, the grosser parts of the Elements the accidents of things, under which lie hid the pure and sprightly Essences, which acknowledge not the subjection and censure of the Senses, and which it was a necessity to cloth under a dark Cloud, that they might pass from their heavenly, to their earthly province of the corporeal Beings. The supreme creator of Nature enacted this copulation of spirituals with corporeals, whereby his uncreated spirit communicating itself, first to the more spiritual and simple Natures, might be conveyed through them, as by so many conduits, to corporeal Beings, and in this manner diffusing itself gradually and orderly, through all the Regions of the World, through all and every Being, doth sustain all things by the Divine presence, as also that by a sensible creature, the insensible creator might be apprehended through corporeal and sensible resemblances.  
189 Whatsoever lives either an Animal or Vegetable life, stands in need of food, that the natural spirits might be recruited, which do continually slide forth through the pores, and that so the loss of Nature might have a successive repair. For the nourishing juice is made by the more succulent substance of the meat, whereby the parts and humours of the body are reinforced. The radical Moisture is renewed out of the purer portion of the humours, especially of the blood, the celestial influence intermingling itself by respiration with it.  
190 Living things have a twofold nourishment, to wit, a Corporeal and a Spiritual, the former being of small avail to life without the latter. For Vegetables do evidently refer the benefit of their increase and nourishment no less to the Air and Heaven, than to the Earth: yea the Earth itself, unless suckled with the milk of Heaven, would quickly find her own breast to flag dry, this that holy Diver into nature's secrets, when he blessed Joseph, 
Deut. cap. 33.  doth thus express: blessed be the Lord for his Earth, for the apples of Heaven, for the Dew, and for the Deep that coucheth beneath, for the pleasant apples of the Sun and of the Moon, for the top of the everlasting Mountains, for the fruits of the eternal Hills, &c. By which mystical speech, the Prophet fore-ensureth the earth's plenty, by the abundant influence of the Sun, Moon, and of the rest of the celestial bodies.  
191 That spiritual Diet, as far as it conduceth to the life of creatures, is acknowledged by every vulgar capacity, that sees the renewed respiration, and the frequent sucking in of the external Air. For not only according to the opinion of ordinary Physicians, hath Nature so workmanlike framed those bellows, bordering upon the heart to cool it, but also that by their continued fanning, they might breathe in an aethereal Air, and hand to it celestial spirits, that so by their recruits the vital spirits may be kept in repair, and be always multiplied.  
192 Philosophers do not only call those spiritual Natures, which being created without matter, are only comprehended by the Understanding, as the intelligencies, Angels▪ and Devils are accounted to be: but also those that, which although they have their original from matter, yet in respect of their great tenuity & nobility, do not subject themselves to the search of the Senses, and nearer approaching to spiritual Beings, are rather under stood by reason, than found by sense Such is the pure part of the Air, such are the influences of heavenly bodies, such the in-set fire and seminal virtues, such the vegetable spirits, such the animal, and the vital, and the like, in which consists the very nature of Beings, than in grosser bodies. Such like nature's spring from Heaven, and in relation to sensibles, do assume to themselves the name and right of spirits.  
193 It is suitable that we should give the Fire of Nature a place amongst the spiritual Beings, for in itself it is not perceivable by any sense, but discovers itself only in bodies, by heat and other effects and accidents. This is apparent in living creatures, into which by this unperceivable fire, is infused a sensible heat, and that Fire with the life stealing away, the Elementary body or the carcase, yet the mixed being dissolved, remains sound and unhurt. In Vegetables, because this Fire is weaker, it doth elude the sense, and is not to be perceived by any heat.  
194 Reason also convinceth, that our common Fire is to be sorted amongst the spiritual, rather than corporeal Beings. For if it were corporeal, it should have from itself a peculiar and inseparable body, no less than Earth, Water, or Air, and the rest of the sensible Natures, which do consist and are bounded within their proper bodies, which do exist in them and by them, which do act according to their virtues, and produce them to the Senses. But Fire hath not a peculiar and sensible body, lodgeth only in another's, for a Coal is not Fire, but Wood fired, neither is the flame Fire, but smoke inflamed; finally, that Robber only feeds upon what is not his own, lives upon the prey, and is extinguished when this fails, having nothing in itself to feed it. Besides, a body superadded to another body, doth augment the quantity of it, but this not found in fire put into wood or smoke, for the smoke or wood is no way increased by the accession of fire in their quantities, from which it is evident, that a fiery spirit rather than a body, doth invade the wood or smoke. A sword melted, the scabbard being untouched, the bones shattered by the fiery bolt of Thunder, and yet the flesh unhurt, do sufficiently argue the spiritual nature, even of that thundering fire. Yet we must know that Fire is not wholly immaterial, for it hath a matter, though a very subtle and light one, whereby it cleaves to the encompassing air, whereby it may be kept in by a more gross body. Yet doth it rather deserve the name of a spirit, than of a body, because it hath not a sensible quantity, neither can it be comprehended, but when it is arrayed in another body.  
195 For Light the original of it doth evince, that it ought to be seated amongst those things that are truly spiritual. There was no light but in God before the informing of the first matter, & the birth of the world. But when Nature received her Being, than began there a spiritual light to issue forth from the fiery spirit of God upon the matter, and there to settle as in its lamp, and this was the creation and original of Light: that was the first act of the Deity upon the matter; the first copulation of the creator with the creature, of a spirit with a body. Therefore the first informing Light, was a mere Spirit, which did kindle with its fiery virtue, as with heat, the nearest matter, being exceedingly rarefied by its spiritual Light, and so were the darkness converted to light. The Heaven, being distinguished by the first light, although it be not material and fiery, yet is nevertheless invisible, because in respect of the matter, it is brought to the highest degree of tenuity, and in respect of its form, is endowed with spirituality. But the Light that was scattered in the middle Heaven, being bounded into a narrower compass, was cast into the Globe of the Sun, which was necessarily to be formed into a kind of a thick body, as it were into a smoke fit to be kindled, yet not combustible, that so it might be settled, being kindled by that immortal Light, and be in the room of the general Lamp of Nature, or as a fiery Mass. The light of the Sun therefore is nothing else but a lightsome spirit, deriving its rise from the Spirit of eternal Light, gathered in, and inseparably cleaving to the body of the Sun, and made sensible by reason of the thickness of the body, communicating to all the natures of the Universe, light, and a manifold virtue: constituting the spirit of the World by its non-intermitted influence: and bound up in a body for the good and welfare of the corporeal Nature.  
196 Yet the sunbeams that are perceivable by our eyes, are not pure spirits, for issuing continually from the Sun, have their progress, being clothed with the encompassing Air. They are therefore nothing else but a continued flowing forth of the spirit of Light, which springing forth as so many rivulets from their Eternal Fountain, and working themselves into the aetherial Nature, as a flame into a most thin smoke, do overspread the whole face of the Universal World with their light.  
197 It is natural to Light to flow continually from its Fountain. We call those Rays issuing forth, and mixing themselves with the airy nature, and they are the first actings of light in the Sun, and the conveyance of it from the Sun. For it is the property of a lightful body, to act by it rays, and to send forth heat and light, and that might spread its light abroad by a darting forth, and multiplying of its beams. We do by light signify both the first act of the lightsome body, as also a secondary lightsomeness which floweth out from the former.  
198 The Lamp being out, either for want of matter, or blown out by the wind, the fiery and lightsome spirit that kindled the Lamp doth not perish, neither is it extinguished, as it commonly seems, but only losing what it feeds on, and being stripped from it, is scattered in and vanisheth to Air, which is the Abyss and universal Receptacle of all lights and spiritual natures of the material World: from whence we may learn, that the nature of this lightsomeness is spiritual, and is derived from the spiritual Fountain, not otherwise than natural forms from their Matrix, which is the spirit of the Universe, perpetually flowing from the Sun, as from an eternal and immortal Spring. For as the bodies of mixed Beings in their making, do rise from the first matter, and the Elements, and do gradually at their departure, slide into the same again, so the natural forms of individuals in their approach, do flow from the universal form (which in the manner of a Form of forms, doth inspire a formal virtue into the seeds) and in their recess do again return into it. But that form is the Spirit of the light of the Universe, to which, as to their principle, and as to a nature of the same kind, do all single forms and sparks of light got loose from their ties, return. So are all mixed Beings resolved into their first principles, but these principles do return to that Eternal Spring of Nature, as to their proper centre and peculiar country.  
199 But that Spirit of the Universe is from the Sun, yet not the very light of the Sun, conspicuous to us by reason of the presence of its body; but that invisible spirit, which is continually dispersed by the beams of the Sun, through the universal Region of the Air, and doth extend itself perpetually by communication through our Heaven, yea, even to the centre of the Earth, and that in the absence of the Sun, and in the darkest night, pouring out all gifts for generation and life, through all the bodies of the Universe.  
200 The divine Love was not able to contain itself within itself, but did wholly go out of itself in the creation, by multiplication of itself, and pouring out himself wholly also in the conservation of creatures in themselves. Light also, which is the exactest copy of the Deity, doth also imitate the divine Love: for it is not able to be comprised within its own lightsome body, but is diffused far and near for the good of other Beings, by a strong multiplication of its beams, being not so much born for itself as for others, being as it were the token of Divine Love, communicating itself to its power, and reaching forth into the most remote places, unless it meet with a stop from a thick body.  
201 Light also doth hold forth to us the infinite Nature of God; for the small light of a lamp or candle cannot, as long as it is fed, by all its continued effluence of rays, and by its infinite communication of its flames, be exhausted or diminished. As many beams so many streams flow from it. Yet though it gives, though it diffuseth itself, although much be taken from it, yet is it not brought to nothing, neither receives loss, which is the alone property of a spiritual nature, and is altogether unappliable to a corporeal. So the intellectual endowments, as the understanding and knowledge of things, which are justly esteemed spiritual lights, are of the same kind, that though always bestowed abroad, yet are preserved entire at home. Therefore must we confess that there is something divine in Light.  
202 The beams of a lightsome body, although they be of a spiritual nature, yet are they stopped by a thick body, because their conveyance is by means of the Air, without which they are not perceivable by us, by which copulation also they are in a manner made corporeal, and therefore cannot pierce or enter into the bodies that are not porous. So spiritual things do act with us by some sensible mean, that so we may perceive them to act. But the lightsome body being absent, the beams also depart, neither do they part from his presence, because they immediately flow from him.  
203 But the Air is without enlightened, not only by the presence of a body of light, and of the beams from it, but also the body being gone, and the beams withdrawn, by a lightsome spirit flowing from them: as is clear in the darkest Eclipse, or the Heavens overcast with the blackest clouds, or wrapped up in the mask of night, yea, the Sun being sunk under the Horizon: for that act of present light cannot proceed from the body of light, and its beams being absent, but from the access and presence of a spiritual light.  
204 A transparent body as glass, being pointed with the Sun beams, doth gather them, and receives in it the image of the Sun, and is made lightsome, & as it were a brief draught of the Sun, which sends forth its beams on the farthest side opposite to the Sun, from which the beams of the Sun being refracted, by the concourse of the glass, seem to pass through the glass, which yet indeed they do not, for the rays by reason of the Air that cleaves to them, are settled about the glass, the spirit of light only passing forward, but by the beams which are darted out on the other side, are the beams of the Sun, or of the glass being kindled by the sunbeams into a lightsome body.  
205 Every transparent body, especially glass, is a medium of light, because it receives light into it, and having received it, doth communicate it to the Air that is beyond it, not by the sending forth of lightsome Air about it, which is repugnant to Nature, but by another double way. First, because a transparent body yields to, and let's pass the spirit of light, and doth send it forth abroad being received by it, which sent forth, gets into the adjoining Air, hence springs that plentiful light; and besides, because that transparent Medium is made by the benefit of the light, it receives not only light in itself, but lightsome to others, and by the spirit of Light, which is in love with transparent bodies, becomes as it were a lighted lamp. But now every lightsome body hath the privilege and power to scatter its light, which is not granted to thick and dark bodies, unless by reflection.  
206 Those which are the pure natures of mixed Beings, are merely spiritual, the bodies are as it were the Barks and Vessels, in which they are contained and kept. And not otherwise could those sublime Natures, unless tied to the corporeal Elements, and so bound in by their weight, pass this lower Sea, and lodge in the Centre of this Abyss. They come subject to sense by their bodies, the bodies are moved and acted by them, so do they do interchangeable offices. This that secret of Homer's Juno, whom Jupiter let down with a weight at her heels.  
207 Since the whole frame of the Universe is but one only body, one only universal Nature, consisting of many natures and bodies, bound together by their proper Mediums and bonds, it should not be wondered at, that such parts & members are knit together by a strong, but secret tye, and do give a mutual assistance each to other, for they have not only a mutual relation to, but also a communication with one the other, and these various natures do exercise a kind of a commerce, the extremes by the middle, the middle by the nearest. But this communication is performed by spirits sent forth: for all the parts of the world, all the individual natures of the world do abound in spirits; many of which flowing forth, leave room and give way for those that flow in, and so is there by the continual ebbing out and flowing in of spirits, a continual reparation of the world, and of the natures thereof. This is the scale of general Nature presented in a vision to the Patriarch Jacob, these are Mercury's wings, by whose help being mystically termed by the Ancients, the Messenger of the Gods, he was thought frequently to visit the coasts of the Earth, and the courts of Heaven.  
208 The active principles of every kind of Vegetables or Animals are spiritual, their bodies are the passive organs of the spirits, by which they exercise the faculties of the senses, and do by various actings put forth their powers, as the authors of actions, so that in the general life may be termed a consent of actions, or a continued act diversified by the multiplicity of actions, flowing from a spiritual fountain, and brought forth by corporeal organs.  
209 It is the property of the spiritual nature to act, of the corporeal to be passive, where therefore there is a concourse of both, as in mixed bodies, that as the more noble doth act and rule this as passive doth obey. For the power of act is the privilege of ruling, but the burden of being passive is the mark of being servile; so the in-set fire in the seed, is the principle of generation and life, the highest operating spirit, the Archaeus of Nature, the orderer in the preparing and forming the matter in the mixtion and distribution of the Elements. So doth the Form in the mixed Being exercise its rule at his will, as the fountain of all actions. So do the virtues of the heavenly Beings dispose and seal all inferior Elements and corporeal matter.  
210 Natural bodies which have an active vigour, and an occult cause of acting, do not, as is commonly thought, act alone by their qualities, but by secret spirits. For the fire doth not heat and burn by the single quality of heat, but by the continual flux of spirits and rays. Neither do the Earth and Water refrigerate or moisten by the alone qualities of cold and moist, but by their vapours and in-nate spirits sent forth, do affect the sense from without. Neither do poisons only by cold or hot qualities, but by malignant spirits bring death or infection sooner or later. Concerning Plants or Herbs, we must judge alike, because their active virtues do not lie hid in their qualities, but in their essence, which Nature hath made abundant in spirits, whose basis and principle powers are concerning spirituals, for the bodies are as the shadows or the investments of things, under which the invisible Nature is hidden, but since qualities are the accidents of things, are not therefore able to constitute their essence, nor show forth in their actings those wonderful virtues, but are only as the in set instruments of actions & passions, which the working spirits, that are the workers of all actions make use of in their actings, but yet Nature endures them not as principles and efficient causes of actions.  
211 The natural tinctures, odours and tastes of things are special and spiritual gifts of Nature, with which it hath suitably enriched her Beings, & which do not only contribute to their ornament, or only are inherent in them, as extrinsical accidents, but also have an in-set and radical cause, and are not so much to be termed accidents, as demonstrative tokens of inward virtues, by which the occult and formal signatures of things discover themselves.  
212 Rarefaction and condensation are the two instruments of Nature, by which spirits are converted into bodies, and bodies into spirits, or also by which corporeal Elements are changed into spiritual Beings, and spiritual into corporeal; for Elements do suffer these changes in mixed bodies. So the Earth doth minister spiritual food to the roots of vegetables, which being fed upon, doth go into the stalk, the bark, the boughs, the branches, the flowers, and into the corporeal substance. The same is done by Nature in Animals. For the meat and drink, which they diet on, or at least the better part, is terminated into humours, and at length into spirits, which getting through the pores, and knit to the flesh, nerves, bones, and the rest of the parts of the body, do nourish and augment them, and do by the never-tired work of supply, repair decaying nature. So the spiritual and the portion of the purer substance, is curdled to the frothy body of seed. Art the Ape of Nature, doth experience the like in her resolutions and compositions.  
213 The life of individuals is in a rational and strict union of the matter and form: but the knot of both natures, their tie and base lieth hid in the fortified embraces of the innate heat and fire, and the radical moisture. For that formal fire is an heavenly ray, which is united with the radical moisture, which is the purest and best digested portion of the matter, and as it were an oil defaecated, exuberated, and turned as it were into a spiritual nature, by the organs of Nature, as by so many alembics.  
214 There is much of the radical moisture in the seed of things, in which, as in its food, is kept a celestial Spark, which doth act all things necessary to generation in a convenient matrix. But wheresoever there is a constant principle of heat, there is conceived to be a fire, because the natural principle of heat is his in which it is,  
215 A man may observe something immortal in the radical moisture, which doth neither vanish by death, nor consume by the force of the most violent fire, but remains unvanquished in the carcases and ashes of bodies burnt.  
216 There is a double moisture lies in every mixed Being, to wit, an elementary and a Radical. The elementary, being partly of an aerial, parley of a watery nature, yields not to fire, but flies away into a vapour or smoke, which being drawn forth, the body is resolved into ashes; for by it, as by a glue, the Elements in their mixture are knit together. But the radical moisture scorns the tyrannical assaults of common fire, but it neither dies in the martyrdom, nor flies away in the combat, but surviving the mixed body, doth stubbornly stick to its ashes, which is an evidence of its exact purity.  
217 The experience of this radical moisture, hidden in the ashes, did teach a secret to the glas-makers, being ignorant of the nature of things, for by bringing Glass out of Ashes by the sharp point of their casting flames, they have made a hidden thing evident, beyond which, neither the strength of fire or art are able to stretch it. But the ashes must necessarily run, that there might be a continued quantity, and a solid body made as glass is, which could not be otherwise, for there can be no flowing of any thing without moisture. Therefore that moisture being inseparable from its matter, is at length brought to terminate into that noble and as it were aetherial transparent body.  
218 The extraction of Salts out of Ashes, in which is the chief virtue of mixed Beings, the fertility of ground increased by the burning of stubble, and by ashes, doth evidence, that that moisture preserved free from fire, is the radical principal of generation, & the root of nature. Although this virtue lies hid, solitary and idle, till being received by the Earth, the common matrix of nature's principles, yet show forth a hidden faculty convenient for generation and multiplication, as it is also accustomable in the seed of things.  
219 That Radical balsam, is nature's ferment or leaven, infecting the whole mass of the body. It is an indelible and multiplying tincture, for it pierceth and tingeth even the more loathsome excrements, which is evident by the frequent, although imperfect generation, that is made from out of them, as also by the frequent dunging of ground, which is known by the most unskilful husbandmen, that so the languishing land may be set forward to pay its due, and that with an advantage to the expecting labourer.  
220 We may guess, that that root of Nature, which survives the ruin of the mixed body, is a foot-step, and the purest and immortal portion of the first matter informed, and signed with the divine character of Light. For that ancient matrimony betwixt the first Matter and its Form, is not to be untied, from which copulation the other bodies drew their original. Moreover, it was necessary that this incorruptible base of corruptible things, and as it were the cube-root of them should lie hid, always remaining and immortal in the depth of bodies, that it might be constantly and perpetually a material Principle, having a potentiality and aptitude to life, about which, as about an immovable axletree, there might be a continual turning of the Elements and things. And if we may have the liberty in dark things, to guess at what is most likely truth, that immortal Substance is the foundation of the material World, and the Ferment of its immortality, which the Eternal Measurer of all things hath fore-established to survive the day of the conflagration of all things, when the Elements shall be purified by that refining fire, that so he might renew and repair out of this pure and ever-remaining Matter, his work vindicated from original sin, and the taint of corruption.  
221 That this radical Basis is not of the kind of special forms, is evident, because every individual hath its individual and singular form, which doth depart the body upon the dissolution of the mixed Being, yet that radical principle remaining unextinguished, although it abide much weakened, and of little efficacy, by reason of the absence of the form, yet do those vital sparkles remain apt for the production of more debased and imperfect births, which production belongs not so much to Nature, as to the matter in its birth; this attempteth, but is not able to generate without a companion, by reason of the absence of the formal and specifical virtue. So the carcase of a man or an horse, by reason of the defect of seed is not capable for the generation of a man or an horse, but of loathed worms and other infects, from whence we may guess, that that feeble principle of life proceeds from the scarcity of the first matter, and rather to be of the family of the lower Elements, than of the higher and celestial, yet that there is in it some of that tincture of light.  
222 For certainly that slight spark of that former light, which did in the beginning inform the dark matter of the lower Abyss, may be sufficient for the generation of infects: for it doth work the matter by a confused and disordered motion, that it might bring forth the power into a feeble act, but the matter warmed by this spark, and as it were languishing, being corrupted rather by the fancy than the copulation of a male, doth rush into the lustful act, and being unable to bring forth a just issue of Nature, doth form loathsome phantasms, as Worms, Hornets, Beetles, and the like, in the filthy excrements. Therefore that radical Moisture is the nearest and never-ceasing subject of generation and life, in which is first kindled the fire of Nature, and the formal act in a well disposed and prepared matter. But in a confused and ill ordered matter, where that humour doth act the part of the male, it begets spurious and bastard births of Nature, for that generation which is made without specifical seed, seems to be made rather by chance and default, than by the intention of Nature, although in it seems to be a dark and confused kind of copulation of actives with passives, which is required also to the production of every, though imperfect, Being.  
223 That radical Ferment constantly abiding in the depth of mixed Bodies, seem to be the Band, Seat and Tye of that matrimony contracted between Light and Darkness, between the first Matter and the universal Form, finally of all the Contraries: otherwise the Matter and Form, by reason of their repugnant natures, would not be knit together. But that dark unbridledness of the first matter and its averseness from light was tamed, and its hatred turned into love, by the good office of that lightsome tincture, which doth reconcile things repugnant.  
224 The inbred Heat and the radical Moisture are of a divers kind, for that is wholly spiritual and of the Sun, this of a middle nature, betwixt a spiritual and a corporeal, both participating of an aethereal and elementary Nature; that is of the degree of things above, this of things below, in which was celebrated the first marriage of Heaven & Earth, by which also Heaven hath its abode in the very Centre of the Earth. They are therefore deceived, that do confound the inbred heat and the radical Moisture, for they differ no less than smoke and flame, the light of the Sun and the Air, Sulphur and Mercury: In mixed Beings, the radical Moisture is the seat and food of the inbred and celestial Fire, its bond with the Elementary body: but that power of Fire is the Form and Soul of mixed Beings. In seeds, that moisture is the immediate Keeper and Case of that Spirit of Fire enclosed in the seed, till it be set on to generation in a disposed Matrix, by an adventitious heat. Finally, that radical Substance is Vulcan's Shop in every mixed Being, the Chimney in which is kept that immortal Fire, which is the first mover of all the faculties in an individual nature.  
225 That radical Moisture is the Catholical Balsam, the most precious elixir of Nature, the Mercury of Life, having a perfect sublimation by Nature, a dose of which is administered to every individual of her family, weighed to a just quantity by plenteous Nature. They that have attained the happiness to fetch out this hidden Treasure of Nature, wrapped up close in the heart, and in the closets of nature's birth, and can get it out of those close coverts of the Elements, let him boast that he hath attained the chiefest staff and help of life, and a most precious Treasure,  
226 The order of Reason and of Creation doth require, that the first Copies of things, being first of all concealed in the celestial Natures, were transmitted into inferior Beings: but in the first they are of a far greater perfection, both because of their greater tenuity and dignity, as also because of their neighbouring seats to the Eternal Being: but with us they are much meaner, because carved in a grosser and less valuable matter, and more distant from their eternal Principle. There is nothing therefore printed in this lower Margin of the World, which was not at first copied in the heavenly Being: neither is there any particular kind of Being of the inferior natures, which doth not acknowledge the dominion of one superior agreeable to it, and which it hath not the secret seal and signature of it. So do things below depend on things above.  
227 The World is a creature of an ambiguous nature, for it is of both Sexes, the higher part, to wit, the celestial, is active and masculine; the lower Elementary nature, is the passive and feminine nature. The Globe of the Earth is the womb, in which the engendering seed of Heaven is received and kept. From the masculine part proceed life and strength; from the female part corruption and death do issue.  
228 Since superior and inferior bodies have their original from the same Principles, as from their parts, yet are they not such as have their equal lot: it is equal, that those things that have the honour of being nobler substances, and advanced to higher offices, should distribute to their brethren of a lower degree, being poor and in want, some of their wealth, and so provide for their life and conversation. For it was provided by the foresight of the Deity, that since there was a necessity that the World should be made up of unequal natures, the more powerful Natures should aid the weaker, & hand help to the fainting Natures. So Love is the indissoluble knot of the parts of the Universe.  
229 In this sublunary Region, diseased Nature sickens out of a defect of the proportion and temperament of the Elements, either by reason of the quantity, or of the qualities, either out of a too great intention or remission, and so is there a dissonancy in nature's music, and a distemper in her bodies. Therefore the consonancy of the Elements, which riseth from a proportion, and constitutes their temperament, being gone, the matter and form of the whole mixed Being hath a bad coherence; Nature is troubled and staggers with a perplexed confusion, and hence do first diseases, and then death assault disordering and falling Nature.  
230 That discord of those Principles, have either an intrinsical and radical cause, as from a vicious seed, an evil generation, or age; or an intrinsical and accidental, as from a too great repletion or emptiness, from whence either an excess or defect in humours and spirits; or from putrefaction, mortal poison, infection, grief, hurt, or some other impediment brought upon the Organs of life with the like, which do hurt Nature.  
231 The four radical Qualities of the Elements, are as so many harmonious Tones of Nature, not contrary but divers, and distant each from other by certain pauses, from whose rational difference, intention and remission, is made a perfect consent of Nature, perceivable by the understanding, bearing an Analogy to that vocal music which is heard by the Senses. Sharp and Flat in music, though they are extremes, yet are not Contraries in music, they are the terms of those means, which lie betwixt them, and are composed and tempered after a divers manner by these two extremes. So Heat and Cold, dryness and Moisture, are the extreme Qualities in Nature, yet not therefore contrary, but only the bounds of the middle and interjacent Qualities, from whose mixture and temperament, do the middle proceed.  
232 The motion of Nature is continual and not tired, no less in every part than in the whole. For she always acts, never idle, so that if she were but out of action for a moment, it would ruin the whole frame of the Universe, which is addicted to a decree of a perpetual motion. For neither doth the settled Earth, the calm Sea, the quiet Air, therefore altogether rest, because they are not seen to be moved, they rest no more than a sleeping man: that rest is a remission of action, not an omission or cessation. Nature acts within, neither doth it ever desist its action or motion of the Organs. Even a very carcase hath a motion, to wit, of corruption: but living Beings, though they are not acted by a local, yet are they by an organical motion.  
233 Nature doth move the frame of the Universe in a uniform and orderly motion, yet so that wheels things unequal and unlike, by an unequal unlike motion. This unequality of the motion is required by a Geometrical equity, and so all the motions of all the heavenly bodies, may be Geometrically termed equal, considering the difference of the magnitude, distance, and nature of them.  
234 Nature being no less powerful than wise, in the informing and governing of her Works, doth attain her certain end by many wanderings and windings, which is most evident in the births of the Earth, for she handling the Elements in an unequal temper, doth, especially in the Winter, replenish the womb of the Earth with a fruitful seed, in the Spring brings forth an easy birth, in the Summer ripens the fruit, and in the Autumn all fall.  
235 This diversity doth especially proceed from the approach and recess of the Sun, appointed to this end by the creator: For he hath destinated the Sun to the Rule of the Elements, that by his various distance, inflection and reflection, they may have a divers and various temperament, and so there might be some help for Nature, working divers things by divers means, and that she might perfect her changes, by the various changes of Times. This variety of Nature is worth the exactest thoughts of the most acute Philosophers.  
236 The heavenly bodies, though not subject to that stain of alteration, do notwithstanding introduce manifold changes in the Elementary Region, and do inspire various affections by their divers propension, and the various motions of the planetick bodies, which do alter their site and distance between themselves, and also the figure of the Heavens, which actions do diversely form and incline the pliable natures of the Elements, and they never cease to ferment them by their continual influence.  
237 The whole substance of the Heaven, hath parts continuous, though not contiguous; let not any therefore fancy the World to be the works of Art, which is the work of Nature, which cannot endure any section into spheres and Circles; for they that first divided the aetherial region into many orbs and circles, did propose to themselves rather the easy teaching by it, than to show the truth of the thing. For the divine nature being an unity, is desirous of and endeavours unity, and so avoideth multiplicity: wherefore we must conceive she created not many Heavens, separated by their matter and superficies, when one body, in respect of the continuity of the matter, though distinct in the dignity and virtue of the parts, might suffice. Neither is this taken off by the motions of the Stars in their courses and customs, which because we know not, we therefore make a fancied astrology, and do too boldly bring the power of God under the weakness of man, though the continuity of the Heaven hinder not the motion of the Stars, and there might be some help for man's reason to find out their orders,  
238 That there should be a first movable above the Heavens, by whose hurrying motion the lower Heavens are turned about, is not an invention of the wisdom of God, but only a fancied help for man's ignorance: for if we assign the principle of motion to that first mover, why do we deny it to the globe of heaven? why should we fancy an external cause of motion, which may be all this time intrinsical?  
239 As this lowest province of the World is subject to the rule of the middle, so is the middle, viz. the aetherial to the highest and supercelestial for its privileges and deputieship. For the Empyrean heaven, and the choir of the intelligible Beings, do inspire into the celestial orb those virtues, which they receive from the Archetype, in order of succession, and do move those natures that lie nearest them, not without a consent, as the first organs of the material world: by which motion the inferior bodies, being also moved, do exercise their turns, as so many dances to a set pace, and do borrow whatsoever is excellent from the superior bodies.  
240 But Intelligences are illuminated at hand, according to their orders from the mind of God, as from the spring of eternal light, by which illumination they are fed, as with an immortal food, and in it, as in a glass, do they read, receive the commands and will of the Divine majesty, and by it are enkindled to an honourable obedience. This is the manner and union of the threefold nature of the Universe, the knot and Herculean bond of this union is the love of God. So in a ternary is completed the whole state of the World, whose creator is by no means part of it, no otherwise than unity is neither a Number, nor the part of a Number, although it constitutes all number, but is the principle and measure of Number, neither is the Musician or Lutonist a part, but the author of the consent.  
241 They which believe that an almost innumerable multitude of heavenly bodies, were created for the commodity of the globe of the Earth, and for her inhabitants, as to their proper end, are deceived, for reason will deny, that natures, so far more noble and transcendent, were enslaved to the service of more vile and low-born Beings. Is it not rather more likely, that every Globe doth rather of itself make a peculiar world, and that so many worlds as feodaries to the eternal Empire of a God, are diffused through the vast range of the heaven, and there do hang as bound each to the other by that common bond of the heaven, and that the whole large Universe doth consist of those manifold natures? These, though so far severed in nature and place, yet do join in a mutual love, so as to make up a perfect harmony in the Universe, The heaven is the common place of all, yet is it more pure about those more perfect Beings, therefore it is of great tenuity and almost spiritual, and so fills up the places between, that so it may the better receive the various affections of so many natures, and the secret virtues continually issuing from them, and having received them, it might swiftly communicate them to others, though far distant. For the heaven is nature's conveyance, by the mediation of which, all the Cities of Nature do traffic one with another, and are made partakers of each the others wealth and store. So are they linked together by a most powerful bond of friendship and nearness, as it were by some magnetic virtue.  
242 What hinders, but that we may reckon the Globe of the Earth, as well as the Moon amongst the Stars? For both are naturally dark bodies, both do borrow light from the Sun, both are solid bodies, and reflect the beams of the Sun, both send forth spirits and virtues, both hang in their heaven or their air. But the doubt is, whether it moves or no. But to what end is her motion needful? why may not she also stand fixed amongst so many fixed bodies? And it may be the Moon hath her inhabitants, for it is not credible, that Orbs of so immense and vast a compass, should be idle and useless, not inhabited by any creatures; that their motions, actions, and travels should only tend to the good of this lowest and most despicable Globe: since God himself, not liking Solitude, did go out of himself in the Creation, and poured out himself upon the creatures, and gave them a Law for Multiplication. Is it not more for God's glory, to assert the entire fabric of the whole Universe to be like a great Empire, graced with the various natures of many worlds, as with so many Provinces or Cities? and that the Worlds themselves are as so many habitations & tenements for innumerable Citizens of divers kinds, and all created to set forth the superlative glory of the great creator.  
243 And who will not admire the Sun as an immortal Lamp, hanging up in the middle of the hall of the Great Lord, and enlightening all the corners & recesses of it, or else as the Vicegerent of the Divine majesty, infusing light, spirit and life into all the creatures of the World? For it was fit that God, being altogether immaterial, should rule and order his material works by an organ, which should be of a middle and most excellent material Being, which also ought to be full of vivifical spirits, and so to set over sensible things, a sensible Monarch.  
244 This Doctrine of many Worlds is not repugnant to Scripture, which doth only relate to us the Creation of our World, describing all things concerning the others in a mystical, rather than an open & clear way, only touching at them, that so men's feeble souls, that had already fallen, as too curious of knowledge, might rather sit and admire, than rise and understand. The clouding of this truth, this darkness of man's soul, was part of the punishment of sin, by which he fell from the pleasures of Paradise, the delights of knowledge, the knowledge of Nature and heavenly things, that so he that would stretch himself to a sinful desire of a forbidden knowledge, might be nipped by a just deprivement of what was given: and so he having brought in a multiplication and confusion of knowledge, might be punished with the loss of that true Knowledge, which was one of all things. That is the Cherub, the guardian of the Garden, he that hath his flaming falchion, striking blind the guilty souls of men with the brightness of his light, and forcing us off from the secrets of Nature, and the truth of the Universe.  
245 The Divine nature, although it be a most perfect unity, yet seems to consist of, and to be perfected by two things, viz. Understanding and Will. By his Understanding, he knows all things from eternity; by his Will, he acts all; and both he doth most absolutely. His Knowledge and Wisdom belong to his Understanding: but his Goodness, Mercy, Justice and the rest of those virtues, which are accounted Moral with us, belong to his Will; yea so doth also God's omnipotency, which is nothing else but his Omnipotent Will. The Intelligible natures, viz. the Angelical nature, and the Soul of Man, which are small draughts of the Divine nature, have also these two faculties, according to their weight and measure. For in them the understanding is the organ of Knowledge, the will of Working, and beyond these can they not act.  
FINIS.