To the Ingenuous and modest Reader, I have something else to replie, and I believe it will sufficiently excuse mee. Raimund Lullie, a man who had been in the Center of Nature, and without all Question understood a great part of the Divine Will, gives me a most terrible Charge not to prostitute these Principles. Juro Tibi (saith hee) supra animam meam, [Marginal note: Theor. cap. 6.] quod si ea reveles, damnatus es. Nam a Deo omne procedit bonum, & ei soli debetur. Quare servabis, & Secretum tenebis illud, quod ei debetur revelandum, & affirmabis quam per rectam proprietatem subtrahis, quae eius honori debentur. Quia si revelares brevibus verbis illud quod longinquo tempore formavit, in die magni Judicii condemnareris, tanquam qui perpetrator existens contra Majestatem dei laesam, nec tibi remitteretur Casus Laesae Majestatis. Talium enim Revelatio ad Deum, & non ad Alterum spectat. That is; I swear to thee upon my soule, that thou art damn'd, if thou shouldest reveale these Things. For every good thing proceeds from God and to him onely it is due. Wherefore thou shalt reserve, and keep that Secret, which God onely should reveale,

and thou shalt affirme thou doest justly keep back those things, whose Revelation belongs to his honour. For if thou shouldest reveale that in a few words, which God hath been forming a long time, thou shouldest be condemned in the great day of Judgement, as a Traytor to the Majestie of God, neither should thy Treason bee forgiven Thee. For the Revelation of such Things belong to God, and not to Man. So sayd the wise Raymond.

Now for my part I have alwayes honoured the Magicians, their Philosophie being both rational, and Majestic, dwelling not upon Notions, but Effects, and those such as confirme both the Wisdome and the power of the Creator. When I was a meer Errant in their Books, and understood them not, I did believe them. Time rewarded my Faith, and payd my Credulitie with Knowledge. In the Interim I suffer'd many bitter Calumnies, and this by some envious Adversaries, who had nothing of a Scholar, but their Gownes, and a little Language for Vent to their Non-sense. But these could not remove mee, with a Spartan patience I concocted my Injuries, and found at last that Nature was Magicall, not Peripateticall. I have no Reason then to distrust them in Spirituall Things, whom I have found so orthodox and faithfull even in Naturall

Mysteries. I doe believe Raymund, and in order to that Faith, I provide for my Salvation. I will not discover, that I may not be condemn'd. But if this will not satisfie Thee, who ever thou art let me whisper thee a word in the ear, and afterwards doe thou proclaime it on the housetopps. Doest thou know from whom, and how that Sperme or Seed which men for want of a better name call the first matter, proceeded? A certain Illuminate and in his daies a member of that Societie, which some painted Buzzards use to laugh at, writes thus; Deus optimus Maximus ex Nihilo aliquid creavit, illud Aliquid vero fiebat unum aliquod, in Quo Omnia. Creaturae Coelestes & Terrestres. God (sayth hee) incomparably good and Great, out of nothing created something, but that Something was made one Thing, in which all Things were contained Creatures both Coelestiall and Terrestriall. This first Something was a certain kind of Cloud, or Darknesse, which was condensed into water. and this water is that One Thing in which all Things were contained. But my Question is, what was that Nothing, out of which the first Cloudy Chaos, or Something was made? Canst thou tell mee? It may bee thou doest think it is a meere Nothing. It is indeed Nihil quò ad Nos. Nothing that wee perfectly know. It is Nothing as Dionysius saith,

See Jacob Behmen in his most excellent and profound Discourse of the Three Principles.

Nihil eorum quae sunt, & Nihil eorum quae non sunt. It is nothing that was created, or of those things that are: and nothing of that which thou doest call nothing that is of those Things that are not, in thy empty destructive sense. But by your leave, it is the True Thing, of whom wee can affirme nothing: it is that transcendent Essence, whose Theologie is Negative, and was known to the Primitive Church, but is lost in These our Dayes. This is that Nothing of Cornelius Agrippa, and in this nothing, when hee was tyr'd with humane Things, I mean humane Sciences, hee did at last rest: Nihil Scire, (sayd hee) est vita felicissima, to know Nothing is the happiest Life; true indeed, for to know this Nothing, is Life Eternall. Learne then to understand that Magicall Axiom, Ex Invisibili factum est Visibile, for all Visibles came out of the Invisible God, for hee is the Well-spring from whence all things flow, and the Creation was a certain stupendious Metaphysicall Birth, or Deliverie. This fine Virginwater, or Chaos, was the second Nature from God himself, and if I may say so, the Child of the Blessed Trinitie. What Doctor then is hee, whose hands are fit to touch that Subject, upon which God himself when he workes, layes his own Spirit, for verely so we reade, The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water? And

See Dyonys. Ar. Th. Neg.

Gen. c. 1.

can it bee expected then, that I should prostitute this Mysterie to all hands whatsoever, that I should proclame it, and crie it, as they cry Oysters? Verily these Considerations, with some other which I will not for all the world put to Papyr have made mee almost displease my dearest friends, to whom notwithstanding I owe a better Satisfaction. Had it been my fortune barely to know this Matter, as most men doe, I had perhaps been lesse carefull of it, but I have been instructed in all the Secret Circumstances thereof, which few upon Earth understand. I speak not for any Ostentation, but I speak a Truth which my Conscience knowes very well. Let me then Reader, request thy Patience, for I shall leave this Discoverie to God, who if it bee his blessed will can call unto Thee, and say: Here it is, and thus I worke it. I had not spoken all this in my own Defence, had I not been assaulted (as it were) in this very point, and told to my face I was bound to discover all that I knew, for this Age looks for Dreames and Revelations, as the Traine to their invisible Righteousnesse. I have now sufficiently discours'd of the Matter, and if it be not thy fortune to find it by what is here written, yet thou canst not bee deceived by what I have sayd, for I have purposely a voyded all those Termes, which might make thee mistake

any Common Salts, Stones, or Minerals for it. I advise thee withall to beware of all Vegetables, and Animals: avoyd them, and every part of them whatsoever. I speak this because some ignorant, Sluttish Broylers, are of Opinion, that mans Bloud is the True Subject. But Alas! is mans Bloud in the Bowels of the Earth, that Metals should bee generated out of it? or was the world, and all that is therein, made of man's Bloud, as of their first Matter? Surely no such Thing. The first Matter was existent before Man, and all other Creatures whatsoever, for shee is the Mother of them all; They were made of the first Matter, and not the first Matter of them. Take heed then, Let not any man deceive thee. It is totally impossible to reduce any particular to the first Matter, or to a Sperm, without our Mercurie, and being so reduc'd, it is not Universall, but the Particular Sperm of its own Species, and works not any Effects but what are agreeable to the Nature of that Species, for God hath seal'd it with a particular Idea.

Let them alone then who practise upon man's bloud in their Chemicall stoves, and Athanors, or as Sendivow hath it, in Fornaculis mirabilibus; they will deplore their Error at last, and sit without Sackcloth, in the Ashes of their Compositions.