The method of chemical philosophie and physick. Being a brief introduction to the one, and a true discovery of the other. namely, of diseases, their qualities, causes, symptoms, and certain cures. The like never before extant in English.

CHAP. V. Of the Being of Poison in the Visible Stars.

SEeing that in the visible stars of the Firmament there are found not onely the form of the Wheat, but of Darnel, and not only the Nature and Properties of Gold and Silver, Balmmint and Rose, but of Arsenick, Woofsbane, and Poppy, it follows necessarily, that the Being of Poison is contained in the Being of the stars, though it differ from the being of poison in the inferiour bodies, because it is in the stars spiritually, but in the in∣feriour bodies corporally: for Paracelsus in his book de ente Astr. cap. 9. writes, that there do not more poi∣sons exist in the Earth than do in the stars, when as he says, all the kinds of poisons which the fruits of the infe∣riour Globe of the Earth and Water do shew unto us,

are likewise contained the stars of the Firmament. And furthermore he saith of those exalted stars poisoned with impurities and resolved seeds, that they can pro∣duce all Diseases which these inferiour bodies by the be∣ing of their poison can produce; for the original and cause of all Diseases is the being of poison, and all Di∣seases are generated from poison. Wherefore Physici∣ans perswade themselves that all Diseases as well spiri∣tual as corporal have their original and beginning from the spiritual or corporal being of poison. The being of poison is rightly distinguished for the difference of the superiour and inferiour bodies into the spiritual in regard of the superiour and corporal in regard of the inferiour bodies.

We have said in our Philosophy, that no Element doth bring forth fruits in his own proper place, but in a strange place, and that the fruits of the Firmament were absolved and perfected in the Air; for as the fruits of Sa∣nity flowing from the Firmament are absolved in the Air, so also the stars of the Firmament do lay down the fruits of Diseases and Death in the bosom of the air, that there they may attain the predestinated term and perfection. But seeing that the necessity of the air is so great to all living creatures that they cannot want it for a moment, It comes to pass, that not only brute Animals do attract corrupt and infected air by breathing, but also men; for the aliment of the Microcosm as of the superiour Globe is altogether invisible and spiritual. Hippocrates in his book de flatibus, shews the unresistible necessity of this aliment. The necessity of breathing is so great to all mortal creatures, that though man abstain from all other things, so that he neither eat, nor drink, yet he may live two or three days or moe: but if any man have the pas∣sages stopped by which breath enters into the body, he dies in less than a moment of an hour. Again, men

may cease from other labours, but there is no rest or ceasing from breathing granted to any. Paracelsus in his book de ente Astror. cap. 7. calls the Air a great My∣stery, but yet for some analogy or similitude, for by the air he understands the stars of the air which give life un∣to all things. And it is truly said of Paracelsus in the same Treatise, cap. 7. that all bodies and Elements are preserved by the air; but not by the air alone, but by seeds and stars; for all aliments and nutriments are seeds, but mixt with impurities. Neither is the air a∣lone as far as it is an Element infected with poisonsome properties, but that great Mystery from the reso∣lution of the poisonful tinctures is Transplanted and transmutated, which gives aliment to the vital Balm. So that this aliment being received, and the great My∣stery being Transplanted and transmutated, the animal and vital Balm is also infected, whereupon follows the Transplantation of the body into a calamitous chance. Although this aliment be invisible and want external sig∣natures (by which they make differences of the ali∣ments of the inferiour Globe) as Taste, Solidness, Cras∣ness, Tenuity, Clamminess, Heat, Easie or Hard Dige∣stion; yet it is not destitute of the interiour signatures; for the spirits and resolutions of fruits of the superiour Globe are neither sweet nor sowr, bitter nor sharp, white nor black, and very often admit or receive stinking smells. In this aliment four qualities as the qualities or faculties of some poisons exist and triumph, which neither by taste nor smell, or any manifest qualities shew and manifest their occult qualities. But pernicious re∣solutions are onely deprehended and known from the affects.