Lumen de Lumine

And here my Peripatetic, thou art quite gone, and with thee thy pura potentia, that fanatic Chaos of the Son of Nichomachus. But I must advise my Chimists to beware of any Common Moysture, for that will never be altered otherwise then to a Vapour. See therefore that thy moysture be well tempered with Earth, otherwise thou hast nothing to dissolve, and nothing to Coagulat. Remember the practice, and Magic of the Almightie God in his Creation, as it is manifested to thee by Moses. In principio (saith he) creavit Deus Coelum & Terram: But the Originall if it be truly, and rationally render’d, speaks thus, In principio Deus miscuit Rarum, & Densum; In the Beginning God mingl’d or temper’d together the Thin and the Thick: for Heaven and Earth in this Text (as we have told you in our Anima Magica) signifie the Virgin Mercury, and the Virgin Sulphur. This I will prove out of the text it self, and that by the vulgar received Translation, which runs thus: In the Beginning God created the Heaven, and the Earth: And the Earth was without forme and voyd, and there was darknesse upon the face of the abysse, and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the Waters. In the first part of this text Moses mentions two created principles, not a perfect world as we shall prove hereafter, and this he doth in these Generall termes, Heaven and Earth.