Sal, lumen, & spiritus mundi philosophici, or, The dawning of the day discovered by the beams of light shewing the true salt and secret of the philosophers, the first and universal spirit of the world / written originally in French, afterwards turned into Latin by the illustrious doctor, Lodovicus Combachius ... and now transplanted into Albyons Garden by R.T. ...

CHAP. 2. That the World, because it lives, hath a Spirit, a Soul and a Body.

THe Body of the World lies open to our senses, but its Spirit lies hid; and in the Spirit its Soul, which cannot be united to its Body, but by the mediation of its Spirit: for the Body is gross, and the Soul subtil, far removed from all corporal qualities. For the unition then of these two, we must finde some third participating of both Na∣tures, which must be as it were a cor∣poreal Spirit, because the extreams cannot be conjoyned without an inter∣venient Ligament that hath affinity with both. The Heaven we see is high, the Earth low; the one pure, the other corrupt: How then shall we exalt this impure corruption, and conjoyn it with that active purity, without a mean? God

we know is infinitely pure, and clean: Man exreamly impure, and defiled with sins. Now these could never have been conjoyned and reconciled, but by the mediation of Christ Jesus, God-Man, that true attractive Glue of both Na∣tures. In like manner, this Spirit cor∣poreal, or Body spiritual we speak of, is the active Glue of Body and Soul: which Soul sits in the Spirit of the World, as a spark from and of God's infinite Intelligence: for these effective eleva∣tions, renovations, mutations, variations, and multiplications of forms, must ne∣cessarily arise from intelligence, and not from matter which participates of no reason; and therefore cannot cause such formations and specifications. The World then is nourished by this Spirit, and agitated by this Soul, which is infus'd into it by mediation of this Spirit: which Virgil, following divine Plato's Doctrine, expresses elegantly, Lib. 6. Aeneid.

Principio Caelum ac Terras compos{que} liquentes, Lucentem{que} Globum Lunae, Titania{que} Astra; Spiritus intus alit, totam{que} infusa per Artus Mens agitat molem & magno se corpore miscet.

The nourishment of th' earth, mountains, and skars Of th'heaven, of planets, & of glistring stars, We attribute to th' Spirit; but to th' Soul, That these do move & stir without controul.

To which Augurellus also attests in his first Book, saying,

Ast Animae quoniam nil non est corporis expers Mundus at & mundi partes quo{que} corpore constant Spiritus haec inter medius fit, quem ne{que} corpus Aut Animam dicas, sed eum qui solus utro{que} Participans in idem simul haec extrema reducat Hic igitur Maria ac Terras, at{que} Aera & Ignem Vivere{que} augeri{que} at{que} in se cuncta referre Semper Aves, semper Stirpes, Animantia semper Gignere, perpetuam{que} sequi per secula prolem, &c.

But since a Soul is incorporeal, And all the parts o' th' world we meet withal Are bodies; these two cannot be combin'd Without a mean betwixt Body and Mind Which is a Spirit: wherewith the raging seas, Fire, air, & earth; all plants & fruitful trees With animals, are acted; so that they Do generate their like, and live for aye, &c.