The Fifth Part.

that HelmontHelmont Pharm. & Dispens. Nov. p. 458. himself somewhere confesses, That as the Fire betters some things and improves their Vertues, so it spoyles others and makes them degenerate. And elsewhere he judiciously affirmes, that there may be sometimes greater vertue in a simple, such as Nature has made it, than in any thing that can by the fire be separated from it. And lest you should doubt whether he means by the vertues of things those that are Medical; he has in one place this ingenuous confession; Credo (sayes he) simplicia in sua simplicitate esse sufficientia pro sanatione omnium morborum. Nag. Barthias,Vide Jer. ad Begu. Lib. 1. Cap. 17. even in a Comment upon Beguinus, scruples not to make this acknowledgment; Valde absurdum est (sayes he) ex omnibus rebus extracta facere, salia, quintas essentias; præsertim ex substantiis per se plane vel subtilibus vel homogeneis, quales sunt uniones, Corallia, Moscus, Ambra, &c. Consonantly whereunto he also tells Us (and Vouches the famous Platerus, for having candidly given the same Advertisement to his Auditors,) that some things have greater vertues, and better suited to our humane nature, when unprepar’d, than when they have past the Chymists Fire; as we see, sayes my Author, in Pepper; of which some grains swallowed perform more towards the relief of a Distempered stomack, than a great quantity of the Oyle of the same spice.