These things have induced me humbly to offer this Book to your Patronage, not doubting but under your Name and Protection, it will be able to overcome many Difficulties, and obtain a free passage in this our English World, to the benefit and advantage of many well-disposed persons, who seek after Honest, Profitable, and Commendable Arts, which I am fully perswaded was the chief end of the Author in Writing; and I am sure is mine in Translating his Works. You are throughly acquainted with Glauber’s Writings, you know his Menstruums, and his Medicines, and are able to attest the truth of what others may account false and impossible. As for such of them as concern the higher Classes of Chymistry, I shall say nothing (being yet but ad Corinthum vergens) but commit them to your Mature Judgment, and Protection, humbly craving your pardon for this my presumption, and for what Errors or Oversights I may have committed in this Work; and desiring your Favourable Acceptance of these my poor Endeavours. I take leave to conclude with a passage of the abovementioned Excellent =Mundanus=. I am fully perswaded, that by the Blessing of God upon your Sagacious Labours, you will at length obtain that which will abundantly Compensate your Pains and Cost. To which I adjoin my own hearty Wishes; and that after you have been as happy in this World, as true Philosophy can make a Man, you may be Eternally Happy in that which is to come.
I am SIR, An Honourer of Your Name and Learning, CHRISTOPHER PACKE.
THE PREFACE TO THE READER.
That the Art of =Chymistry= is very useful and highly serviceable in Physick, Chyrurgery, Husbandry, and Mechanick Arts, is long since evinced by the Excellent Mr. =Boyl= (the Honour both of our Age and Country) in his Experimental Philosophy, or Philosophick Essays; who in =Essay I. and II.= shews that the Examination of the Juices of Human Bodies, by the Art of =Chymistry=, may illustrate their Use and Nature. And that by it may be Explicated the Nature of our several Digestions, and their Aberrations. And afterwards =Cap. VIII. pag 194.= speaking of the advantages that =Chymistry= affords to the =Therapeutick= or =Curative= part of Physick, (which is the chief and principal), and to which all the other parts are subservient) is pleased to express himself thus: I cannot but think that if Chymistry did no more than assist us, by the resolution of Bodies, to extricate their more active parts, and partly by such Resolutions, and partly by associating Bodies together, to alter the former Texture of Natures productions, or present us with new Concretes of new Textures; by this very means, if Men want not Curiosity and Industry, to vary and prosecute Experiments, there must necessarily arise such a store of new and active Medicines, that in all probability, many of them will be found endow’d with such vertue as have not been (at least in that degree) met with, in the usual Medicines, whether Simple or Compound, to be bought in Apothecarys Shops; and consequently, even without any notable discovery, or improvement of Principles, Chymists (even as Matters now stand with them) may considerably add to the Pharmaceutical part of Physick. But if the Operations of Chymistry were seriously enquired into, and throughly understood, I make little doubt, but by a skilful Application of them, and especially by a series of them, in a Rational and Orderly way succeeding one another, there may be found out a great many preparations of Remedies, both very different from the common Ones, and far more Noble than they. And presently after he adds. That if we had but a few Potent Menstruums to dissolve and unlock Bodies with, I scarce know what might not be done in Chymistry. Then further in that =Essay= where he treats of the usefulness of =Chymistry= to the Empire of Man over the Inferiour Works of Nature; he proceeds to shew that =Chymistry= is very serviceable to Husbandry in all its parts, and to other professions that serve to provide Men with Food or Raiment, or do otherwise minister to the Necessities or Accomodations of Life, as =Bakers=, =Brewers=, =Dyers=, &c.
Thus far this Learned =Philosopher=: To which I shall only add this, That if when he wrote those Essays, =Chymists= were able to contribute so much to the Necessities and Conveniences of Mankind, when =Chymistry= was but young in =England=, and but few Chymists who were accurate in their Operations, and perhaps, fewer who had any competency of Learning, or so much as lightly Tincted with the =Hermetick Philosophy=; if, I say, that it discovered so great a light when it had but newly ascended our Horizon, and was, as I may say, but in its Infancy, what assistance may now be had from it, when (notwithstanding all the Obstacles, and unkind usage it hath met withal) it is grown to a more virile Age and Vigour: But although =Chymistry= be much enlarged, and advanced in =England=, in respect of the Numbers, and Qualifications of the Lovers, and professors of it; yet are not Chymists free from pressing Disadvantages, not having the freedom of administring their own Medicines, how powerful and salutiferous soever, and otherwise adapted to the Necessities of the Sick, than the common =Apparatus= of Physick. So, that as the Case now stands, the help and Succour which the Sick and Diseased receive from Chymical Physick, is but very small to what they might have, if knowing Chymists had the freedom of exercising that Art in all its parts, which with much Industry, Labour, and Costs, they have been sollicitous to attain. But when this disincouragement of ingenuity and Obstacle of the publick good, shall become more apparent to those in whose power it is to redress it, I do not doubt but it will meet with a Remedy.
But now, to give some account of my present undertaking. I have at length (by God’s help, and the assistance of my Subscribers) finished my Translation of =Glauber=’s =Works=, and here present it to the Reader, in the =English= Tongue. How well I have performed it, I must submit to the judgments of others: I could have been very glad to have seen it done by some abler hand; but when I have heretofore proposed the doing but of some parts of it to those whom I knew might easily have accommodated =English= Artists therein; telling them that I wondered so Excellent an Author, should be so long extant, and that none should unveil him of his =Latin= and =German= Coverings, and put him into an =English= Dress. I have had for answer, That this Age was not worthy of it; so that it seems to me, that the Providence of God had reserved it for fitter times, although to be done by one of the meanest of the Sons of =Pyrotechny=. But this I can say, that I have acquitted my self in this matter, as well as the slenderness of my Parts, weakness of Body, and the necessary Affairs of my Laboratory would permit me; but
----Ubi desint Vires, acceptanda est Voluntas.
I desire the Lovers of =Chymistry= to accept my Labours, with the same good will that I have undergone them, having no other end but to serve my Country. And I hereby return thanks to all those generous spirited Gentlemen and others, who have Subscribed to, and promoted this Work, without whose assistance (the Charge being very great, as well as the labour (to me) almost insupportable) it must yet have remained hid and unserviceable to the =English= Reader. But I am in an especial manner obliged to that publick spirited Gentleman (whom I ought to name, were it lawful to do it without his leave) who freely offered me and put into my hands a not inconsiderable part of the Materials for this Work, which part also had been more considerable than it was, had not the Spirit of some, (who unjustly hinder’d it) been as Mean and Sordid, as his was Generous. But that Loss was, in part, made up to me, by a well-minded Artist, to whom I also return Thanks.
I have Printed this Book upon far better and larger Paper than I proposed to do it in; for at the time of setting forth my first Proposals, I had not the =German= Pieces, but when they came to my hands, upon a more accurate computation of the matter, I found that if I should go on to do the Work upon the Paper I had proposed, the Book would swell to too great a thickness for its breadth and length, and not be only ill shaped, but inconvenient to be read. By this means my Subscribers have a much better Book than I promised them, although the Charge hath also been Considerably greater to me, than I at first expected.
The Reader hath all here in one Volumn which =Glauber= ever Printed, as far as I can find upon diligent Enquiry at =Amsterdam=, where all his Writings were Printed, and where I purchased the Original Copper Plates belonging to them. But whereas, as ’tis said in the =Explication of Miraculum Mundi=, page 177. That the Cut there described was not Printed in the Latin Copies, nor to be found among the Original Plates; yet notwithstanding, I was unwilling that the Work should go without the Figure of so useful a Furnace as that is, for the Torrefying, or Calcining of Ores, and separating, and depurating their Metals, for which reason I have caused it to be Delineated and Printed with others before the =Continuation of Miraculum Mundi=, after page 188. I have also procured from the hand of another Friend, who is a Lover of Art, the Draught of the Refrigeratory, Furnace, or Instrument, which serves for the making the =Mercury of Wine=, purifying, and fixing of =Argent-vive=, =Antimony=, =Sulphur=, &c. and many other uses which an Ingenious Artist will find out. This Furnace the Author always endeavoured to conceal, but describes it in some part in the beginning of the sixth part of the =Spagyrical Dispensatory=, to which Description I have added the Figure. The Figures of the several Vessels and Instruments belonging to the Fifth Part of the Furnaces, are referr’d to at the beginning of the Fourth Part, but since, for the better orders sake I have placed them before the said Fifth Part.
These Twelve following Treatises were never Printed in =Latin=, but in the =German= Tongue only, =viz.= The =Third=, =Fourth=, and =Fifth Centuries=; the =Second= and =Third Appendixes= to the Seventh Part of the =Spagyrical Dispensatory=. The =Book of Fires.= =Proserpine.= =Elias the Artist.= =The three Fire-stones.= =The Purgatory of Philosophers.= =De Lapide Animali.= =The Secret Fire of Philosophers.= All which I have caused to be Translated (my self being ignorant of the =German= Tongue) by a person well skill’d both in the =High Dutch=, and also in =Chymistry=, whereby I hope this Book will not be altogether unserviceable nor unacceptable even to the Learned; besides, all the Works of this Author that are in Latin are very difficultly (if at all) to be met with at any Book-sellers Shop in =London=, and those that are, at a dear rate: For when I had entered upon this Translation, I was forced to send to =Amsterdam= to have all the =Latin= pieces compleat.
The Author in many places refers to his =Opus Saturni=, =Opus Vegetabile=, and the =Concentration of Heaven and Earth=, which Treatises, I am assured, were never printed (at least under those Titles) which also seems to be manifest from his Epistle to the =First Century=, or General Appendix, wherein he inculcates, that for want of time, he had inserted the sum of them all in that Treatise. He also mentions a Seventh part of the =Prosperity of Germany=, in the Preface to the Second Part of =Pharmacopœia Spagyrica=, which was never Printed under that Title, but I am induced to believe it is the =Novum Lumen Chymicum=, as partly appears by comparing it with the foresaid Preface. And it is evident that in some parts of his Writings he hath mentioned a Treatise by one Name, and afterwards Printed it by another, as, =The Testimonium Veritatis=, which was afterwards Printed by the Name of =Explicatio Miraculi Mundi=. As for the =Opus Saturni=, I have heard that there are some Manuscript Copies of it, and had hopes of obtaining it from two several hands, but both failed me. I have been also informed, that there are =Five Centuries= in Manuscript more than I have Printed, but could never understand in what hands they were, except one of them, =viz.= the sixth, the proprietor of which would not be so kind as to let me have it to print.
