But when man transgressed, he became separated from his god, and immediately the earth was cursed, and as the rabbins express it, the upper springs of heavenly fountains were stopped, so that the stars did not so abundantly shed down the spirit of life as they did before, for Adam was cast out of God's paradise (the Sun) to dwell (as a banished man) on the cursed earth, and to eat the cursed bitter fruits thereof, and we must naturally conceive that the remembrance of the paradise and the heavenly glittering fruits therein, was most fresh in Adam's memory, even as the remembrance of our country will remain to a banished man. When therefore, he was constrained to make use of the corruptible fruits of the accursed earth, he must needs see the difference between them and the fruits of paradise, for the paradisiacal light and glory was not in them; this recollection we may reasonably conclude made Adam and his posterity, who were instructed by him, to search diligently; if any amongst the fruits, and productions of the earth retained their primitive paradisiacal splendor; but when they had done all they could, none such were to be found in all the vegetable kingdom; colors there were, in flowers and fruits, but fading and corruptible, there was no durable light nor shining lustre in them; at last they came to search the mineral kingdom, but God had removed that from their eyes, it was locked up like a treasure in the bowels of the earth, and they must dig for it, and with much labor they find it.

Then saw they a resemblance to the first paradisiacal splendor, and that most durable and incorruptible, having in some measure the primitive glory of paradise; for in gold the fire of heavenly complection abound-etk, and in silver the light, and the like appearance is in all the inferior metals, though not in the same purity. They also saw it sparkling in precious stones, as diamonds, rabies, etc. which made them respect them as certain relics 6f paradise. But as gold and silver could be neither eat nor drank, they therefore labored much to extract the light and tincture out of them, that they might feed on them as on heavenly paradisiacal food or essences. This transcendant art they received from God, and not by any human industry, God having revealed it to them as a means to prolong life, and by which they lived many hundred years, through the will and providence of God. Therefore in the first and early times, gold was respected by wise men for its medicinal qualities (and it is for these ends all true alchemystical philosophers labor). I cannot pass by a tradition of Pliny, who mentions that the broth of a hen destroys gold, if it be boiled in it, and some physicians have affirmed the same on their own experience, whereupon they prescribe that decoction as a prime restorative in physic.

The scripture tells us, that God has placed his tabernacle in the Sun, [the original paradise of Adam] and truly there is more of the power and majesty of God manifested in the Sun, than in any other created body, if we consider only the parts of the great world; for we see that when the Sun withdraws from us in the winter time, the life also withdraws with it, and that many living creatures, as well as the herbs, suffer for that time, a kind of death. Not in vain then did the magi affirm, that the anima mundi, or soul of the world, was principally resident in the Sun; for if it be true that where there is life, there must be heat, which no man can deny, then the life of the world must needs be from whence the heat arises, and questionless all the heat of this world is derived from the Sun, and communicated to all other parts, especially to the inferior elements; and likewise in the heavens, where we observe the Moon suffers her monthly change, agony, and as it were death, by the absence of the Sun from her, for darkness totally possesses her, and she quite loses her light, and so continues until the Sun again, who with his excellent brightness and abunddance of light illuminates the Moon, filling her with new light; for, from conjunction with the Sun, she appears red and not unlike the color of heated iron, the Sun having penetrated her whole substance and infused his tincture into her.

The Sun then stirs up the sadness of , and causes an active pleasant complexion, which otherwise, without the mixture of the Sun would be a black melancholy, which is a dangerous complexion; but where Sol and Saturn unite, then there is the true philosophical genius. Sol therefore awakens the vital spirits, and in all his operations resembles God, for as God hath the keys of life and death in his hand, and by his sole power kills and restores; so likewise doth the Sun bear a resemblance ,• for the Almighty does, as it were, look into this world through the Sun, [the local residence of the glorified humanity of Jesus Christ and the original Paradise,] and communicates his goodness by the light that is measured and proportioned to our capacities, who are not able to look on his inexhaustible light, for " no man can see him and live".