Section I, Book 3, chapter 6: The Mosaicall principles: darkness, light and the waters

CHAP. VI. How first the two essentiall, but opposite, active properties, and afterward so many passive natures, did spring and issue from the foresaid principles, by the vertue whereof, all mutations and alterations were, and are effected in this sublunary world.

I Will in this place relate unto you the births and beginnings, first, of the two opposite active natures, or essentiall vertues, which proceed from the two radicall or main principles aforesaid; and then I will expresse unto you the conditions of those two passive ones, which are derived from the effects of those two mutuall actions. You must know therefore, that as the potentiall or dark principle, is contrary and opposite in his essentiall property, unto the actuall emanation of light beginning, so also have each of them manifested, or brought forth into this world, two offsprings, or essentiall properties, which are oppugnant in condition, and flat adversaries in their nature unto one another; and these two active vertues are Cold and Heat: Of the manner of production, and the severall conditions of each, I purpose to speak in this present Chapter; and first touching the Cold.

It is evident by that which is already said, and shall be more amply exp[…]essed in the first Book of my sympatheticall History, that darknesse is the immediate effect of the divine Nolunty, or latent Divinity, and consequently of Gods privative property, or the divine puissance, and by consequence it is the mother of privation, death, vacuity, inanity, deformation, and so forth. For the property of the dark Nothing, or deformed abysse, is naturally to rest, and not to act or operate; and the reason is, because that all its appetite is to be conversant in, and about the center, beyond the which there is no motion or action, and not to dilate it self towards the circumference, as the Spirit of light, or God in his volunty, or patent nature, is accustomed to do. For this reason, the dark principle doth challenge unto it self, by a naturall instinct, rest and quietness; and this property begetteth or produceth one essentiall vertue of its own condition, namely, Cold, the which, as it is elected for a champion to resist the assaults of her opposite, namely, of Heat, whose companions are motion or action, (for the restless antagonist and provoker of Cold is Heat); So unless it be roused or stirred up by the assaults of Heat, it moveth not, but seemeth to wait upon its drousie mother, Darkness and privation, whose children are fixation and rest, which sleep in, and cleave fast unto, the center, and therefore are unwilling to look forth towards the circumferen[…]e. And in verity, cold is an essentiall act, p[…]oceeding from, and attending on the divine puissance, which in this property doth contract its beams from the circumference into its self, according unto that of the Philosopher Hermes, Monas genera[…] monadem & in se reflexit ardorem, One begetteth one, and reflected his beam or heat into it s[…]lf; that is to say, It would not shine forth, but retained its activity centrally in it self, and so did seem to rest in it self; which was all one with that of the Cabalist Bahir, Sapeut[…]acum esset in abysso tenebrarum retracta, immanens ociosaque & ad nihil respiciens [non-Latin script], i. e. Nihil, dicitur; in quo statu Aleph tenebrosum dictitatur: When the divine sapience was retracted in the abysse of darknesse, resting still and quiet, and respecting nothing, it was esteemed as nothing, and in that e[…]tate it was called dark Aleph. In this contracted, or rather sequestred or private estate therefore of the divine unity, it operateth according unto this its negative p[…]operty or condition, by his essentiall agent Cold, which is proved therefore not to be an accident, as the vain doctrine of the Peripateticks would perswade us, being it is apparent unto each wise-man, that no accidentall qualities are in or can be from God, being that the divine Nature is meerly a simple, essentiall, and formall purity, existing in himself, and of himself, and therefore he being but one essence, is able to produce out of himself what essentiall property he pleaseth. And for this reason, the divine wisdom is said to be, spiritus unicus multiplex, one simple spirit in essence, but manifold in respect of his essentiall properties. Now that this essentiall property, or nature of Cold, is the formall instrument, or instrumentall vertue, whereby God doth operate in his hidden and potentiall estate, for the resistance of heat, and action or motion, and for the deformity and destroying of that, which he in his patent nature did effect by his Heat or active property, it is made evident by effect; for what the spirit of wisdom in its patent nature did operate, by its hot spirit or blast from the south or easterly winde, (namely, in subtiliating and ra[…]ifying of the waters into thin aire, making that which was gross, subtle; and making that which was opake and dark, diaphan and invisible) the self-same spirit again enduing his latent and cold property, doth deform and undo. For in blowing or breathing from the North, the same thin and ratified aire is made thick, dense, and visible, which was through ra[…]ifaction made invisible, and that which by dissipating of parts was made transparent light and diaphan, is now by the Northern properties contractive vertue, reduced into an opake or dark substance, and no way perspicuous. That which was active, movable, and lively, by an addition of heat, is now become stupid, still, and deadly, by the invasion of cold. That which was light, and of no sensible weight, is framed into an heavy and ponderous body or consistence, as we see, when the aire by the northern blast is turned into snow, hail, ice, frost, &c. Now that it is but one and the same spirit in essence, which bloweth from the four winds, the Prophet Ezekiel doth testifie, when he said, Veni spiritus à quatuor veniis & insuffla interfectos istos; Come, O Spirit, from the four winds, and breathe upon these slain persons, &c. Whereby he argueth, that it is but one spirit, though it endueth at his pleasure a four-fold property. And now to confirm all this which is said to be true, do but mark the words of the royall Psalmist, Jehovah emittit nives sicut lanam, pruinam sicut cineres dispergit, de[…]icit gelu tanquam frusta; coram frigore ejus quis con[…]istat? Emittens verbum liquefacit ista, simul ac efflat ventum suum, effluunt aquae. God sendeth forth the snow as wooll, and scattereth the frost like ashes, casteth out the ice like as gobbits; who is able to withstand his cold? He sending forth his word liquefieth all these northern effects. So soon as he bloweth or breatheth forth his wind, the waters do flow again; that is, the snow, frost, and ice do melt, and are turned into water. Out of which words we may observe many notable things, namely, first, that God in his hidden or latent property, doth by his essentiall action of cold, contract unto the center those things, which were before dilated towards the circumference. Secondly, that the property of cold is attributed or ascribed unto God, in his northern action, and therefore it is said, Who is able to resist his cold? For which reason it is evident, that it is an essentiall vertue in the divine puissance. Thirdly, That it must be the act of unity in his dark, hidden, and privative property, both because it darkeneth things that are diaphan, transparent, and light; and then because it depriveth of life and motion, that which did act, move, and live, through essentiall heat. And lastly, because it is an utter enemy unto the action of heat, which at tendeth on the revealed, emanating, and vivifying divinity. Fourthly, that the effects of cold are undone by the act of the revealed nature of God, which is the word; for the Text saith, He sendeth out his word, and resolveth or melteth all these, namely, the snow frost, and ice. Fifthly, that all this is effected by one and the same spirit in essence, but of divers and opposite conditions, to perform the will of the Father which sendeth it forth. Again, that the cold property of the winde, is the essentiall depriving vertue, or stupifying and contracting act of God, it appeareth by this of Job. Deus fortis edit glac[…]em flatu suo, flante Deo concrescit gelu: The strong God bringeth forth the ice by his breath; God blowing, the ice is ingendered. I conclude therefore, that cold is the essentiall act of the divine puissance, or eternall sapience, shrowding it self in its mantle of darkness, and therefore doth manifest the divine volunty in that estate of his, by the effects, namely, in that it draweth from the circumference unto the center, and therefore is the occasion of congregating of things, as well hetero-as homo-geniall, and by consequence, the onely essentiall agent or efficient cause of inspissation, contraction, constriction, fixation, immobility, ponderosity, rest, obteneration or darkness, of mortification, privation, stupefaction, and such like.

In the contrary divine property, namely, in this spirit's patent, manifest, and positive nature, or, as he is termed, light Aleph, wherein he moveth or sendeth out his emanation from the center towards the circumference, and revealing himself upon the dark face of the Abysse, maketh the invisible non Ens or potentiall Nihil, to appeare in Act, being first animated by his bright presence in the form of waters. He is said by the Wiseman to be omnibus mobilibus mobilior, ubique penetrans seu attingens propter munditiam ejus: The most agile and movable of all movable things, piercing through all things, by reason of his purity. So that as the other privative or Northern property, did produce rest and vacancy from operation, by attraction or contraction from the circumference unto the center; so in this his positive or Southern and Orient property, by dilating himself, or sending out his active beam, brightness or emanation, from the center towards the circumference, he doth beget and procreate motion, being accompanied by the essentiall Act of Heat or calidity, which operateth continually upon the effects of cold, in resisting, dissolving, and destroying of them. So that this formall Champion of Light, namely Heat, warreth perpetually against the cold gardian of Darknesse: For the one can have no dominion in the Aire, untill the other by little and little be exiled. And therefore as the Light principle, with all his branches, is said to be the Father of posi[…]ion, act, information, plenitude, motion, life, health, and Heat: So also doth Heat operate according unto the nature of his restless and ever operating Father, which is Light, to destroy the effects of darkness and cold, as we see in the nature of the hot winds, namely that of the South, and East or Orient: For as the Northern cold wind doth congregate, contract, harden, thicken or condense, make ponderous, fix, immovable and opake, the aire; changing it by inspissation into the nature of more ponderous Elements: So contrariwise, the said hot winds or spirits, do dissipate, dilate, mollify, rarify, and make thin and light, volatil, movable, and transparent, what the cold winds did so change and alter, and all this is effected by the Act spagerick or separative Act of God's Spirit or Word. And therefore the Prophet said in the Text, mentioned before: Emittens verbum suum liquefacit ista, simul ac effla[…] ventum suum effluunt aquae: God sending forth his Word, that is, causing his bright vertue to shine forth, he did undo or melt the Snow, Frost, and Ice, which God in his hidden or contractive property had caused, and that under the form of an Angelicall wind: And therefore it is said, So soon as he bloweth forth his breath or wind, the waters flow: that is to say, the Snow is melted, and of a fix and opake substance, becometh movable, lively, fluent and diaphan or transparent. So also the heat of the Easterly wind destroyeth and dissipateth the watery effects of the Westerly wind, and therefore the Prophet saith, Postquam veniente Euro, vento IEHOVAE è deserto, exaruerit scaturigo ejus & siccatus fuerit fons ejus: Afterwards by the Easterly wind of the Lord, coming from the desert, his spring withered, and his Fountain was dried up. As if he had said, the water was changed by the heat of that wind into Aire by rarefaction or subtiliation. Thus have you understood how these two opposit Vertues, namely Cold and Heat do spring from one and the same Spirit in radicall essence, by which it operateth actually and essentially by a double property: Forasmuch as they produce in the Catholick Element of the sublunary world, opposite effects, to effect the will of the Creator in the Aire, and upon the Earth and Seas. Now I will speak a word or two of the Procreation or Generation of such passive Natures, as are brought forth by the mutuall action and opposition of the two foresaid essentiall Vertues, which do spring and have their root or beginning, either in the Divine Nature's Nolunty and privative existence, or Volunty and positive emanation.

These passive qualities do essentially depend upon the former, and do no otherwise belong unto them, then the female or passive do unto the male or active. And first I will tell you my mind touching the birth of Humidity, and afterward I will come to speak of Siccity. We must imagine, that when there was no formall Light to inact the deformed Abysse or Chaos, and consequently no Heat to act and make a division of Light from Darkness; then all the dark Chaos was inclining unto drouth and wet, congealed with cold: For cold hath an infinite power and dominion, where Heat is absent, as we see about the Northen Pole, all the waters are frozen into a dry and cold clod or heap, by reason of the absence of the Sun's heat. In like manner where the Sun, or burning Easterly winde, doth send forth directly their spiracles of Heat, there Cold is banished, and the Earth is turned into a dry, thirsty, and spongy masse. Even so and after the like pattern, are those; or rather these after those patterns: For the Chaos was a confused, a cold and a dry heap, untill the Light did appear, and began to operate. Also the Light of it self, as it was considered without any action upon the passive masse, was of a fiery condition, that is to say, heat and drouth did only appear in it: it followeth therefore; that, as cold in effect is nothing else but the act of the divine puissance made potent and evident by the absence of Heat: So also is drouth or dryness nothing else but an apparent passive nature, evermore accompanying the two foresaid active powers in their absolute intention, where moysture is totally absent. Now moysture is as it were a mongrell, begotten between the two opposite actives, which is proved thus. The North wind by his dominion turneth the Aire into Snow, Hail, Ice or Frost, that is, into a cold and dry Substance. But when the Southerly or Easterly wind, doth begin to have dominion, then their blasts do penetrate, by little and little, the said dry masses or substances, and undoeth them, and coverteth them into a moist or humid nature, according unto the tenor of those forementioned words of David: So soon (saith he) as he bloweth forth his wind, the waters flow. So soon as he sendeth forth his Word, they are liquefied. So that moisture is nothing else but a mixtion of heat and cold, in one solid Substance, which is fluxible in potentia, and then by little and little doth the cold and drouth depart, and become faint, according as the power of the wind is more or less vigorous in Heat. For thus much we must observe, that as cold doth make immobil and fix; So it is an evident signe, that the Southern or Eastern Heat hath taken possession of the Mass, when by their action it beginneth to moysten, to revive and move again: forasmuch as nothing doth effect that function but Heat. In the very same manner also, the increated and all-creating Spirit of Light, moving upon the face of the dark abysse, did operate in it, and made the congealed Mass to relent, and then it was called by Moses, waters; and by Hermes, humida natura, or the humid nature. And so they continue unto this day, being altered from one nature unto another, according unto the will of God, which he effecteth by his Ministers, the Angelicall winds, causing the Spirituall waters to change, and wheel about from one nature into another. And we must observe in these changes, that even the visible waters, were first made and derived from the invisible waters, according unto St. Paul's doctrine before mentioned: For Heaven was before the Sea and Earth, which were as it were the feces, dregs, or grosser part of the catholick Sublunary Element.

An ocular Demonstration, confirming the Divine properties or Vertues above-mentioned.

Before we proceed unto our ocular demonstration, which shall be made in and by our Experimentall instrument, we must consider in the first place, that the Catholick Aire or Sublunary Heaven, is the subtiler and more spiritual portion of those waters, which are under the Firmament, of which division Moses maketh mention, and therefore every particular thereof doth correspond unto the whole, and consequently the aire included in the glass of the Instrument, is of the same nature, as is that of the whole Catholick Aire; and therefore by reason of their continuity, as the excluded whole fareth, so also doth the included part. Again, as the Spirit which walked upon the waters did animate, vivify, inform, and dilate them giving them motion: So also by his absence, or by hiding its act or contracting its emanating beames into it self, the waters are also contracted, condensed and darkned, as it appeareth by the Northern wind's property, which proceedeth from the privative or contractive action of this Spirit. But as the waters do by their existence fill the vaulted cavity of the world: So also doth the all-informing Spirit fill every corner of them, insomuch as being it operateth all in all, but in a diversity of property, (and therefore it is termed multiformis Sapientia); so sometimes it operateth in its privative property in these lower waters, as is already told you, namely when it bloweth from the North and West, and sometimes in his positive nature; as when it breatheth from the South or East. In the first, by his cold action he contracteth from the circumference unto the center, as is said; by the last, namely by his hot property, he dilateth from the center to the circumference. Seing then that it is water, that is the Catholick passive, out of the which, as being the common Subject of all things, the shape of the whole world, and every thing therein, was and is carved out and fashioned, as St. Peter telleth us and that the eternall creating and all-inacting Spirit of the Lord, is the universall acto[…], which moveth all in all, in the waters, as Moses doth intimate unto us, and that in and by an infinity of Organs, as Angels, Sun, Moon, Starrs, Winds, fire, &c. as in many places of Scripture we find it, it must needs follow, that he is the agent, as well in the contraction and dilatation generally, without the Glasse, as particularly within the Glasse. Wherefore as the Sun, the hot winds, the fire, or naturall heat of mans body, have their dilative property from his emanating and inacting vertue, and do alter by it the cold aire, the winds, and water from his privative disposition: So it followeth, that as well the dilatation of the aire in the Glasse, as contraction, is the immediate act of this Spirit's positive or privative property; for when this Spirit bloweth from the North or West, the aire is contracted more or lesse into a narrower room within the Glasse, and that is proved thus, namely, because the water is drawn up higher into the neck of the Glasse, lest a corporall vacuity should be admitted in nature. And again, it is most apparent, that the aire in the Glasse is by so much the more contracted, by how much the Northern cold hath dominion in the outward aire, because it is gathered into a more strait place o[…] passage, then it was before the water was elevated up. On the other side, if the hot winds, or Summer Sun, do inflame the externall aire, then the included aire will also dilate it self, and in its dilation require a larger space. That the aire is so dilated by heat, it is plainly demonstrated, in that the water is struck down by so many degrees lower than it was. Again, if one put his hand on the top of the ball of the Glasse, the water will sinke, for the aire will forthwith be dilated. Now that the spirit of life, which giveth this heat unto Man or Beast, is from this eternall Spirit, which (as the Apostle saith) doth vivifie all things, Scriptures do in many places, above and hereafter mentioned, confirm. Again, the Prophet calleth this one Spirit from the four winds, to breathe into the dead carcases that they might live again. Thus you see it evidently confirmed by an ocular demonstration, that cold doth contract, inspissate, and make gross the included aire, which is argued by the drawing up of the water, and straitning the aire. And again, that heat doth dilate and dissipate, by the enlargement of the aire in hot weather, or by laying of the hand on the bolts head, which is made evident by the beating down of the waters.

Note (I beseech you), ye that will not be over-partiall on the Peripateticks behalfes, the two notable errours of the Aristotelians: whereof the first is manifested, in that they hold for a Maxim, that calidum doth congregare homogenea, heat doth congregate and gather together things of one nature. Now you see it here ocularly demonstrated, that heat doth operate the contrary; for it dissipateth and disperseth the aire, which is of homogeneall parts, and therefore it doth not congregate it: But it is cold that doth congregate, compact, and gather homogeneall things together, as well as heterogeneall. For you see, in our Instrument, that it contracts and gathers together the aire, yea, and water, in a straiter and narrower place. And therefore their assertion also is not […]ound, when they say, that frigidum doth onely congregare heterogenea.

The other of their palpable errours is also described by this ocular experiment, for whereas they say, that the Sun, starrs, and Fire, yea, and all heat whatsoever, doth attract and draw unto it the vapours and humidity of the earth, waters, &c. we find the contrary by this our experimentall Glass; for in onely laying the warm hand upon the Glass, the aire dilates it self immediately, and is so far from being attracted by the heat, that contrariwise it flyeth away from the hand: And that this is so, it appeareth by the striking down or precipitation of the water, as is said. Thus have we sufficiently mentioned, in this present Book, the estate of the first and second Principles of all things, and that but in brief tearms; because my purpose is, to touch them with a more large and copious style, in the first Book of my Sympatheticall and Antipatheticall History.

I will now proceed unto the next Book, wherein I purpose to handle the mystery of Rarefaction and Condensation, with the manner of the variety in the heavenly Fabrick, and the rotation of one catholick sublunary Element into a four-fold nature or existence. And in the last place, I will conclude with the radicall efficient cause of Creation, Generation, Corruption, and Resurrection.