Book II.

their vital fpirits, know not how to putrify by the dififolution of the inferior harmony, they fprung up as furviving afrefh. For, from thence it is that every occult property, the compad of their bodies being by foregoing digeftion, (which we call putrifadion) now dilfolved, comes forth free to hand, difpatch- ed, and manifell: for adion.
Therefore when a wound, through the entrance of air, hath admitted of an adverfe quality, from whence the blood forthwith fwells with heat or rage in its lips, and otherwife becomes mattery, it happens, that the blood in the wound juft made, by reafon of the faid foreign quality, doth now enter into the beginning of fome kind of corruption (which blood being alfo then received on the weapon or fplinter thereof, is befmeared with the magnetic ungent) the which entrance of corruption, mediating the ecftatical power lurking poten- tially in the blood, is brought forth into adion ; which power, becaufe it is an exiled returner unto its own body, by reafon of the hidden ecftafy; hence that blood bears an individual refped unto the blood of its whole body. Then indeed the magnetic or attradive faculty is bufied in operating in the un- guent, and through the mediation of the ecftatical power (for fo I call it for want of an etymology) fucks out the hurtful quality from the lips of the wound, and at length, through the mummial, balfamical, and attradive virtue, attained in the unguent, the magnetifm is perfeded.
So thou haft now the pofitive reafon of the natural magnetifm in the un- guent, drawn from natural magic, whereunto the light of truth aflents ; faying, “ where the treafure is there is the heart alfo.”
For if the treafure be in heaven, then the heart, that is, the fpirit of the internal man is in God, who is the paradife, who alone is eternal life.
But if the treafure be fixed or laid up in frail and mortal things, then alfo the heart and fpirit of the external man is in fading things ; neither is there any caufe of bringing in a myftical fenfe, by taking not the fpirit, but the cogita- tion and naked defire, for the heart ; for that would contain a frivolous thing, that wherefoever a man fhould place his treafure in his thought or cogitation, there his cogitation would be.
Alfo truth itfelf doth not interpret the prefent text myftically, and alfo by an example adjoined, Ihews a local and real prefence of the eagles with the dead
carcafs.
Fart I.
MAGNETISM.
*5
carcafs, To alfo that the fpirit of the inward man is locally in the kingdom of God in us, which is God himfelf ;■ and that the heart or fpirit of the animal or outward fenfitive man is locally about its treafure.
What wonder is it, that the aftral fpirits of carnal or animal men fhould, as yet, after their funerals, fhew themfelves as in a bravery, wandering about their buried treafure, whereunto the whole of Necromancy (or art of divination by the calling of fpirits) of the antients hath enflaved itfelf ?
I fay, therefore, that the internal man is an animal or living creature, making ufe of the reafon and will of blood : but, in the mean time, not barely an ani- mal, but moreover the image of God.
Logicians therefore may fee how defectively they define a man from the power of rational difcourfe. But of thefe things more elfewhere.
I will therefore adjoin the magnetifm of eagles to carcafies ; for neither are flying fowls endowed with fuch an acute fmelling, that they can, with a mu- tual confent, go from Italy into Africa unto carcafies.
For neither is an odour, fo largely anduvidely fpread ; for the ample latitude of the interpofed fea hinders it, , and alfo a certain elementary property of con- fuming it; nor is there any ground that thou fhouldefl: think thefe birds do perceive the dead carcafies at fo far a diftance, with there fight, efpecially if thofe birds fhall lie foutliwards behind a. mountain.
But what need is there to enforce the magnetifm of fowls by many argu- ments, fince God himfelf, who is the beginning and end of philofophy, doth exprefsly determine the fame procefs to be of the heart and treafure, with thefe birds and the carcafs, and fo interchangeably between thefe and them ?
For if the eagles were led to their food, the carcafies, with the fame appetite whereby four-footed beafts are Brought on to their paftures, certainly he had faid, in one word, that living creatures flock to their food even as the heart of. man to his treafure ; which would contain a falfehood : for neither doth the heart of man proceed unto its treafure, that he may be filled therewith, as liv- ing creatures do to their meat; and therefore the comparifon of the heart of man and of the eagle lies not in the end for which they, tend or incline to a defire, but in the manner of tendency ; namely that they are allured and carri- ed on by magnetifm, really and locally.
Therefor©
MAGNETISM.