pretious our Saviour saith Take no care then how to cloth your body is not your body better then raiment and by consequent the soule more then the body since the body is but as it were the vestment of the soule which is subject to perish and to use all shall wax old as doth a garment And the Apostle in the 1 to the Corinthians The old man falleth away but the inner man is renewed dayly for it washeth it selfe according to Zohar by the fire as doth a Salamander and the outward man by water with Soaps and Lees that consist of Salts Of which two manners of repurging it is thus said in the 31. of Numb v. 23. All that which shall support the fire shall be purged thereby and that which cannot beare it shall be sanctified by the water of Purification which was a figure of that which the Fore-runner spake in the 3. of Matthew It is true that I baptize you with water unto repentance but he that comes after mee shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with Fire But behold how Zohar speakes more particularly If it bee so Adam what is he it is nought but skin and flesh and bones and nerves he must not passe so But to speak truth man is nothing else but the immortall soule that is in him and the skinne flesh bloud bones and nerves are the vestments wherein it is wrapped as a little creature newly borne within the beds and linnen of its Cradle These are but the utensils and instruments allotted to womens children not to man or Adam for when this Adam so made was elevated out of this world he is devested of those instruments wherewith he had beene clothed and accommodated This is the skinne wherewith the Son of man is envelopped with flesh bones and nerves and this consisteth in the secret mystery of Sapience according to that which Moses taught in the Curtains or Vails of the Tabernacle which are the inward vestment and the Tabernacle the outward To this purpose the Apostle in the fifth of the 2 to the Corinthians saith We know that if our earthly house of this Tabernacle were dissolved we have an Aedifice not built with mans hand but eternally permanent in the high Heavens For in this we groane earnestly desiring to bee clothed upon with our house which is from heaven if so be that being clothed wee shall not bee found naked So Adam in respect of his body is a representation of the sensible world where his skinne corresponds with the Firmament extending heaven like a Curtaine For as the heaven covereth and enveloppeth all things so doth the skin every man in which are introduced and fastned its starres and signes that is to say the draughts and lineaments in the hands the forehead and visage in which wise men know and reveale and makes them discerne the inclination of its naturall imprinted in the inward And he that doth conjecture from thence is as he to whom heaven being covered with Clouds cannot perceive the constellations that are there or otherwise darkened from his sight And although the sagest and most expert in these things can finde out something therein denoted by the draughts and lineaments of the palme of the hand and fingers or within them for by the outside it is case a part and shew nothing but the nailes which are not a little secret and mystery because by death they are obfuscate but have a shining lustre while they live in the haire eyes nose and lips and all the rest of his person For as God hath made the Sunne Moone and Stars thereby to declare to the great World not only the day night and seasons but the change of times and many signes that must appeare in the earth So hath he manifested in the little world Man certaine draughts and lineaments holding place of lights and starres whereby men may attaine to the knowledge of very great secrets not common nor knowne of all Hence is it that the Intelligences of the superiour world do distill and breath as it were by some channels their influences whereby the effects come to struggle and accomplish their effects here below as of things drawn with a rude and strong bow will plant themselves within a Butt where they rest themselves But to retake the discourse of this double man and the vestment of him the Apostle in the 1 Cor. 15. saith That there are bodies Celestial and bodies Terrestrial yet there is a glory both of the one and of the other There is a naturall or animall body and there is a body spirituall he will raise up the spirituall body incorruptible To this relates the Fire to the corruptible Salt From these vestments furthermore the occasion presents it selfe to a larger extension the better to declare who must be seasoned with Fire and who with Salt which is here expressed by the offering to whom the exteriour doth correspond according to the Apostle Rom. 12. I pray you brethren by the mercy of God that you offer up your bodies a living Sacrifice holy and acceptable unto him which is your reasonable service which it could not make it selfe the habitation of the Holy Ghost if it were not pure neat and incontaminate Know you not that your Body is the Temple of the holy Spirit which is in you which in Scripture is commonly designed by fire with which wee must be salted inwardly that is to say preserved from corruption and from what corruption from sinne that putrifies our soules Origen in his 7. book against Celsus speaking of its vestments sets downe that being of it selfe incorporeall and invisible in what corporall place soever it findes it selfe it must have a body convenable to the nature of the place where it resides As then when it is in this Elementary world it must have also an elementary body which it takes when it is incorporated in the belly of a woman to grow there and there to live this base life with the body that it hath taken to the limited terme which expired it devests it selfe of this corruptible vestment although necessary in the earth from whence it came following that which God said to Adam in the third of Genesis Thou art dust and shalt returne to dust to be revested with an incorruptible whose perpetuall abode is in Heaven For this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortall must put on immortality And so the soul putting off its first Terrestriall vestment takes another more excellent above in the Aethereall Region which is of the nature of Fire hitherto Origen to which nothing could be found more conformable then that which Pythagoras puts towards the end of his golden verses Thus forsaking this mortall body thou passest into the free Aethereall Aire you shall become an immortall God incorruptible and no more subject to death as if he would say that after this materiall corruptible body shall put off the Terrestriall and impure vestment the perfect portion of
God and Angels Fire and doth not onely propose unto us Chariots and wheeles of Fire but of igneall animals of burning brookes and rivers of coales and men all burned All these celestial bodies are but flaming lights and thrones and Seraphims all of fire there is so great affinity and agreement with Divinity for the fire that the feeling and smelling perceiveth is separated in respect of the substance from all others that may bee joined and mingled therewith except it bee of the matter to which it is incorporated to burne It shines it spreads it selfe from side to side and gathering it selfe to its selfe with its light it illustrates all that is neare it nor can it bee seene without the matter whereto it adheres and exerciseth its action no more then Divinity but by its effects nor arrest nor fasten nor mingle with any thing nor change so long as it liveth there where it handleth all things and draws them to its selfe and to its nature It renewes and rejoyceth all with vitall heat it illustrates and illuminates all tending alwaies upward with agility and incomparable speed It communicates his motion to all its light its heat without any diminution of its substance what portion soever it lends but ever remaines entire in it selfe It comes suddenly and returneth as fast without mans knowledge whence it comes or whither it goes with many other worthy considerations of this common fire which brings us to the knowledge of the divine fire whereof this materiall is but as a garment and coverture and Salt the coverture of Fire which is appeased in Salt and agreeth with its enemy Water as Earth in Saltpeter doth with its contra-opposite the Aire by reason of the water that is betweene them for Saltpeter participates of the nature of Brimstone and of Fire for that it burnes and of Salt for that it resolves into water For saith Heber it is the property of Salts and Alums to bee dissolved into water sith they were made thereof But of this more to the purpose hereafter in its place The meditations of the Covertures and revestments are of no small importance to mount from things sensible to things intelligible for they are all infolded one in another as an Encyclie or a spirall Moone Zohar makes these revestments double Pag. 29. Encyclides ab 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 round Eph. 4.22 24. the one mounting and devesting its selfe Put off the old man and put on the new for no spirituall thing descending downwards operates without a vestment Sit yee in Jerusalem till you be clad with power from above Luk. 24.49 And in this case the body envelopeth and reclotheth the spirit the spirit the soule the soul the intellect the intellect the Temple the Temple the Throne the Throne the Sechinah or the glory and presence of God which shineth in the Tabernacle In descending this glory is shut out from the Throne and from the Arke of the Covenant which is within the Tabernacle or Intellect the Tabernacle within the Temple which is our Soule Yee are the Temple of God the Temple is in Jerusalem our vital spirit Jerusalem in Palestine our body and Palestine in the midst of the earth whence our body is composed God then being a pure Spirit stript of al corporeity and matter for our soule being such for more reason must hee be so that made it to his image and resemblance hee cannot bee in this simple and absolute nakednesse comprehended nor apprehended by his Creatures but by certaine attributes which they give him which are as many vestments which the Caballists do particularize to ten Zephirots or numerations 3 in the intelligible world and 7 in the celestiall which come to terminate in the Moone or Malcut the last in descending and the first in mounting from the Elementary world upwards for it is a passage from here below to heaven So that the Pythagoreans call the Moone the Celestial earth and the heaven or terrestrial Star all the nature here below in the elementary world being in regard of the celestiall and the celestiall of the intelligible this Zohar called feminine passible as from the Moone towards the Sunne from whom so much as she absents her selfe till she comes to its opposition by so much she increaseth in light for our regard here below where on the contrarry in her conjunction that shee remaines all darkened the party upward is all illightned to shew us that the more that our understanding doth abate to things sensible so much the more doth he disjoine or sever them from the intelligible and contrariwise this was the cause that Adam was lodged in an earthly Paradise to have more leisure to contemplate on divine things when he thought to turne after sensible and temporall things willing to taste of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evill whereby hee departed from that of life to assubject himselfe to death he was banished from thence and put out To this very purpose Zohar doth yet adde that two vestments come from heaven to this temporall life The one formall white and resplendent masculine fatherly and agent for whatsoever is active takes place from forme of the male and from the father and this very thing comes to us from fire and from the clearnesse of the stars to illustrate our understanding The other is red maternall faeminine for the soule coming from the substance of heaven which is more rare then that of heavenly bodies That of the understanding is lodged in the braine and the other of the soule in the heart The intellect or understanding is that part of the reasonable soule made and formed after the image and semblance of its Creators and the soule in it the animal faculty called Nephesch the life namely that which resideth in the bloud and as the heaven containes the stars this contains the intellect which to us is for the rest common with brute beasts But the intellect or reasonable soule is proper and particular to men that which can merit or demerit therefore it needs repurgation and cleansing from the spots that it hath drawne and conceived from the flesh wherein it was plunged according to that in the 8. of Genesis 21. The thought and imagination of mans heart were inclined to evill from his youth And fith it is a question about cleansing the vestment which is of a fiery nature it must likewise be that it be done b◠meanes of fire for wee see by experience that one fire chaseth away another as it hath been said heretofore so that if a man bee burnt there is no readier remedy then to burne it againe in the same place enduring the heat of the fire as much as you can which drawes the inflammation to its selfe out of the party or else tempering it with Aqua vitae wherein Vitriol hath beene calcined from whence Chirurgeons have not found a more soveraigne remedy to take away the fire of a musket sho◠to
their destruction wherefore of necessity that which is pure and incorruptible must be separated from its contrary the corruptible and impure which cannot be done but by fire the separator and purificator But the three liquid Elements Water Aire and Fire are as inseparable one from the other for if the Aire were distracted from the fire the fire which hath therefrom one of its principall maintainments and food would suddenly extinguish and if the water were separated from the Aire all would bee in a flame That if the Aire should be quite drawne from the water for as much as by its legerity it holds it somewhat suspended all would be drowned Likewise if Fire should be separated from the Water all would bee reduced into a deluge For three Elements neverthelesse may well bee disjoined from the Earth but not wholly there must remaine some part to give consistence to the Body and render it tangible by the meanes of a most subtill and thinne portion thereof which they will elevate with them out of this gross thickness that remaines below as wee may sensibly see in glass which by an industrious Artifice of fire is depured of the darknesse that was in the ashes to passe from thence to a transparent clearnesse which is of the nature of Fire and indissoluble Salt accompanied with a firme and solid thicknesse having neither transpiration nor pores But wherefore should wee not hereto file all in one traine those so excellent Meditations of Zohar sith all depends on the same purpose God formed Adam of the slime of the earth or according to the Hebrew God formed man dust of the earth which word of forming belongeth properly to Potters who fashion of earth all that they thinke good And touching the dust this is but to abate our pride with which wee may bee swolne when wee consider the vile and corruptible matter whereof wee are made in respect of our bodies which is nothing else but mire and dirt Consider then three things saith Zohar and thou shalt not fall into transgression Remember from whence thou art come of such filthy and foule stuffe and whither thou must at last returne to dust wormes and rottennesse and before whom thou art to render an account and reason of all thy actions and comportments who is the soveraigne Judge the King of all who leaves no transgression unpunished nor good worke irrecompensed Adam then and all his posterity were formed of the dust of the earth which had before beene moistned with the fountaine or vapour which was highly elevated by the Sunnebeams to water and to soften the earth For the Earth being of it selfe cold and dry is altogether sterill and fruitlesse if it be not impregned with moisture and heat whence proceed fecundity So that Adam was composed of Earth and Water mingled together These two elements betoken a double faculty in him and double formation the one of the body in regard of this age the other of the soule in another world Water shewes the celestiall Meditation whereto our spirit may exalt it selfe and the earth of it selfe immoveable and that can never budge from below nor willingly mingle with the other three volatil elements by reason of its extreame drynesse so that it doth but grow hard by the action of fire and makes it selfe more contrary and untractable by the spirit of contradiction hard and refractory from the flesh against the spirit so that shee should reject the water which men thought to put therein if it were not by meanes of the subtill Aire interposing and mingling therewith and penetrating into the smallest parts which being suckt within the water forces the earth to feed on it to inclose it in her selfe as if shee would detaine it prisoner and by that meanes remaines great as the female by a male for every superiour thing in order and degree holds the place of male to that which is inferiour and subject thereunto Now if the Aire absent it selfe which associates and unites them together as being suppeditated and banished which is moist and hot from the extreame drynesse and coldnesse of the earth it will force it with all its power to reject the water and so reduce it selfe to its first drynesse which we may perceive in Sand which will never receive water except it be quickly separated Even so the earth is alwaies rebellious and contumacious of it selfe to bee mollified be it by water by aire by fire and after this manner there was a spirit of contradiction and disobedience introduced into Adam by reason of the earth whereof he was formed as his Companion and himselfe do shew when by the suggestion of the Serpent the most terrestriall animall of all others they so easily contradicted that extreame prohibition which was given them of not tasting the fruit of the knowledge of good and evill for the punishment whereof it was said to the Serpent thou shallt eat earth all the dayes of thy life which Isaiah resumes in 65. chap. Dust is thy bread And to Adam that the earth should produce nothing but thornes briars and thistles by means whereof if he would live he must cultivate it with the sweat of his browes till he returne to that from whence he was drawne for being dust hee must returne to dust But water which notifies Divine speculations disirous to mingle and unite with all things to whom it gave beginning and made them grow and multiply is as the carriage or vestment of the spirit following that which was said in the beginning of the Creation that the Spirit of God was stretched over the waters or as the Hebrew word Marachephet caries it hovering over them fomenting and vivifying them as a Henne doth her Chickens with a connaturall heat for this word Elobim imports I know not what of heate and fire By Water then the docill spirit obedient to the invitations of the intellect insinuated it selfe into Adam and by Earth the refractory and opiniaster that spurneth against the pricke for as the earth was the most ignoble Element of all others water rejecteth it and disdaineth it and could agree with it but as to a lee and excrement but if the pure and neat spirit remaines within the water where it made choice of its residence for from the three natures of earth water at least never joines with the two that is to say sand for its extreame drynesse that causeth a discontinuation of parts and the dirt to be fatty and unctuous there is not any thing else Argilla but slime only with which some food and mingling which may bee thereof made the water at last lets it reside below and it swimmes over as being of a contrary nature the one altogether immoveable solid and compact the other fluent removing and gliding as bloud through the veines wherein the spirits reside who can easily bee elevated to bee of a fiery quality alwayes soring upward So that the water which notifies the interiour spirit endeavours to
which doth nothing by reason of the contrarieties of their natures which do not suffer them to be able to joine and unite And where there is no mixtion there is also no alteration because that which doth not enter doth not change saith Gebeâ— So that Salts being in the nature of Fires have from them their proprieties and effects that is to say to purifie and cleanse all ordures and uncleanness For as Salt the same Zohar pursues it hinders putrefaction to which every corruptible thing is subject so the Fire of Gods love and of Gods knowledge which is illightned in the soul repurging it from all corporall coinquinations causeth that after it hath been duly purged and cleansed it remaines for ever in its purity for as much as fire devours and consumes the filthy scumme thereunto fastned cloathing it selfe with a new and pure fire which it could not otherwise do For if it were not so assisted with this pure fire the Cherubin which is committed to the keeping of the Gate of the City of Delices with a fiery sword to forbid the approach to the tree of Life would not permit it to enter therein from whence the curiosity of tasting of the knowledg of good and evill excluded our forefathers and us with them hereditarily Hitherto Zohar then which nothing could seem more conformable nor which carryed it selfe better to our subject Every man shall be salted with Fire and every Sacrifice with Salt For to salt in this regard to cleanse and purifie are but one thing as also to salt and to burn because of their consemblable effects Burne my reines and my heart where burning is put for repurging and cleansing according to the Hebrew and the Chaldee and in the 13 of Zachary 9. I will burn them as silver is burned To which sutes also that which the Apostle writ in the 1 Cor. 3.12 If any man build upon this foundation gold silver pretious stones or wood hay stubble Every mans work shall be made manifest for the day shall declare it because it shall be revealed by fire and the fire shall try every mans work of what sort it is If any mans work abide which he hath built thereupon he shall receive a reward If any mans work shall be burnt he shall suffer losse but he himself shall be saved yet so as by fire Saint Augustine citing this place throughout the whole scope of his works interpreteth it in the 21. of the City of God 26. chap. for the vanities which men have too narrowly embraced in this age which we shall not enjoy in another but they must be abolished and defaced by the repurgation of fire for that which he had not without provoking love he shall not lose without burning grief And at length shall be saved as by fire because nothing shall be able to remove it from this foundation upon which it shall be built S. Ambrose to the same purpose in his third Sermon upon the 118. Psal As good gold even the very Church when it is burnt receives not detriment but its lustre and resplendency encrease more and more The Persians esteemed that when they voluntarily burned themselves the soul remained thereby repurged from all iniquities misdoings which consumed by the flames as touching the body which had power to move the Indian Calanus and some others to come from thence for God would not that we should advance our dayes by one moment who at the time they receive him he washeth us and cleanseth us from all preceding faults Whereby some abusing themselves thereby attended to receive it as slowly as they could and others baptized themselves for those which were already deceased In Aethiopia one who had conspired against the proper person of their Neguz or Emperour by baptizing himself thereupon before he was imprisoned remained quit So the proprieties of fire are in the first place to shine and lighten and that is by it common to the Sunne but it is thereby much surmounted And afterwards to warm digest and bake which this luminary doth also primitively as we may see in that the Earth produceth but for that the naturall heat doth not bring them wholly for our use to the last and perfect degree of maturity fire for the most part supplyes its wants and defaults for the regard of the concocting of what we eat for we hardly thereby make our profit being raw there where it is baked in the fire it becomes of more facil digestion and lesse corruptible as having lesse of crudities afterwards the fire separates strange things and not alike and after having taken away the corrupting superfluities namely the waterish humidity which it dâ—iveth out and the oily unctuosity which it burns and consumes with the terrestrieties that remain at last it doth gather together in a new composure the pure homogenealities which composure then consisteth of soul body and spirit from now forwards inseparable and incorruptible which relates to the three worlds the soul to the intelligible the spirit to the celestiall and the body to the elementary but this is not a reasonable soul or sensitive nor a vitall spirit such as is in animals but substances equipollent unto them which may be seen in glass which is an image of the Philosophicall Stone Whereupon Raymond Lullius enquiring of the confection of the said Stone and how men may attain thereunto made answer hee that knoweth to make glasse because their manner of proceeding are alike and such ought that pretious substance to be which Hermolaus Barbarus in his Annotations upon Plinie and Appian in his disquisition of antiquities alledgeth to have been found in an old Sepulchre in the Territory of Padua not above a hundred years since having this Distique with two others For he shut in with great labour the digested Elements under this small vessel greatest Olybius The Roman Morienes to Calid King of Aegypt on his Treatise of Metallick transmutation Whosoever shall know well how to neatify and whiten the soul and make it mount on high and can well preserve its body and take therefrom all obscurity and blacknesse with the evill smell she may then replace it in its body and in the hour of their rejunction great marvels will appear yet Rhases in his Epistle So every soul doth reconjoin to its first body which in any other manner cannot be reunited to another and from thence forwards shall never separate for then the body shall be glorified and reduced to incorruption and to a subtilty and brightnesse unspeakable So that it will penetrate all solid things whatsoever they be bccause its nature shall be such as of a Spirit that which he borrowed out of Hermes it shall penetrate every subtill thing An admirable thing that these Chymicall Philosophers under the vaile and curtain of this Art treating wholly about things so materiall as are metals and that which depends thereon with their transmutations by fire have comprized the most high secrets of Intelligibles and even
to which it doth adhere makes it vary And this it is in which it comes nearest to the Celestiall nature which is all Uniform in it self and so well regulated that it hath nothing unlike which maketh that the fire is repurgative above the rest of his fellow Elements to clear them and put in evidence In the 12. of St. Luke our Saviour warneth his Disciples to have their Lampes burning in their hands that their light might come to shine amongst men that their good workes may bee seen to glorifie their Father which is in heaven for hee that doth ill hates the light which Job saith is worse to Malefactors then the shadow of death It is the same also that Moses would secretly infer in the 3. of Gen. where hee makes God to walk at noon which is the clearest light of the day And the Apostle in the 1. of Tim. 6.16 saith that he dwells in light in accessible without which all would be confusedly folded up in hideous darknesse Let us then take heed that the light which hee hath pleased to put into our soul be not obfuscate and converted into black obscurity and that on this solid foundation which hee hath granted us of his knowledge wee build not hay wood and chaffe all things of themselves obscure and dark in lieu of gold silver pretious stones so clear shining and bright Let us hear again that which Zohar divinely discourseth of about fire and light upon the Text of the 4. of Levit. Thy Lord God is a consuming fire That there is one fire which devoures another being the stronger as wee may see in some burning firebrand or torch that which proceeds therefrom is of two sorts the one blew attached to a black match which retaineth it self there nourishing it self from corruption The other flame proceeding from the red inflamed Match is white and the blew is white in the highest as to return to the first originall this Homer was not ignorant of when in the 6. of his Odysses hee attributed to the Olympus a pure and bright splendor Nothing should better represent unto us the four worlds namely the white which is supercelestial the blew celestiall the match fired the Elementary and the burning darknesse Hell which abundantly shews us the body Rednes the vitall spirit resident in the bloud the blew the soul the white the intellect and the divine character imprinted in the soul and as the blew light doth quickly change into yellow quickly into white the soul also can doe the same according as it shall incline it self to good or to evill or whether shee follows the provocations of the flesh or the invitations and exhortations of the intellect following that which is written in the 4. Gen. 7. If thou doe well shalt thou not bee accepted and if thou dost not well sin lieth at the dore And unto thee shall bee his desire and thou shalt rule over him The white flame is alwayes the same without variation or change as doth the blew So the fire in this respect is fourfold Black in the lower part of its weik where the flame that is fastened to it is blew Red in the top of the weik and the flame white This which relates also to the four Elements black materiall to the Earth Blew more spirituall to the air Red to fire and white to water For heaven is composed of fire and water which is above the heavens Let the waters that are above the heavens praise the Lord. Yet neverthelesse all this is but fire as Moses the son of Maynon declares very well in the second Book of his Mor. chap. 31. where he saith that under the name of Earth are comprised the four Elements and by darknesse was understood the first fire for it is said in the of Deut. You have heard his words out of the midst of fire and then he adds of a sodain You have heard his voice out of darknesse This fire moreover was called the first fire because that is not it which is shining and clear but it is only so transparent to the sight as is the Air and could not comprehend it self therewith for if it were shining wee should in the night see all the air shine as fire And for that the darknesse which was first named denoted fire namely that whereof it is said that darknesse was upon the face of the Abysse because the fire was under the three Elements comprised under this word Abyssus There are other darknesses which follow after then when the separation of things was made and the Darknesses he called Night All this the foresaid Rabbin put out To which that would touch which the Alcoran carries in Azoare 65. I will send you a clear and beautifull fire All this which adheres then to the low black part is therwith consumed destroyed and holdeth place of death after which cometh true life the blue flame likewise if it therein degenerate and lets it predominate but the white doth not endeavor but to uncover it self here below to transport it self upwards and not suffer it self to bee over mastered by others And doth not devoure nor destroy nor is not thereby devoured nor his clear shining splendor altered as are those of the others By reason whereof wee must adhere and let our selves be salted with this white fire and bee illuminated with this fair white light that never varies following that which is said in the 4. of Deut. You which adhere to the Lord your God you are all living also as at this day But if our blew light the soul adhere to the black and to the red which are our sensualities and concupiscences the strange fire will force it selfe into us and will devoure and consume us This knowledge of the Elements and of their colours doth not insist only in composed bodies here below but thereby wee may mount as by Jacobs Ladder the height of this celestiall world where the Elements are also yet of another sort more simple and depured and from thence to passe beyond into the intelligible world where they are in their true essence for all consists in the four Elements Sons of wisdome understand saith Hermes in his Tract of 7. chapters not only corporally but also spiritually the science of the four Elements whose secret apparition is in no wise signified except they bee first compounded because of the Elements there is nothing made without their composition and Regiment Will we dive more deeply into the secrets of this Caball This Composition and Regiment of the Elements is no other thing then the Sacrosanct four-lettered ineffable Jehovah which comprehends all that which is was and shall bee where the little and finall ה notes the body and matter or other the like where the Fire cleaveth or fasteneth unto The ך vau or cloud copulative which assembles the two ה the intelligible and the sensible are the spirits that join the Soul with the Body the red inflammation of the coal or weik
more then a mile This clearnesse consists not onely in the eyes but also in their flanks when they open their wings They are accustomed to serve themselves with them as we do with a Lamp or other light to sup at night and to do the affairs of the house But when he comes to determine and dye its light extinguisheth also The Indians had a custome to make a post of them to strike feare in seeing them by night for that it seemed that they had a visage being rub'd therewith as if it were all fire Plinie in his 21. Book chap. 11. speaketh of a shining herb in the night called Nyctegretes or Nyctilops for that we may see it shine a farre off but he alledgeth many things by heare-say as not having seen them But to returne to the Suns light which is therein more perfect then in any other thing sensible with heat for it is the true heavenly fire as Speusippus said which describeth all that appertaines to the nourishment of this great man the Universe as the Elementary doth the viands of the animal man And as the heart in animals is the principall soul of life the same is the Sunne in the heart of the world and the primordiall spring of all light therein which he departs to the Stars as doth Jesus Christ to our souls And no more nor lesse then the Sunne and the Moon said Origen upon Genesis illightens our bodies likewise our consciences and thoughts are from this splendour of the Father if wee be not blinde and that this proceeds not by our faults Now if we be not all equally illuminated no more then the Stars are by the Sunne which differ in brightnesse one from the other but according to our capacity and carriage and as more or lesse we lift up the eyes of our contemplation to receive this light Returne you towards me and I will returne towards you for he is a God at hand and not a God a farre off That which we can have of intelligence saith Zohar by our naturall ratiocination is as if our spirit were lightned by the Moone but the Divine relation holds place of the Sunne whence the light chaseth away and banisheth the Princes of Darknesse where their greatest force and vigour raignes The Sunne is risen they shall be placed in their chambers sayes the 104 Psalme speaking of Devils and wicked Spirits under the name of savage and revenous Beasts For as Zohar puts it these tenebrions are stronger and more gallant in the darke so the good Angels that assist and favour us receive great reinforcement from the light not onely from the Divine but from the Celestiall and solar by which the Divine and Supreame shining brightnesse imparts her vertue to the heavens and by them communicates it to all that is under the sphere of the Moone within the elementary world Wherefore not without cause about dead bodies till they bee put in the grave they imploy lights to drive farre off this ancient Serpent Zamael to whom for malediction it is said thou shalt â—at earth all the dayes of thy life for our Bodies being deprived thereof are no more but dust and earth So that fire is a great aid and comfort to us not onely during our life but yet after our death against these wicked dark powers which gnaw in obscurity as these night birds and savage beasts which dare not appeare in the day fearing the light of the Sunne how much more then that of good spirits their adversaries which receive it from the divine resplendence for the same as is the Sunne towards it the fire is in regard of the Sunne who serves us amongst other things to make us see this so great accomplished work of the universe built by the Soveraigne Creator of so excellent Artifice and that which his light doth manifest unto us in this sensible world it is nothing for this regard for the true being doth consist of things intellectual stript of all corporeity and matter the Sunne it selfe the rarest master-piece of all others could not see it selfe but by its proper light which is presently accompanied with a heat vivifying all things for there is a double propriety one to shine and clarifie the other to warme yea to burne the subjacent matters which illuminates the whitenesse and waxeth blacke with the Sunnes heat The Sunne hath coloured mee Cant. 1. Whereupon Origen notes that there where there is no sinne nor matter of sinne there is scorching or burning following the 121 Psalm The Sun shall not burne thee by day nor the Moon by night for the Sunne illuminates good men but it burnes up sinners who hating light for the evill they have done for in many places of Scripture you shall finde that the Sunne and the Fire whereof it speake they are not those that wee see but the spirituall The spirituall Sunne saith Saint Augustine doth not rise but upon holy persons following that which is spoken of the perverse in the 5. of Wisdome The light of Justice is not risen upon us nor the Sunne of Intelligence is not come to illighten us As for its heat it must rather be kept for witnesse of Holy Scripture there is no man can hide him from the heat thereof not to frivolous imaginations and subtilities of those that maintaine it to be neither hot nor cold grounding themselves upon this argument All heat in long continuance although that it remaine alwayes in the same estate and degree doth notwithstanding augment it selfe so that it would bee intolerable If then the Sunne be so hot as it seems after five or six thousand years since when it was first created it would follow that there would come a conflagration under the torrid Zâ—ne from whence he stirs not who from thence was extended to all the rest of the earth there where we see the contrary for the whole is alwayes in the same estate And afterwards for that the sunne is many times greater then the globe of the Sea and the Earth and its Sphere so farre esloigned from it that it hath no proportion with it it should follow that it was as hot in one time and place as in another With semblable deductions against which it is easie to contradict but this would turne us aside too farre from our principall Subject Anaxagoras also said that it was a grosse enflamed stone or a plate of burning fire Anaximander a wheel full of fire 25. times greater then all the earth Xenophanes an heap of little fires The Stoicks an inflamed body proceeding from the Sea wherein they have shewed the affinity of fire and salt together Plato a body of much fire and thus one after one fashion one after another but all tending to make it of the nature of fire Moreover it is a thing too admirable of its greatnesse so immense whereupon the spirit of man hath fair Galleries to walke in pursuit of the high fetched meditations of Gods mervails for as Chrysostome said well
resolutions and resisting one the other chiefly afterward from all liquid humidity unctuous but inconsumptible It is moreover the first originall as well of mineralls as of stones and pretious stones yea of all other mineralls Likewise of vegetables and of Animalls whose blood and urinall humour and all other substance is salted to preserve it from putrefaction and in generall from all mixed and composed Elements which is herein verified that they resolve themselves into it so that it is as the other life of all things and without it saith the Philosopher Morien nature can no wayes work nor can any other thing be ingendred according to Raimund Lullus in his testament Whereunto all chymicall Philosophers doe adhere that nothing hath been created here below in the Elementary part better nor more pretious then salt There is salt then in every thing and nothing can subsist but for the salt which is therein mixed which ties the parts together as a chain otherwise they would all go into small powder and give them nourishment for there are two substances in salt the one viscous gluish and unctuous of the nature of air which is sweet and indeed there is nothing that nourisheth but what is sweet the bitter and the salt do not The other is a dust sharp pricking and biting of the nature of fire which is laxative For all salts are laxative and nothing doth loose the body that participates not of the nature of salt Mark then wherefore is it that those that drink salt water die speedily of dysenteries the salt which is mingled therewith causing a gnawing in the bowels for there is nothing corrosive but salt or of the nature of salt fiery of it self saith Plinie lib. 31. ch 9. and yet enemy of actuall fire for it leaps up and down it danceth to and fro and crackles corroding also all to which it is fastened and drying it although it be the strongest and most permanent humidity of all others and it is a moisture saith Geber that above all other moistures expects an encounter with fire So wee see in metals which are nothing else but congealed and baked 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 a soul that revivifies and gives them grace and savor 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 Evenus 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 consciences 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 vnto God c. Therein was there it may be another reason that moved Moses to exalt salt so much that according as Rabbi Moses the Aegyptian discourseth at large in his third book of his More 47 ch where he renders a particular reason for the most part of Mosaical ceremomonies his principall aim was to overthrow all Idolatries even rhose of the Aegyptians 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 sait 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
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 Surplusage 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 wayes 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 far 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 It hath pleased me in some sort to runne through the foresaid experiments of water as well for the importance and rarity which they have as for that it depends upon salt whereof water makes the principall part and likewise of the sea from whence separating the sweet substance the salt remains solid congealed and of this salt resolved by it selfe to moisture they extract by distillation the greatest part of sweet water by meanes whereof without departure from this subject of salt it will not be amisse to touch here something of the Sea whose water is as a body the salt enclosed not perceiveable to the sight but well to the tast are the vitall spirits and the oleaginous inflamable substance envelopped within the salt the soule and the life of the nature of aire or of wind remember because wind is my life There are then two substances in the Sea and by consequent in salt the one liquid and volatile which ascends upward and is double water namely and oile the one and the other sweet and fresh And the other fix and solid which is bitter and salt wherefore it was that Homer called the Ocean the father of Gods and of men for by stretching out of all side crossewise the Conduits and spongiosities of the earth which hee holds encompassed round about as a dry hanging on to some rock there within by a providence of nature is made a separation of substances of the fresh namely and of the salt for the Marine water passeth through these Conduits they unsalt it even as they should distill it by an Alembic of Cornue or as one should passe it through sand many times part whereof should remaine baked in the earth for the production and nouriture of vegetables part passeth through springs wells and fountaines whence all flouds and rivers are formed Eccles 1.7 All rivers runne into the Sea yet the Sea is not full unto the place from whence the rivers come thither they returne againe And part elevates it selfe aloft by meanes of the Sun and starres which draw and suck them as well for their nouriture as for the formation of raines snowes hailes and other aqueous expressions in the aire The salt which is more grosse heavy and terrestriall remains invisqued in the veines and conduits of the earth where heat inclosed bakes it digests alters and changes it into another nature for the production of all sorts of Minerals by meanes of the portion of fresh water mingled therewith which dissolves and washeth off these salts so that finally having been brought to their last perfection according to natures intention shee enformes that which shee hath determined The Sea then is not so barren and unfruitfull as some poets and Philosophers have made it Plato himselfe in his Phaedon where he saith that nothing could be there procreated worthy of Jupiter because all the Animals procreated therein are wild untameable and indocill and in which there is neither amity
A DISCOVRSE OF FIRE and SALT DISCOVERING Many secret Mysteries AS WELL PHILOSOPHICALL AS THEOLOGICALL London Printed by Richard Cotes 1649. To his worthy friend Captaine Thomas Falconbridge SIR J Have been informed of your zeal and forwardnesse in advancing Learning and Truth two commendable vertues for a man of your merit and profession And meeting with a subject composed by a French Authour I present the Translation to your favourable acceptance It is of forraign birth though swadled up in an English habit It hath done much good abroad and I am confident it will do the like here if supported with your approbation It had not seen the Presse here had I not been assured of the candor and integrity of the Authour I repose confidence of acceptation because the Translator hath been of your long acquaintance and was lately sensible of your propensity and assistance when he came in your way If this may find grace with you you will engage him to make further inquisition into this most sacred and secret mystery and to rest SIR Your most affectionate friend EDVVARD STEPHENS AN EXCELLENT TREATISE OF FIRE and SALT Composed by the Lord Blaise of VIGENERE The first part PYTHAGORAS who of all Pagans was undoubtedly by common consent and approbation held to have made more profound search and with less incertainty penetrated into the secrets as well of Divinity as of Nature having quaffed full draughts from the living source of Mosaicall Traditions amid'st his darke sentences where accordlng to the Letter he touched one thing and mystically understood and comprised another wherein he imitates the Aegyptians and Chaldaeans or rather the Hebrewes from whence all theirs proceeded he here sets downe these two Not to speake of God without Light and to apply Salt in all his Sacrifices and Offerings which he borrowed word for word from Moses as we shall hereafter declare For our intention is here to Treat of Fire and of Salt And that upon the 9. of Saint Marke ver 49. Every man shall be salted with Fire and every Sacrifice shall be salted with Salt Wherein foure things come to be specified Man and Sacrifice Fire and Salt which yet are reduced to two comprehending under them the other two Man and Sacrifice Fire and Salt in respect of the conformitie they beare each to other In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth this said Moses on the entrance upon Genesis Whereupon the Jew Aristobulus and some Ethniques willing to shew that Pythagoras and Plato had read Moses bookes and from thence drawne the greatest part of their most secret Philosophy alledged that which Moses should have said that the heaven and the earth were first created Plato in his Timaeus after Timaeus Locrien said that God first assembled Fire and Earth to build an universe thereof we will shew it more sensibly of Zohar in the Weik of a Candle lighted for all consists of light being the first of all Creatures These Philosophers presupposing that the World consisted as indeed it doth of the foure Elements which are as well in heaven and yet higher as in the earth and lower but in a diverse manner The two highest Aire and Fire being comprised under the name of Heaven and of the Aethereall Region for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes from the verbe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shine and to enflame the two proprieties of these Elements And under the word Earth the two lower Earth and Water incorporated into one Globe But although Moses set Heaven before Earth and observe here that in all Genesis he toucheth at nothing but things sensible but not of intelligible things which is a point apart for concerning this there is no good agreement between Jewes and Christians Saint Chrysostome in his first Homily Observe a little with what dignity the Divine Nature comes to shine in his manner of proceeding to the creation of things For God contrary to Artists in building his Edifice stretched out first the heavens round about afterwards planted the earth below Hee wrought first at the head and afterwards came to the foundation But it is the Hebrewes custome that when they speake most of a thing they ordinarily put the last in order which they pretend to touch first And the same is here practised where Heaven is alledged before Earth which he comes to discry immediately after In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth and the Earth was without Forme and void Saint Matthew useth the same upon the entrance to his Gospell The Booke of the Generation of Jesus Christ the son of David the son of Abraham Abraham begat Isaac c. For it is well knowne that Abraham was a long time before David Otherwise it seemes that Moses would particularly demonstrate that the Earth was made before the Heaven by the Creation of man that is the Image and pourtrait of the great World for that in the second of Genesis God formed man of the slime of the earth that is to say his body which it represents and afterwards breathed in his face the spirit or breath of life that carrieth him backe to heaven whereunto suits that which is written in the 1 to the Cor. 15. The first man from the earth is earthly and the second man from heaven is heavenly the first man Adam was made a living soule and the last Adam a quickning spirit Whereto the Generation of the Creature relates who six weeks after the Conception is nothing but a masse of informed flesh till the soule that is infused from above doth vivifie it Moreover the foure Elements whereof all is made consists of foure qualities Hot and Drie Cold and Moist two of them are bound up in each of them Earth that is to say Cold and Dry the Water Cold and Moist the Aire Moist and Hot the Fire Hot and Dry whence it comes to joine with the earth for the Elements are circular as Hermes would have it each being engirded with two others with whom it agreeth in one of their qualities which is thereunto appropriate as Earth betwixt Fire and Water participates with the Fire in drynesse and with Water in coldnesse and so of the rest Man then which is the Image of the great World and therefrom is called the Microcosme or little World as the World which is made after the resemblance of his Archetype is called the great man being composed of foure Elements shall have also its heaven and its earth The soule and understanding are its heaven the body and sensuality its earth So that to know the heaven and earth of man is to have true and entire knowledge of all the Universe and of the Nature of things From the knowledge of the sensible World we come to that of the Creator and the Intelligible world by the Creature the Creator is understood saith Saint Augustine Fire then gives motion to the body Aire feeling Water nourishment and Earth subsistence Moreover heaven designes the intelligible world the
earth the sensible Each of them is subdivided into two in every case I speake not but after Zohar and the ancient Rabbins The intelligible into Paradise and Hell and the sensible to the Celestiall and Elementary world Upon this passage Origen makes a faire discourse at the entry on Genesis that God first made the heaven or the intelligible world following that which is spoken in the 66. of Esay Heaven is my seat and Earth my footstoole Or rather it is God in whom the world dwelleth and not the world which is Gods habitation For in him we live Act. 17.28 move and have our being for the true seat and habitation of God is his proper essence and before the Creation of the World as Rabbi Eliezer sets downe in his Chapteâ—s there was nothing but the essence of God and his name which are but one thing Then after the heaven or the intelligible world Origen pursues God made the Firmament that is to say this sensible world for every body hath I know not what firmnesse and solidity and all solidity is corporal and as that which God proposed to make consisteth of Body and of Spirit for this cause it is written that God first made the Heaven that is to say all spirituall substance upon which as upon a certaine throne hee reposeth himselfe The Firmament for our regard is the body which Zohar calleth the Temple and the Apostle also Yee are Gods Temple 1 Cor. 3.17 And the Heaven which is spirituall is our soule and the inner man the Firmament is the externall that neither seeth nor knoweth God but sensibly So that man is double an animall and spirituall body the one Internall Spirituall Invisible that which Saint Marke in this place designeth for man the other Externall Corporall Animal which he denotes by the Sacrifice which comprehendeth not the things that are of the Spirit of God but the Spirituall discerneth all So that the exteriour man is an animal compared to brute beasts whereout they tooke their offerings for Sacrifices He is compared to foolish Beasts and is made like them for a man hath no more then a Beast we must understand the Carnall and Animall that consists of this visible body that dyeth as well as Beasts are corrupt and returne to Earth Whence Plato said very well that which is seene of man is not man properly And in the first of Alcibiades yet more distinctly that Man is I know not what else then his body namely his soule as it followes afterwards That which Cicero borrowed out of Scipio's dreame But understand it thus that thou art not mortall but this body thou art not that which this forme declares but every mans minde is himselfe not that figure which may be demonstrated by the finger And the Philosopher Anaxarchus while the Tyrant Nicocreon of Cyprus caused him to be brayed in a great Marble Morter cried out with a loud voice Stampe hard bruise the barke of Anaxarchus for it is not him that thou stampest But will it be permitted for me here to bring something of Metubales All that is is either Invisible or Visible Intellectuall or Sensible Agent and Patient Forme and Matter Spirit and Body the Interiour and the Exteriour man Fire and Water that which seeth and that which is seen But that which seeth is much more excellent and more worthy then that which is seen and there is nothing that seeth but the invisible where that which is seene is as a blind thing therefore Water is a proper and serviceable subject over whom the Fire or Spirit may out-stretch his action Also he hath elevated it for his habitation and residence for by introducing it he elevates it on high in the nature of Aire contiguous unto it which invisible Spirit of the Lord was carryed on the waters or rather did sit over tâ—e waters did see the visible moved the immoveable for water hath no motion of it selfe there is none but Aire and Fire that have and speake by the Organs of one that is dumb for as when by our winde and breath filling a pipe or flute we make it sound though never so mute This Body and Spirit water and fire are designed unto us by Cain and Abel the first Creatures of all others engendred of the seed of man and woman and by their Sacrifices whence those of Cain issuing from the fruits of the earth were by consequent corporall dead and inanimate and together destitute of faith which dependeth of the Spirit and are by Fire dissolved into a waterish vapour Pour le nouveau so that to go to finde it in its sphere and habitation for the newes we are to suffer thereunder But those of Abel were spirituall animate full of life that resides in the bloud full of piety and devotion This also Aben Ezra and the author of the Handfull of Myrrh call a fire descending from one above to regather them which happened not to those of Cain which a strange fire devoured and from thence was declared the exteriour man sensuall animall that must bee salted with Salt But Abel the interiour spirituall salted with Fire which is double the materiall and essentiall the actuall and potentiall as it is in burnings All what is sensible and visible is purged by the actuall and the invisible and intelligible by the spiritual and potentiall Saint Ambrose on the Treatise of Isaac and of the Soule What is man the soule of him or the flesh or the assembly of those two for the clothing is one thing and the thing clothed another Indeed there are two men I leave the Messibe apart Adam was made and formed of God in respect of the body of ashes and of earth but afterwards inspired in him the Spirit of Life if he had kept himselfe from misprision he was like unto Angels made participant of eternall beatitude but his transgression dispossessed him The other man is he which comes successively to be borne of man and woman who by his originall offence is made subject to death to paines travails and diseases therefore must hee returne from whence he came But touching the soule that came from God it remains in its free will if it will adhere to God it is capable to bee admitted into the ranke of his children who are borne not of blood nor of the will of the flesh Joh. 1.13 nor of the will of man but of God Such was Adam before his first transgression The soule then which is the inner man spirit and the very true man which liveth properly for the body hath no life of it selfe nor motion and is nothing else but as it were the barke and clothing of the inner man according to Zohar alledging that out of the 10 of Job 11. Thou hast clothed me with skinne and flesh whereunto that in the 6. of S. Matthew seemeth to agree where to shew us how much the soule ought to bee in greater recommendation then the body as more worthy and
The Persians and Vestalls fire at Rome reverenced as well by the one as by the other as very holy was very carefully entertained Touching the Persian Strabo in his 15. Book writeth that the Magi had a custome to conserve it under ashes before which they went every day to make their prayers and devotions which is not without some mystery The ashes denoting the sensible world and the body of man which it represents being nothing else but ashes and the fire therein inclosed and covered the sparkle of life wherewith it is animated and vivified These ashes furthermore must be of some gummy trees Coals kept in Junipeâ— for tâ—â— space of a yea to make it of longer durance namely of Juniper wherein I heretofore have kept living coals more than a year heaping up bed upon bed within the ashes being all lock't fast within a little barrell that no air may enter and this is that which is meant in the 120. Psalm 4. ver with Juniper coals according to the Hebrew in place of uncomfortable With these burning coals the Persians came to light the luminaries of their Temples when they came to be extinguished But the Vestals in case their fire should extinguish as it sometimes happened it was not lawfull for them to light it again but must draw it from the Sun beams And did not only attend that it should quench of it selfe or by some casuall accident but they renewed it yearly the first day of March from that of heaven as Ovidius observes tertio Fastorum Adde that new fire was made in the secret house and the renewed fire took force Which Macrobius also toucheth in his second of Saturnals 12. chap. The first day of March the Vestals lighted a new fire on the Altar of the Goddesse that by the renewing of the year they should renew in themselves their care of keeping it from going out Saint Augustine in his third Book of the City of God 18 ch In what reputation saith he this sacred fire was at Rome men may know by this that when the City was a fire the grand Pontifex Metellus for fear that this strange fire should not mingle with the other put himselfe in danger to be consumed by the flames to make it retire So that there is nothing more conformable to the tenth of Leviticus That if these poor blind people which took the Symbols and Mysteries of Religion but superficially and from the bark as do also the Jewes from whom they borrowed all their important Traditions had known that which was covered and prefigured thereunder what accompt is there to beleeve that they made thereof Some do alledge that this sacred fire of the Vestals was illuminated by means of fusil bruising two pieces of wood one against another or in piercing them with a borrier as Festus would have it and Simplicius upon the third Book of Heaven according to Aristotle Plinie in the 16. Book 4. chap. Men rub two woods one against another from whence fire is forced which is received in by a bait made of dryed leaves and put in powder or in the match of the touchwood of a tree But there is nothing which doth better conduce thereunto then Ivy beaten or bruised with Laurell the same is of late more practised by the Savages of the West Indies as Gonzale d'Ovidiedo in his natural History of those quarters lib. 6. cap. 5. binding saith he two dry sticks hard one against another and putting betwixt their juncture the point of a rod well rounded which they rub thick and thin betwixt the hands so long till the fire by rubbing and the rarefaction of the air that followes them may lighten them Of this new relightning to shew us that we must renew and be borne again to a better and more praisable life not farre different from the Ceremonies of the Christian Church when on the Eves of Easter and Whitsontide at the Benediction of Springs and Fountains they make a new great wax Taper wherewith all the other luminaries are set on fire Touching Moses fire it was first sent from Heaven and lasâ—ed to the construction of Solomons Temple which was again renewed from Heaven and maintained to King Mamasses his time when the Jewes were carryed captives into Babylon which the Levites kept in the bottome of a Well where it was found again at their return 70 years after in the form of a gluish and white water as hath been said heretofore Pausanias to the Corinthians sets down that in the dayes of Antigonus son of Dâ—metrius there appeared a fountain of warm water near to the City of Mathana but from the beginning it appeared not in water but in great flames of Fire which were resolved into hot and salt water Saint Ambrose yet discoursing upon this water of the Levites in the third of his offices sets down that this doth sufficiently demonstrate that this was a perpetual fire which could not be taken from another place to shew that they must not acknowledge any other God or other religion and ceremonies then those that were established by the inspiration of the holy Spirit designed by fire for we may see what the children of Aaron Nadab and Abihu found in the 10 of Leviticus being willing to take upon them to offer strange fire unto God Then all false doctrine idolatry heresie and impiety may be called strange fire that devours the soul as a feaver doth the body with the life that maintains it there where this true fire sent from Heaven is that of the holy Spirit which salteth our hearts and consciences that is to say preserves them from corruption according whereunto the Prophet Jeremie spake in his 20. chapter when he had received it Then it was made as a burning fire in my heart and shut up in my bones and I was weary in forbearing and could not stay That the Holy Spirit should not be only light but very fire Esay doth manifest chap. 10.17 And the light of Israel shall be for a fire and his holy one for a flame For even so as the burnings which are a potentiall fire composed of igneal and burning saâ—ts work not upon a dead part insensible and deprived of Natures heat so the holy Spirit doth not exercise its actions upon cold languishing hearts that make no account of its ticklings and invitations but shew themselves contumacious and refractary just so as the heat of the Sun and of the fire but more and more hardens earth and clay in stead of softning it and melts it as they do wax butter and grease For the acts of Actives are in the disposition of the Patient where we see fire does divers effects in disagreeable subjects but not wholly contrary and directly opposite as when it blacks a coal and white chalk where its vertue is imprinted but all to the contrary for fire by custome is extinguished by water it is it that in this respect inflames and renewes that which was imprinted and hidden
seen This is that oil and vegetable Menstruum c. In regard of the burning water therout extracted more inflameable then the most fine powder of a harguebuze it dissolves silver into subtill Crystalline flakes whieh melt at the fire of a lampe as easily as butter and are fix as silver in the same proofs of fire further see that which the said Riplay sets down in his marrow of Alchymâ—e The body being prepared put upon this water to the thickness of your thumb which wil straight boil above chalks of the body without other external fire by dissolving the body and by elevating it in the shape of ice with the drying of the said water and so let it bee reiterated by removing that which was elevated But to abbridge for this Aqua vitae is in very small quantity and very uneasy to make if you passe two parties of water of the the departure that dissolves the silver upon one party of the salt of lead this will do the same effect for the transmutation of matals but not within a mans body where it must not in any case bee applyed except after great sweetning that is to say a demi sextier of the dissolution of strong water to make evaporate three or four pails of water running down within by a filter to the measure that elevates the strong water with the spirits and malignity of this fire against Nature Think not that I would stay my self here so precisely nor restrain to the Text of Saint Mark nor upon that which dependeth upon the religion in this regard although our principall aim tends thitherward that wee would not enlarge by the same means to the works and progresse of nature whose principall key is Alchymie to mount from thence to the Architype the Creator by means of the Caballe But we would not likewise here so reveal occasions to abuse this divine Art to the ill turnings of perverse ignorants who to gain a piece of silver would make no difficulty to deceive the world one way or other as wee could do in revealing unto the means of blanching copper to the likenesse of silver with Iscicles accompanied with a Metalline of Orpiment the which as yellow gilded as it is and its red elevations as rubies being notwithstanding bruised in a copper morter and sublimed upon burned brasse passeth within the head of the Cornue white as silver But if it be well governed with the foresaid Isicles would make indeed great alterations upon the Copper which men may wel misuse wherefore we will forbear to speak thereof any further We may too well say that the preparation of this body that Riplay intends silver is to calcine and reduce it into salt which is done after this manner But if in the dissolving there be aqua fortis it sufficeth to calcine it Take then silver plates of the bignesse and thicknesse of a riall and put them in a Cruset or a little pot of Paris earth not leaded bed upon bed with prepared Salt that is to say dissolved in common water afterwards filtred congealed and decrepited and leave it 10. or 12. houres with burning coals it would be better in an oven of reverberation draw it from the fire and cast it yet all hot into an earthen vessell leaded full of water salt will dissolve it self therein and that of the silver which shall be calcined will goe to the bottome Let them reside well and separate them warily by inclination after put again the plates to bee recalcined with new salt and reiterated as before evaporate the water or the salt if it be dissolved and that which remains shall be as good as new to the third or fourth reiteration all your plates will find themselves reduced into chalk which you shall easily dissolve in distilled vinegar for silver lead and iron are not of â—ard resolution nor also Copper to take it in Roche of azur Tin much more and Gold more then all the rest for that its calcination is very uneasie Which Geber knew very well the compleat calcination of Sol is most difficult He rendâ—rs the causes thereof But it would be too long to dilaee upon all these things wee will content our selves to trace some shadows of that which our perquisition and labour hath enabled us to acquire by the space of 50. years of one side and another and proved more then once not to speake unadvisedly All which secrets are revealed as is said by the Fire And not by mervails since it analogically discovers the spirituall Thou hast tried me with fire and in mee there is found no iniquity said the Prophet Psal 16. There where you see how hee couples fire with iniquities as if it were it that revealed them as well as hee did the impurities of mettalls where it doth the same operation and effect as salt doth in corruptible things for although metalls bee the permanent substance of all others by reason of their most strong composition which doth not permit them easily to cast away out of their radicall form any alteration which men may make them indure in powder chalk salt water oil glasse Isicles and infinite others which happeneth not to one of the other elementaries Minerals Vegetables Animals the which being once changed from their primitive form they cannot again reintegrate or be put together By means whereof to speak of fire without metals which are its true subject it would bee as to propose to an Artist furnished with necessaries and instruments but had no stuffes proper to imploy them so that would remain to him unprofitable In metalls then there may be revealed and considered the fairest secrets of nature by the help of fires action Which if in some more particularly then in others she hath shewed a will to recreate yea to put in evidence her greater knowledge It seems this was in stones and and metals then which nothing could be presented more fair or agreeable to the sight nor more profitable and necessary at least in regard of Iron without which mans life would irksomely passe away shee receiving so many commoditâ—es thereby But pretious stones beyond the simple contentment and pleasure of the eye have nothing wherewith men may know to draw out profit or succours in any one of our businesses And if they be once deprived of their naturall shining form they never return thereto again as mettals doe so puissant and indissoluble is the assembling of their elementarie parties and their mixtion one with another Wherefore wee must not marvail if so many good spirits have travelled all their time to meditate upon this subject and their divers transmutations having been there unto drawn rather out of those fair considerations which they found therein for their spirits contentation then for any sordid and greedy desire of gain which hath made the ignorant so obstinatâ— who have so cried down this divine Art sister germane to the Caballe for that which the Caballe is divine and intelligible things into the profound
correspondent Star that assists it and from which it receives its maintenance and conservation But how can that agree will some say to the contrary because it seems to derogate and contradict that which in expresse terms is set down in the 1. of Gen. where it is written that in the third day the Earth of her self brought forth herbs and trees containing in them their seeds according to their kinds neverthelesse the Sun nor the Moon nor the Stars were created till the day after the fourth by which is designed its effect and function Let there bee lights made in the firmament of the heaven namely the Sun the Moon and the Stars to separate the night from the day and let them bee for signes and seasons for dayes and years without attributing any thing of their assistance upon trees and plants and other elementary things But to return to the particulars of Aqua vitae there will be no hurt here to touch upon this experiment thereof made very gentile and rare leaving others that are more common Aqua vitae hath this particular that it dissolves not sugar nor joines not with it as doth its flegm and common water vinegar and other liquors but by artifice it self of two it makes a thrice sweet liquor very proper against the fluxes of Catarrhs and salt rheumes that molest the stomach and throat and is thereunto very good and comfortable Lay in steep a day or two Cinnamon grossely beaten and take off the infusion very neat take fine sugar within a pottage dish that hath ears brought into fine small powder and so perfume it mingle it with a small portion of Sugar roset Poure thereon this Aqua vitae and make them a litâ—le warm upon ashes then put fire thereto with a lighted paper stirring all well with a little spit of clean wood so long untill the Aqua vitae burn no more there will remain a liquor most agreeable to the taste and mervailously comfortable you may add theâ—eto liquor of pearls Coral and other the like which dissolve easily in the juice of Citron or distilled vinegar which makes it sweet to stream out upon it a quantity of common water or the phlegm of Aqua vitae and not by calcining it as Paracelsus and his followers do with Salt-Peter which is manifest poyson so that things are done in vain by more that may be done by fewer so that it bee justly done Further every one sufficiently knowes how to draw Aqua vitae filling two parts of the Alimbeck with Glasse or Beuvois Earth with good old wine and distilling it with an easie fire through a Bath in a Caldron full of water with chaffe Continue the distillation untill you see long veines and sprouts appear in the Chappe and in the Recipient For it is Aqua vitae which mounts first and the phlegm comes after in grosse drops as tears which is a token that there is no more Aqua vitae Men may refine it passing again another time But I should not bee of an opinion that to take it into the body it should bee more then once And it is a strange thing that by its own subtilty for it will mount through five or six doubles of paper brovillas without wetting it I have seen them cast a full glasse thereof in the air and not one drop to fall to the earth It is of soveraign force against all burnings and chiefly that of small shot with which shee hinders as was said before the Estiomenes and Gangreenes An inflamation arising from purecholer in the skin exulcerating it with pain which sheweth sufficiently the purity of its fire which may by good right be called Celestiall See here that which Raimund Lullius sets down of his proprieties and vertues Wee must not understand saith he that neither quintessence nor any other thing here below can render us immortall It is ordained for all men once to die nor can we prolong our dayes beyond and above the prefixed time for that is reserved to God Mans daies are short and the numher of his moneths are with thâ—â—â— thou hast appointed his limits which hee cannot passe there where on the contrary they may well bee accidentally shortned Aqua vitae then nor all other sorts of quintessences and restoratives cannot prolong our life for one minute of an hower yet they may conserve and maintain it to the last but preserving it from putrefaction which is it that shortens it most But to defend putrefaction by corruptible things that cannot bee we must therefore find out some incorruptible substance proper and familiar to our nature which conserves and maintains the radicall heat as oil doth the light of a Lampe Such is the aqua vitae drawn from wine the most comfortable and connaturall substance of all others provided it be not abused with excesse Plutarch in the 3. Book the 8. question of his Symposiaques compares wine to fire and our body to clay If you give fire he sets it down there which is of a mediocrity to the clay and earth to the Potter he will consolidate it in the pots bricks tiles and other the like works but if it be excessive hee resolves it and makes it melt and run Moreover Aqua vitae preserves strongly from their corruption as wee may see by things vegetable and Animall which men put there to mingle which by this means conserves them in their entire length It comforts and maintains a man in vigor of youth which it restoreth from day to day it rejoyceth and strengtheneth the vitall spirits it digests crudities taken fasting and reduceth the equality the excessive superfluities and the defaults which may bee in our bodies causing divers effects according to the disposition of the subject where shee applies her selfe as doth the Sunnes heat which melts wax and hardens durt and fire doth the same And there is that celestiall spirit residing in Aqua vitae so susceptible of all qualities proprieties and vertues that she can make her hot empregning it with hot things cold with cold things and so of the rest being shee is naturall conformably to our soule inclinable to good and evill for although it consists of the foure Elements they are therein so proportioned that the one doth not domineer over the other Wherefore they call it Heaven whereto wee apply such starres as wee will namely of the simple Elements of which she conceives the proprieties and the effects herein we may compare celestiall fire to the Altar But strong waters which dissipate and ruine all are this strange fire and so Alchymists call them and fire against nature externall fire and other the like exterminatives Certes if the effects of Cannon Powder be so admirable consisting of so few species and ingredients which may be well called the true infernall fire the devourer of mankind The action of strong waters is no lesse which burne all being compounded onely of two or three substances that which wee commonly call