salts, by a long and successive decoction, within the earths entralls,
where their humidity is abundantly fixt by the temperate air it
meets withall there. And these salts do participate of sulphur and
quicksilver, which joined together make a third name Metalline salt,
which hath the same fashion and resolution as common salt; which is
taken for a symbole of equity and justice; as also are metals, but for
another consideration. For melt Gold, Silver, Copper, and other metals
together, they wil all mingle equally: So that if upon a hundred parts
of silver, yea two hundred you melt one of gold, the least part of
this silver, in what regard soever you will take it from the totall
masse, shall in respect of it self, take its just and equall portion of
gold and no more nor lesse, wherefore they are taken for distributive
justice. But salt is for that throughout, where it attacheth flesh,
fish, vegetables, it keeps them from corruption, and conserves them
in their entire, and makes them durable for many ages. Fire on the
contrary, is an evill host, for it stealeth and destroyeth all that
lodgeth near it, never ceasing till it hath converted all into ashes,
whence salt was extracted, that was before therein contained: So
that these two, fire & salt, accord and convene together and also
with the ferments in this, that they convert all that whereupon they
can exercise their action. _Plutarch_ in his book and 4 question of
Symposiaques, extolling salt, sets down, that all flesh and fish that
was eat is a dead thing, and proceeds from a dead body; but when the
faculty of salt comes to be introduced, it is as a soul that revivifies
and gives them grace and favor. And in the 5 book 10. quest. renders
a reason why _Homer_ calls salt divine; he puts that salt is as a
temperament and fortification of the viands within the body: and that
it gives it an agreement with the appetite. But it is rather for the
vertue that it hath to preserve dead bodies from putrefaction; which
is as to resist death, that which appertains to Divinity. _Thou shalt_
(_not suffer thy holy one to see corruption_,) not permitting that
what is deprived of life should perish so suddenly in all kinds: but
as the soul, that divine part within us, keeps the body alive (a soul
is given to hogs for their safety,) this _Plinie_ sets down after the
Stoicks. So salt also takes into its safeguard dead flesh to keep it
from putrefaction; whence the fire of lightning is reputed for divine,
because those that have been touched therewith remain a great while
without corruption; as salt doth on its part, which hath this property
and vertue; which sheweth the great affinity and agreement which they
have together. Wherefore _Evinus_ was wont to say, that fire was the
best sauce in the world, and the very same is also attributed to
salt. All which things here above do confirme the occasion for which
_Moses_, and after him _Pythagoras_ made so great esteem of salt, to
cover under his Allegorie that which they would give to understand by
it; that our souls and confidences signified by man in St. _Mark_,
namely, the internall man, and our body for the sacrifice ought to be
offered up unto God, pure and not soiled with corruption; _That you
offer up your bodies a living sacrifice, holy pleasing unto God, &c._
Therein was there (it may be) another reason, that moved _Moses_ to
exalt salt so much, that according as _Rabbi Moses_ the _Ægyptian_
discourseth at large in his third book of his _More_, 47 ch. where he
renders a particular reason for the most part of Mosaical ceremonies,
his principall aim was to overthrow all Idolatries, even those of the
_Ægyptians_, where they had a greater vogue then in any other part. He
seeing that their Priests so greatly detested salt, that they would
not use it in any sort, for that of the sea from whence it proceeded;
in the bitternesse whereof, the sweet substance of _Nilus_ went to
lose and salt it self; which they held to be for the radicall moisture
from whence all things here below do sprout and nourish themselves in
despite of them, and contrary to their traditions; he would thereof
make a form of alliance & paction from God with the Jewish people,
that all their oblations should be accompanied with salt: And in the
2 of _Paralip._ 13. 5 chap. It is said, that God gave to _David_ and
his children the Kingdom of _Israel_ by a Covenant of Salt; that is
to say, most firm and indissoluble; for that salt hinders corruption.
And therefore the Saviour chose his Apostles to be as the salt of men;
that is to say, to deliver the pure and incorruptible doctrine of the
Gospel; and to confirm them firm persistent faith, as wel by words as
deeds. The _Caballists_ penetrating further into the mysteries inclosed
therewithin, meditate certain subtilties by a rule of Ghematrie, called
_Ghilcal_, which consisteth in equivalencies of Numbers, which the
_Hebrewes_ assigne unto Letters. Those of this word _Malach_ which
signifieth salt, mounts in their supputation to 78. for _Mem_ valued
40. _Lamed_ 30. and _heth_ 8. or divided in any sort that you will,
alwaies there will result a certain number, representing a mystery of
Divine names; the half which makes 39. mount to as much as the letters
of _Chuzu_, the scabbard or covering of this great Name for _caph.
val._ 20. _vau_ 6. _Z._ 7. and the other _vau_ 6. if in 3 parts, each
wil mount to 26. which is the number _tetragrammaton Jehovah_, _vau_
making 10. _he_ 5. _vau_ 6. & _he_ 5. In six parts this will be 13. for
each, which are equipollent to the number of Piety. In 13. there are 6.
which _vau_ is valued at, a letter representing eternall life; besides
that six is the first perfect number, because his parts do constitute
it, his sixt namely 1. his third 2. and its halfe 3. which perfection
hath not any one of the other numbers, and in six dayes the structure
of the Universe was perfected.
There are other mysteries in the Scripture; in 26. will be the number
of the most holy & sacred Trinitie, for three times 26. makes 78. In
39. twice, which _Beth_ stands for a symbole of a word, where the
second person, and the house of _Idea’s_ of the _Archetype_, which
_Plato_ hath well acknowledged, _Aristotle_ not. And finally 87.
denotes as many unities, whereof each represents the unity of the
essence of one God alone. The same is in the _Lechem_ bread, which is
an anagram of the former, and consisteth of the same letters. It was
therefore some cause of the Proverb, _To eat salt with thy bread_.
_Rabbi Solomon_ upon the places aforesaid, of Gods alliance with
his people, designed by salt, by which is understood the Eternall
paction of the great Priesthood of the Messiah, brings us a form of
an Allegory, very strange and phantastick. That the waters here below
do mutiny, that they are separated from the supercelestiall, having
the firmament set betwixt them; by means whereof, God to appease
them, promised that they should be perpetually in his service, in all
offerings, sacrifices, as he did afterwards in the Law, which hee gave
to the _Jewes_; _Whatsoever thou shalt offer to the Lord, thou shalt
season it with salt._
Yet there are divers sorts of salt, that have different properties
and vertues, according to the things from which they are extracted;
for salt retains a propriety of the thing from whence it came, saith
_Geber_ in his Testament, yea as many odors, and sapors as there are,
they all do depend upon salt; for where there is no salt, there is
no smell nor tast; and yet of all the tasts which _Plutarch_ in his
Naturall causes doth limit to eight, _Plinie lib._ 15. _cap._ 27.
extends them to 13. there is not one, that is not salt, because tast
(as _Plato_ will have it) comes from water, which creep athwart the
stalk of every plant, and keeps the saltness that it cannot passe as
it is more grosse and terrestriall, as wee see in sea-water when it
is distilled; where when they passe it through sand, where it leaves
its saltnesse. But it may be said to _Plato_, that the tast doth not
only ly in plants, but also in Animalls and mineralls, and all other
compounded Elements. It is that which he and _Aristotle_ and other
rationall Philosophers, are only satisfied with, that which their
arguments and discourse do imprint in their phantasies: esteeming that
it cannot be otherwise, then that which their reasons do demonstrate
unto them, for the most part false and erroneous; there were if they
would penetrate empirickly by the experiments, they might have been
shewed by the finger of the eye, the truth of the thing, they might
have been better ascertained therein, as the _Arabians_ have since
done; and the Chymicall Philosophers, who will assure themselves of
nothing, but what they have oftentimes tried without variation to the
sense. It is a maxime of all Naturalists, received for Infallible, that
the transparence comes from this, when the water in the composition and
mixtion superabounds, over the earth, and darkenesse on the contrary,
when Terrestreity predominates the water, and it would be accounted an
irremissible crime _Læsæ Majestatis_ to doubt thereof, for who is there
that doubteth it, will they say, that it is not so? I will reply that
it is I, to whom experience shewes the contrary, at least for that the
cause of transparence, and opacity, doth not proceed from that which
they alledge. Take Crystall and passe it never so little through hot
ashes, so long as one would rost a chestnut you wil find it all dark,
without any more transparence within or without in the superficies, and
that without any losse of its substance, or diminution of its weight.
And on the contrary in a strong expression of fire blowing upon the
lead, then which nothing can be darker, it will convert into a forme
of a hyacinth so transparent, that one may read a small letter through
it; though it were an inch thick, and this hyacinth by the same fire
returne into lead, and lead into an hyacinth.
If then these profound Contemplators of nature, and her effects, had
been willing to accompany their Imaginary discourses, with experience
that reveales infinite secrets by fire, they could never have fallen
into such absurdities: and had manifestly seen without any vail or
obstacle all full of things whereof they remaine in irresolution and
doubt not having spoken therein but as blind men and by guesse, for
we cannot discover the secrets of things to proceed therein directly,
nor come to it by entring on it, after the manner of speech, by the
foregate: for nature goeth in her workes rarely and in secret, as
by the posterne gate: or by setting ladders against the windowes:
The _Greeks_ call that διάλυσις, solution; No man can know the
composition of a thing, said _Geber_ very well, that was ignorant of
its destruction. And this is done by fire, which separates the parts,
as hath been said before. There are then two divers substances of
salt, therefore it causeth divers effects, the one is sweet, glutinous
and inflamable, of the nature of aire, nourishing, binding. The other
sharp, mordicant and separative that begets nothing. The Poets in their
mythologies have called this the _Ocean_, and the sweet wherewith the
pickle of the Sea is moistened and made liquid _Tethys_ as _Plutarch_
hath it in his _Osiris_ which giveth milk to and nourisheth all things.
But simple water of it selfe alone would not be sufficient to nourish,
if it were not assisted with things fastened to the earth, the salt
therein inclosed and therewith mingled, having a sweet and glutinous
unctuosity, for as in the Sea-water there are two substances, sweet
and salt, there are subalternately two in salt: But we cannot say that
they doe nourish or produce any thing. Therefore is it, that they use
to raze Traiters-houses, and sow them with salt as reputed unworthy
to produce anymore. Salt indeed produceth nothing as it is, where its
sweet substance is so drowned with the salt, that it cannot expresse
it selfe in action, so as it is, except it be freed out of prison, for
the saltnesse predominates over it, and covers it. But for replication
thereunto which was said before, that fresh water alone, doth neither
nourish nor produce any thing: which we see to the contrary, by
experience in many waterish herbs that grow in the midst of waters,
and in flints that it engenders shells, and fishes, and wormes: to be
short, that its procreation doth extend to the three composed kinds
of Minerals, Vegetables, & Animals: And indeed put little pebbles in
a phial, and water thereon, every day, renewing it daily, at the end
of certaine time, you will find them so great, and so bigge, that they
cannot come out at the neck by which they were put in. But indeed all
this proceeds from the slime, which is mingled with the water, as
frogs, and other things, which are procreated in the middle Region of
the aire of the slime which the Sun beams hath thence raised with the
water, for al rains, snowes, and other such impressions participate
much of the slime; from thence it comes that the snow doth smoak and
fatten the earth, and the water of raine, is more connaturall to trees,
herbes, and seeds, chiefly those which fall by stormes and thunders,
then those of wels and rivers: whereof _Plutarch_ forceth himselfe
to bring forth many reasons in naturall causes, which have no great
apparence: There is yet more to say, for that they are better baked
and accompanied with more subtle and hot slime, and are of lighter
concoction and nourishment then plants; as of meate in the stomach
of _Animals_, some more then others, where the waters here below are
more raw and indigested: we insist a little in water, because salt is
nothing else, but water mingled and setled with dry and burned earth,
of the nature of fire which makes it bitter and salt. So that before
we passe from this subject of fresh water, we will here touch upon an
experiment of more rare things from whence come many fair & secret
considerations. Sweet water is a body so homogeneal, that it would seem
to the sight so cleare, transparent, and liquid, in all its parts,
resembling to it selfe, that there is in it but one only substance:
since that by distillations shee passeth all. But yet there is another
sound substance, solid, and compact, in the forme of earth, mingled
with its liquid homogeneity, which it separates by Artifice, and it is
that which _Aristotle_ saith in the swarme of Philosophers. The earth
is concreat by the grossenesse of the water. And this may be seene with
water agitated and beaten and after redistilled many times, alwayes
separating the fift or sixth part which shall passe the first. You must
then take a good quantity of wel water, or the same of fountaine, river
or rain water, and let it settle twenty or thirty houres untill there
be some ordure or slime, it separates it selfe.
[Sidenote: Abundance of fluxes of blood.]
Take of this water as you may say forty pintes, and cause the halfe to
vapour away by very easie fire, that it boile not, put these twenty
pintes apart, and take new water as above, of which you shall evaporate
the moity; and so long continue it, that you may have well a hundred
pintes halfe evaporated; from this one hundred, make to evaporate
thirty pintes, and of sixty, ten, twenty, of fifty, that shall remain
twenty of thirty, ten, and of twenty, ten; and cast away all these
slimes that shall reside, for they are nothing worth, and are but
immundicity and ordure, unto the seaventh or eighth evaporation or
distillation, after which there will appeare in your water infinite
little atomes and little bodies; which at last by little and little
will be congealed into one solid substance, of a grisly colour,
soft as dough: _Of which I have seen such admirable effects that
men would hardly beleeve it; in Cankers, Gangrenes, Hemorrhagies,
bloody flux, Women newly laid in bed; and at nose, diseases in the
stomach, and infinite other such accidents that no_ terra sigillata
_nor_ Bolarmoniac _could compare with_. You may make your round pills
impasting them with the last waters that were extracted, which are
also of great vertue, _to wash wounds, inveterate Maladies of the
stomach, and other the like; wherefore you must keepe them well_. You
may also calcine it for six or seven houres in a small pot well luted,
and casting thereon vinegar distilled, boiling, dissolving one part,
nourishing the rest; calcine it againe, and dissolve it till you have
all the salt which will be white and of sweet tast, make it dissolve
to oile, you may draw from thence great effects even upon Gold. But
sea-water is yet of more efficacy then that of wels and rivers, sweet
water (I say) which shall be separated from salt by distillation: which
would be easie to do near the Sea, having to that end foure or five
alembics of leaden earth, and yet more of sweet water which is drawne
by distillation of salt resolved in liquor to humidity.
But there is yet another manner of proceeding, in the separation of the
substances of common water: and more spirituall then the precedent.
Take very clean water out of a well, river or fountain, let it settle
twenty foure houres, and take the pure and the cleare, which you shall
put in vessels of _Beauvois_ earth: well stopped to putrifie in hot
dung fourty dayes, renewing it two or three times every week, filter
the water, and give only five or six boylings, scumming off the scurfes
that arise thereon with a feather, then put it in _Cornues_ of glasse,
not putting therein but the third part, or the moity at most, of that
which they may containe and distill of two parts three; then change
the Recipient, and accomplish to distill all the water, but with an
easie fire. Then strengthen the fire, by little and little, till you
see small fumes ascend, continue this degree of fire, with increasing
untill it mount no more. Let the fire quench of it selfe and recoole
the vessell: then gather the salt which shall be so elevated towards
the beck of the _Cornue_, and within the recipient, and keep it in a
vessel of earth, very close and sealed in a warm and dry place that
it melt not, nor dissolve. Put the _Cornue_ to againe with that which
remains in the bottome, and strengthen the fire untill you see a
reddish oile; end your distillation, after cease the fire. Take the
black feces, that remain in the bottome, stampe them, and put them in
a sublimatory of good earth, of an inch thick, and no more, for six
houres, first a little fire, then reinforce it for twelve others, till
the sublimatory be red, the fire being alwaies in the same degree:
let it coole and gather the salt which will be mounted, and keep it
as the former. This is the second _sal Armoniac volatill_, which is
extracted from the water: and the one, and the other, have great power
to the dissolution of gold, carrying no danger with then as your common
_sal Armoniac_ may doe; which hath bad qualities in it, there, where
this is extracted from a substance so familiar to mans body, which,
is sweet water. Now take all the feces & residences, which remain in
the bottome of the vessell, bruise them, and make them dissolve in the
first water, which you shall have distilled, after you have warmed it
a little, that it may dissolve the salt that may be there. Let them
repose, then evacuate, and put them to distill with halfe the water:
Then change the Recipient, and with a little stronger fire, distill the
Surplufage of the water, and keep them each a part, in a cold place.
But doe not perfect to congeal all the salt in the bottome of the
vessell, but leave therein a little moisture, to create flakes of ice.
If it be not white enough, let it calcine for three or foure houres
in a pot of earth not leaded, after dissolve it in the second water,
filter and congeale it, and keep it in a dry place, for this is salt
fix and fusible. If in drawing the first _Salarmoniac_, _volatill_, the
foule oile that is nothing worth mounts with it, you must put salt and
oile in new water, and depure and putrifie it as before, which was to
begin againe, therefore we must goe wisely to worke. There is another
manner of proceeding therein, which is shorter, for there are more ways
to one intent, and to one end, saith _Geber_. Take raine or fountain
water, put it in a _Cornue_, upon the sand with a slow fire; and
distill thereof a fourth part, which is more rare and subtill. Continue
afterwards the distillation even to the feces, which you cast away. And
see that you have good store of this meane substance, with which, you
shall reiterate the distillation seaven times, being alwayes the fourth
part that will first issue out, which is the phlegme, and the feces
are the slime. In the fourth, you shall begin to see the sulphurities
of all colours in the forme of _huskes and pieces of gold_. The seaven
distillations being perfected put your meane substance in an alembec,
to the fire with a soft bath; and draw that which may ascend, which
shall be yet of phlegme, then you shall see created little stones,
and pieces of all colours which will goe to the bottome; stay your
distillation, and let them settle, then evacuate that which remains
sweetly with water: and doe so, with all your mean substance, and
make there little stones to multiply in the bath. When you shall have
enough dry them in the Sun, or before an easie fire, and put them in a
glasse-bottle well sealed, with the fire of a lampe or the like, for
three or foure months and your matter will be congealed and fixed
except a certaine small portion thereof, which will arise along the
sides of the vessell: This here is the mean substance, of the first
matter of all things, which is water. But that we be not deceived or
abused, all these practises, which are but an image and portrait halfe
rudely hewen out of the manner which we must hold in the extraction
of liquors. From whence they resolve of themselves into moisture, all
sorts of salt, as well common, as _Salalkali_, _tartar_, and other the
like; the sweet oleaginous substance swimming above the water with
the salt and bitter, which there remaineth dissolved, and after the
extraction of the water, remaineth a congealed salt in the bottome;
that is to say, to separate the oile from salts: which cannot be done
without great artifice: But it is not reasonable to discover it, and
divulge all openly; but to reserve something therein, for fear of doing
wrong to the curious endeavours of some learned men who have taken so
much paines and travail, to come to the knowledge of these fine secrets.