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That vain and deceitfull hope is a great cause why men are se∣duced by this alluring art, and that their labours therein are bootlesse, &c.
HItherto somewhat at large I have detected the knavery of the art Al∣chymisticall, partly by reasons, and partly by examples: so that the thing it selfe may no lesse appear to the judiciall eye of the considerers,
than the bones and sinewes of a body anatomized, to the corporall eye of the beholders. Now it shall not be amisse nor impertinent, to treat somewhat of the nature of that vain and fruitlesse hope, which induceth and draweth men forward as it were with chords, not only to the admi∣ration, but also to the approbation of the same: in such sort that some are compelled rufully to sing (as one in old time did,* 1.1 whe∣ther in token of good or ill luck, I do not now well remember) Spes •• fortuna valete; Hope and good hap adieu.
No marvell then though Alchymistry allure men so sweetly, and in∣tangle them in snares of folly; sith the baits which it useth is the hope of gold, the hunger whereof is by the poet termed Sacra, which some doe English, Holy; not understanding that it is rather to be interpreted, * 1.2 Cursed or detestable, by the figure Acy••on, when a word of an unpro∣per signification is cast in a clause as it were a cloud: or by the figure Antiphrasis, when a word importeth a contrary meaning to that which it commonly hath. For what reason can there be, that the hunger of gold should be counted holy, the same having (as depending upon it) so many milions of mischiefs and miseries: as treasons, thefts, adul∣teries, manslaughters, trucebreakings, perjuries, cousenages, and a great troope of other enormities, which were here too long to rehearse. And if the nature of every action be determinable by the end thereof,* 1.3 then cannot this hunger be holy, but rather accursed, which pulleth after it as it were with iron chains such a band of outrages and enor∣mities, as of all their labour, charge, care, and cost, &c. they have no∣thing else left them in lien of lucre, but only some few burned bricks of a ruinous furnace, a peck or two of ashes, and such light stuffe, which they are forced peradventure in fine to sell when beggery hath arrested and laid his mace on their shoulders. As for all their gold, it is resolved In primam materiam, or rather In levem quendam fumulum, into a light smoke or fumigation of vapors, than the which nothing is more light, no∣thing lesse substantiall, spirits only excepted, out of whose nature and num∣ber these are not to be exempted.
Of vain hope.
I. Col. in comment. upon Deut. serm. 127. pa. 781. col. 1. number. 40.
A maxime.