In the Pythagoricall Synod, which consisted of Threescore and Ten Philosophers, all Masters of the Art, it is thus written. Ignis Spissum in Aera cadit; Aeris vero Spissum, & quod ex igne Spisso congregatur, in Aquam incidit; Aquae quoque Spissum, & quod ex Ignis & Aeris Spisso coadunatur, in Terrâ quiescit. Ita istorum Trium spissitudo in Terrâ quiescit, inque eâ conjuncta sunt. Ipsa ergo Terra omnibus caeteris Elementis spissior est, uti Palam apparet, & videre est. That is, The Thicknesse, or Sperm of the Fire falls into the Ayre; The Thickness or Spermatic part of the Ayre. and in it the Sperm of the Fire, falls into the Water; The Thickness or spermatic Substance of the Water, and in it the two Spermes of Fire and

Ayre fall into the Earth, and there they rest, and are conjoyned. Therefore the Earth it self is thicker than the other Elements as it openly appears, and to the eye is manifest. Remember now what I have told thee formerly concerning the Earth; what a generall Hospitall it is, how it receives all things, not onely Beasts and Vegetables, but proud and glorious Man: when Death hath ruin'd him, his courser parts stay here, and know no other Home. This Earth to Earth, is just the Doctrine of the Magi; Metalls (say they) and all things may bee reduc'd into that whereof they were made. They speak the very Truth, it is God's own Principle, and he first taught it Adam Dust thou art, and to Dust shalt thou return. But lest any man should be Deceived by us, I think it just to informe you, there are two reductions; One is Violent and Destructive, reducing Bodies to their Extremes, and properly it is Death, or the Calcination of the common Chimist. The other is Vital, and Generative, resolving Bodies into their Sperm, or middle Substance out of which Nature made them, for Nature makes not Bodies immediatly of the Elements but of a Sperm, which shee drawes out of the Elements. I shall explain my self to you by Example. An Egg is the Sperm, or middle Substance out of which a Chick is ingendred,

Gen. c. 3. ver. 19.

and the moysture of it is viscous, and slimie, a water and no water, for such a Sperme ought to bee. Suppose Dr. Coale, I mean some Broyler, had a minde to generat something out of this Egg: Questionlesse he would first distill it, and that with a fire able to roast the Hen that layd it, then would hee calcine the Caput mortuum, and finally produce his Nothing. Here you are to observe that Bodies are nothing els but Sperm coagulated, and he that Destroyes the Body, by consequence destroyes the Sperm. Now to reduce Bodies into Elements of earth and water, as wee have instanc'd in the Egg, is to reduce them into Extremes beyond their Sperm, for Elements are not the Sperm, but the Sperm is a Compound made of the Elements, and containing in it self all that is requisit to the frame of the Body. Wherefore be well advis'd before you distill, and Quarter any particular Bodies, for having once separated their Elements, you may never generat, unless you can make a Sperm of those Elements, but that is impossible for man to doe, it is the Power of God, and Nature. Labour then you that would be accounted wise, to find out our Mercurie, so shall you reduce things to their mean spermaticall Chaos, but avoyd the broyling Destruction. This Doctrine will spare you the vain Task of Distillations, if you will but remember this

Truth: That Spermes are not made by Separation but by Composition of Elements, and to bring a Body into Sperm, is not to distill it, but to reduce the whole into one thick water, keeping all the parts thereof in their first naturall union. But that I may return at last to my former Citation of the Synod All those Influences of the Elements being united in one Mass, make our Sperm or our Earth, which is Earth and no Earth. Take it if thou doest know it, and divide the Essences thereof, not by violence, but by naturall putrefaction, such as may occasion a genuine Dissolution of the Compound. Here thou shalt find a miraculous white Water, an Influence of the Moone, which is the Mother of our Chaos; It rules in two Elements Earth and Water. After this appears the Sperm or influx of the Sun, which is the father of it. It is a quick, Coelestiall fire, incorporated in a thin, oleous, Aereall Moysture. It is incombustible, for it is fire it self, and feeds upon fire, and the longer it stayes in the fire, the more glorious it growes. These are the two mineral Spermes Masculine. and Foeminine: if thou doest place them both on their Chrystalline Basis, thou hast the Philosopher's flying Fire-drake, which at the first sight of the Sun breathes such a poyson, that nothing can stand before him. I know not what to tell thee more, unlesse in the Vogue

of some Authors, I should give thee a flegmatic Description of the whole process and that I can dispatch in two words. It is nothing els but a continual Coction the Volatil Essences ascending and descending till at last they are fix'd, according to that excellent Prosopopaeia of the stone.

Non ego continuò morior, dum spiritus exit, Nam redit assiduè, quamvis & soepe recedat, Et mihi nunc magna est Animae, nunc nulla facultas.

Plus ego sustinui, quam Corpus debuit unum; Tres Animas habui, quas omnes intus habebam, Discessere duae, sed Tertia poenè secuta est.

I am not dead, although my spirit's gon, For it returns, and is both off, and on, Now I have life enough, now I have non.

I suffer'd more, than one could justly doe; Three soules I had, and all my own but Two Are fled: the Third had almost left mee too.

Ὃ γέγραφα, γέγραφα. I have written, what I have written- And now give me leave to look about mee. Is there no Powder-Plott, or practice? What's become of Aristotel, and Galen? Where is the Scribe and Pharisee, the Disputers of this world? If they suffer all this,

Joh. 19. 22