Chemical-Philosophical Treatise on Natural and Supernatural Things

with a pious [mind], since otherwise, with the separation of the soul and spirit from the body neglected, no virtual and comfortable operation, as necessity would require, can follow. For whatever is comprehensible to sight and inseparable and corporeal exists as natural and corporeal. But as soon as the separation is made, with life departing from the body, the thing attains its full operation; and with the natural body separated, the spiritual nature is freed to penetrate and turned into a spiritual and supernatural medicine. And briefly, all palpable things, none excepted, are natural, but they must be raised into a supernatural state if we are to destine them for Medicine; for the supernatural alone includes the living virtue of operating, while the natural possesses a dead and sensible form. For when Adam was created, he was lifeless and endowed with no life of any virtue; but as soon as the life-giving spirit approached, he displayed his living virtue and faculty with supernatural admiration. And thus, in any thing, the natural and the supernatural are as one coupled thing and bound in its own dwelling, so that to each its perfection may consist. For all created things in this universe are in some way supernatural, as far as animated and spiritual things are concerned, but some are natural and supernatural, as regards the elements as well as the firmament, and likewise minerals, vegetables, and animals—a fact which is known from generation when the soul exits from the body and leaves its empty dwelling.

Furthermore, you will now observe that the macrocosm and microcosm were fashioned, formed, and created from the prima materia first matter through omnipotence in the beginning.