Book I. , B enemies,

10
ORATION TO GOD,
enemies, by the blood and righteoufnefs of our blelfed Redeemer, thy Son, Jelus Chrilt ; and through him, and in his name, we befeech thee to illuminate the faculties of our fouls, fo that we may clearly and comprehenfively hear with our ears, and underhand with our hearts ; and remove far from us all hypocrify', deceitful dealing, profanenefs, inconltancy, and levity ; fo that we may, in word and a6t, become thy faithful fervants, and hand firm and unlhaken againft all the attacks of our bodily enemies, and likewife be proof againft all illufions of evil fpirits, with whom we defire no communication or intereft ; but that we may be inltru61:ed in the knowledge of things, natural and celeftial : and as it pleafed thee to bellow on Solomon all wifdom, both human and divine ; in the defire of which knowledge he did fo pleafe thy divine majelty, that in a dream, of one night, thou didlt infpire him with all wifdom and knowledge, which he did wifely prefer before the riches of this life ; fo may our defire and prayer be gracioully accepted by thee ; fo that, by a firm dependence on thy word, we may not be led away by the vain and ridiculous purfuits of worldly pleafures and delights, they not being durable, nor of any account to our immortal happinefs. Grant us, Lord, power and llrength of intelle6! to carry on this work, for the honour and glory of thy holy name, and to the comfort of our neighbour ; and without defign of hurt or detriment to any, we may proceed in our labours, through Jefus Chrilt, our "Redeemer : Amen.
OF NATURAL MAGIC IN GENERAL.
Before we proceed to particulars, it will not be amifs to fpeak of generals ; therefore, as an elucidation, we fhall briefly Ihew what fciences we comprehend under the title of Natural Magic ; and to halten to the point, we lhall regularly proceed from theory to practice ; therefore, Natural Magic undoubtedly comprehends a knowledge of all Nature, which we by no means can arrive at but by fearching deeply into her treafury,
which
0F NATURAL MAGIC IN GENERAL. 1 1
which is inexhauftibje ; we therefore by long- ftudy, labour, and pradlice, have found out many valuable fecrets and experiments, which are either unknown, or are buried in the ig-norant knowledg-e of the prefent age. The v/ife ancients knew that in Nature the greateft fecrets lay hid, and wonderful a6tive powers were dormant, unlefs excited by the vigorous faculty of the mind of man ; but as, in thefe latter days, men give themfelves almoft wholly up to vice and luxury, fo their underftandings have become more and more depraved ; ’till, being fwallowed up in the grofs fenfes, they become totally unfit for divine contemplations and deep fpeculations in Nature •, their intelledlual faculty being drowned in obfcurity and dulnefs, by reafon of their floth, intemper- ance, or fenfual appetites. The followers of Pythagoras enjoined filence, and forbade the eating of the flelh of animals ; the firft, becaufe they were cautious, and aware of the vanity of vain babbling and fruitlefs cavillations : they ftu- died the power of numbers to the higheft extent ; they forbade the eating of fielh not fo much on the fcore of tranfmigration, as to keep the body in a healthful and temperate Hate, free from grofs humours : by thefe means they qualified themfelves for fpiritual matters, and attained unto great and ex- cellent myfteries, and continued in the exercife of charitable arts, and the pra6tice of all moral virtues : yet, feeing they were Heathens, they attained not unto the high and infpired lights of wifdom and knowledge that was bellowed on the Apoftles, and others, after the coming of Chrilt ; but they mortified their lulls, lived temperately, challe, honelt, and virtuous ; which government is fo contrary to the pra6tice of modern Chrillians, that they live as if the blelfed word had come upon the earth to grant them privilege to fin. However, we will leave Pythagoras and his followers, to hallen to our own work y whereof we will firlt explain the foundation of Natural Magic, in as clear and intelligible a manner as the fame can be done.
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THE
FIRST PRINCIPLES of
NATURAL MAGIC.
BOOK THE FIRST.
CHAP. I.
NATURAL MAGIC DEFINED OF MAN HIS CREATION DIVINE IMAGE AND OF THE
SPIRITUAL AND MAGICAL VIRTUE OF THE SOUL.
Natural magic Is, as we have faid, a comprehen- five knowledge of all Nature, by which we fearch out her fecret and occult operations throughout her vaR and fpacious elaboratory ; whereby we come to a knowledge of the component parts, qualities, virtues, and fecrets of mdtals, Hones, plants, and animals ; but feeing, in the regular order of the creation, man was the work of the lixth day, every thing being prepared for his vicegerency here on earth, and that it pleafed the omnipotent God, after he had formed the great world, or macrocofm, and pronounced it good, fo he created man the exprefs image of himfelf ; and in man, likewife, an exa6l model of the great world. We thall defcribe the wonderful properties of man,, in which we may trace in miniature the exa£l refemblance or copy of the univerfe ; by which means we fhall come to the more eafy undemanding of whatever we may have to declare concerning the knowledge of the inferior nature, fuch as animals, plants, metals, and Hones *, for, by our Hrfl declaring the occult qualities and properties that are hid in the little world, it will ferve as a key to the opening of all the treafures and fecrets of the macrocofm, or
great
NATURAL MAGIC.
14 NATURAL MAGIC. Book I.
great world : therefore, we fhall haften to fpeak of the creation of man, and his divine image ; likewife of his fall, in confequence of his difobedience ; by which all the train of evils, plagues, difeafes, and miferies, were entailed upon his pofterity, through the curfe of our Creator, but deprecated by the mediation of our blefled Lord, Chrift.
THE CREATION, DISOBEDIENCE, AND FALL OF MAN.
According to the word of God, whjch we take in all things for our guide, in the lft chapter of Genefis, and the 26th verfe, it is faid — “ God faid, let us make man in our image, after our likenefs ; and let them have dominion over the fifti of the fea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” — Here is the origin and beginning of our frail human nature ; hence every foul was created by the very light itfelf, and Fountain of Life, after his own exprefs image, likewife immortal, in a beautiful and well-formed body, endued with a moft excellent mind, and dominion or unlimited monarchy over all Nature, every thing being fubjefted to his rule, or command ; one creature only being excepted, which was to remain untouched and confecrated, as it were, to the divine mandate : “ Of every tree of the garden thou mayeft freely eat “ But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou fhalt not eat of it ; for in the day that thou eateft of it, thou fhalt furely die.” Gen. ii. ver. 16. Therefore Adam was formed by the finger of God, which is the Holy Spirit ; whofe figure or outward form was beautiful and propor- tionate as an angel 5 in whofe voice (before he finned) every found was the fweetnefs of harmony and mufic : had he remained in the ftate of innocency in which he was formed, the weaknefs of mortal man, in his depraved ftate, would not have been able to bear the virtue and celeftial fhrillnefs of his voice. But when the deceiver found that man, from the infpiration of God, had began to fing fo fhrilly, and to repeat the celeftial harmony of the heavenly country, he counterfeited the engines of craft : feeing his wrath
againft
Chap. I. NATURAL MAGIC. 15
again ft him was in vain, he was much tormented thereby, and began to think how he might entangle him into difobedience of the command of his Creator, whereby he might, as it were, laugh him to fcorn, in derifton of his new crea- ture, man.
Van Helmont, in his Oriatrike, chap. xcii. fpeaking of the entrance of death into human nature, &:c., finely touches the fubje6t of the creation, and man’s difobedience : indeed, his ideas fo perfectly coincide with my own, that I have thought fit here to tranfcribe his philofophy, which fo clearly explains the text of Scripture, with fo much of the light of truth on his fide, that it carries along with it the fureft and moft pofitive convi6tion.
“ Man being effentially created after the image of God, after that, he rafhly prefumed to generate the image of God out of himfelf ; not, indeed, by a certain monfter, but by fomething which was fhadowly like himfelf. With the ravifhment of Eve, . he, indeed, generated not the image God like unto that which God would have inimitable, as being divine ; but in the vital air of the feed he gene^ted difpofitions ; careful at fome time to receive a fenfitive, dif- curfive, and motive foul from the Father of Light, yet mortal , and to perijh ; yet, neverthelefs, he ordinarily infpires, and of his own goodnefs, the fubftantial fpirit of a mind Ihewing forth his own image : fo that man, in this refpeft, endeavoured to generate his own image ; not after the manner of brute beafts, but by the copulation of feeds, which at length fhould obtain, by requeft, a foulified light from the Creator ; and the which they call a fenfitive foul.
“ For, from thence hath proceeded another generation, conceived after a beaft- like manner, mortal, and uncapable of eternal life, after the manner of beafts ; and bringing forth with pains, and fubjeft to difeafes, and death ; and fo much the more forrowful, and full of mifery, by how much that very propagation in our firft parents dared to invert the intent of God.
“ Therefore the .unutterable goodnefs forewarned them that they fhould not tafte of that tree ; and otherwife he foretold, that the fame day they fhould die the death, and fhould feel all the root of calamities which accom- panies death.”
Defervedly, therefore, hath the Lord deprived both our parents of the benefit of immortality 5 namely, death fucceeded from a conjugal and brutal copulation :
neither
NATURAL MAGIC.
16 NATURAL MAGIC. Book I.
neither remained the fpirit of the Lord with man, after that he began to be flefti.
Further; becaufe that defilement of Eve (hall thenceforth be continued in the propagation of pofterity, even unto the end of the world, from hence the fin of the defpifed fatherly admonition, and natural deviation from the right way, is now among other fins for an impurity, from an inverted, carnal, and well nigh brutifh generation, and is truly called original fin ; that is, man being fowed in the pleafure of the concupifcence of the flefh, fliall therefore always reap a neceffary death in the flefh of fin ; but, the knowledge of good and evil, which God placed in the diffuaded apple, did contain in it a feminary virtue of the concupifcence of the flefh, that is, an occult forbidden conjundfion, diametrically oppofite to the flate of innocence, which hate was not a hate of fhipidity ; becaufe He was he unto whom, before the cor- ruption of Nature, the effences of all living creatures whatfoever were made known, according to which they were to be namecTfrom their pro- perty, and at their firft fight to be effentially diftinguifhed : man, therefore, though eating of the apple, attained a knowledge that he had loft his radical innocency ; for, neither before the eating of the apple was he fo dull or ftupi- fied that he knew not, or did not perceive himfelf naked ; but, with the effeft of fhame and b utal concupifcence, he then firft declared he was naked.
For that the knowledge of good and evil ftgnifies nothing but the concu- pifcence of the flefh, the Apoftle teftifies ; calling it the law, and defire of fin. For it pleafed the Lord of heaven and earth to infert in the apple an incentive to concupifcence ; by which he was able fafely to abftain, by not eating of the apple, therefore diffuaded therefrom ; for otherwife he had never at any • time been tempted, or ftirred up by his genital members. Therefore the apple being eaten, man, from an occult and natural property ingrafted in the fruit, conceived a Juft, and fin became luxurious to him, and from thence was made an animal feed, which, haftening into the previous or foregoing difpoii- tions of a fenfitive foul , and undergoing the law of other caufes , reflected itfelf into the vital fpirit of Adam ; and, like an ignis-fatuus, prefently receiv- ing
Chap. I. NATURAL MAGIC. 17
ing an archeus or ruling fpirit, and animal idea, it prefently conceived a power of propagating an animal and mortal feed, ending into life.
Furthermore, the facred text hath in many places compelled me unto a per- fe6t pofition, it making Eve an helper like unto Adam ; not, indeed, that the fhould fupply the name> and room of a -wife , even as Ihe is called, ftraightway after fin, for {he was a virgin in the intent of the Creator, and afterwards filled with mifery : but not, as long as the ftate of purity prefided over inno- cency, did the will of man overcome her *, for the tranflation of man into Paradife did forefhew another condition of living than that of a beafl ; and therefore the eating of the apple doth by a moft chafte name cover the concu- pifcence of the JleJh , while it contains the “ knowledge of good and evil” in this name, and calls the ignorance thereof the ftate of innocence : for, furely, the attainment of that aforefaid knowledge did nourifh a moft hurtful death ; and an irrevocable deprivation of eternal life : for if man had not tailed the apple, he had lived void of concupifcence, and offsprings had appeared out of Eve (a virgin) from the Holy Spirit. ~
But the apple being eaten, “ prefently their eyes were opened,” and Adam began lultfully to covet copulation with the naked virgin, and defiled her, the which God had appointed for a naked help unto him. But man prevented the intention of God by a Itrange generation in the flefh of fin whereupon there followed the corruption of the former nature, or the flefh of fin, accompanied by concupifcence : neither doth the text infinuate any other mark of “ the know* ledge of good and evilf than that they “ knew themf elves to be naked f or, fpeaking properly, of their virginity being corrupted, polluted with beftial luft, and defiled. Indeed, their whole “ knowledge of good and evil” is in- cluded in their fhame within their privy parts alone ; and therefore in the 8th of Leviticus, and many places elfe in the Holy Scriptures, the privy parts themfelves are called by no other etymology than that of fhame 5 for from the copulation of the flefh their eyes were opened, becaufe they then knew that the good being loft, had brought on them a degenerate nature, fhame- fulnefs, an inteftine and inevitable obligation of death ; fent alfo into their pofterity.