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
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
devest it selfe of this externall coagulation for all coagulation is a kinde of death and waterishnesse of life and would never more associate therewith nor revest it selfe by reason of its contumacy were it not that the soveraigne Master and Lord Adonai by his providence for the propagation of things as long as hee shall please to maintaine in beeing this faire worke of his hands constraine these two Earth and Water to agree in a sort together by its Angell or Minister that rules in the Aire Man moreover hath towards himselfe frank and free will in his full power and disposition The appetite of sinne shall be under thee and thou shalt have domination over it Gen. 4. But if hee be adheering to the earth Gen. 4.7 that is to say to carnall desires and concupiscences whereunto he is most inclinable he shall do nothing but evill And if to the spirit designed by water all that hee doth shall goe well The River of God is filled with waters And in the 44. of Isaiah I will powre out water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground I will powre out my Spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon thine off-spring So that as long as the water doth suffer and remaine united with the earth the good Spirit resteth with man by which wee are admonished by the wise man Prov. 5.15 to drinke waters out of our Cisterne rivers out of our own Wel. But when the earth by its rebellious and repugnant drought rejecteth water there resteth nothing therein but its hard and refractary obstination till that by meanes of the aire the spirit that joines and unites them together which are holy inspirations it bee newly remoistned and watered By meanes whereof when wee have this good spirit of salutary water whereof it is written in the 15 of Ecclesiasticus Thou shalt give him the water of wisdome to drinke wee must take heed of casting it away and to make our selves all dry earth and sandy which is not satisfied with water and therefore produceth nothing But all this is more clearly expressed in the Gospell where by the meanes of this fructifying water our Saviour which is a Fountaine that is never dry the holy Spirit commeth to put into our hearts that which moistneth the hardnesse of the earth watereth it and dresseth it to produce the ripe fruits of good and charitable works The water which I will give you saith he Joh. 4.14 shall be a Fountaine of living water springing up into eternall life Of this water the Prophets have clearely spoken as David in the 36. Psal For with thee there is a Fountaine of life and in thy light wee shall see light Psal 36.6 See how he joines water with light which is fire so that this digression seemes to bee lesse impertinent and in the 12. of Esay 3. You shall draw water with joy out of the wels of salvation More Jerem. 2. They have forsaken me that am the Fountaine of living water and have digged to themselves Cisternes broken Cisternes that will hold no water In this of Zohar as above are comprised the principall secrets and actions of Fire and of its contrary the Patient which is Water for the acts of Actives are in the disposition of the Patient said the Philosopher for the effects cannot better be discerned then where they act Fire then hath three proprieties but in this respect wee must argue the thing more deeply As then all that which is are divided into 3 called Worlds or Heavens it must not be thought strange if wee repeate the same more then once for from thence proceed all the secret sciences that is to say the elementary here below subject to perpetuall alteration and vicissitude of life and of death the Celestiall aloft above the Circle of the Moone incorruptible in respect of it selfe as well for its purity and uniformity of substance as for its continuall and equall motion nothing therein praedominating the one or the other which two constitute the Sensible world There is afterward the Intelligible abstracted from all corporeity and matter which the Apostle cals the third World where hee was ravished this said hee whether in the body or out of the body God knowes 2 Cor. 12.3 for not onely the World and the Heaven are put one for the other but yet the Heaven for Man The heavens declare the glory of God according to which most part of the Fathers interpret it and Man reciprocally for Heaven As Origen sets it forth upon the 25 Treatise of Saint Matthew Mans heart is properly called Heaven and the Throne not already of the Glory of God as is the Temple but of God properly For the Temple of the glory of God is that wherein as in a Glasse wee see our selves by Aenigma But Heaven that is above the Temple of God where his Throne is is to see him wholly as it were face to face which hee hath almost transcribed word for word out of the booke Abahir to Zohar and other ancient Caballists whereof he consisteth for the most part Moreover some say that the Heavens are sometimes put for God himselfe as in the 32 of Deut. Heare O Heaven the words I speak and in the 8 chapter of the 1 of Kings according to the Hebrew verity in the prayer of King Solomon at the dedicâ—tion of the Temple Heare O Heaven In this third Heaven or World whereof the Apostle spake although God bee every where yet the seate of his Divinity is there more especially established then elsewhere with his separated Intelligences that assist him to execute his commands Blesse the Lord yee Angels mighty in power doing that which he ordaineth hearing the voice of his words wherefore Theologians called it the Angelicall world without all place and time which Plato in his Phaed. said that no mortall men ever yet had sufficiently celebrated it according to its excellency and dignity being all of light who from thence stretched out her selfe and derives it so as out of an in exhaustible Fountaine to all sorts of Creatures even according as the ancient Phaenician Theologie carryed which the Emperour Julian Parabates alledged in his prayer to the Sunne That Corporeal Light proceeded from an Incorporeal Nature The Celestial world participates of darkenesse and of light whence proceed all the faculties and powers that it brings it And the elementary all of darknesse designed for the reason of its instability by water The Intelligible by Fire because of its purity and light and the Celestial by the Aire where fire and water come to joine the Earth by this reckoning should remaine for Hell as in truth this earthly habitation is nothing but a true Hel But by Heaven Moses understood the Intelligible World and by earth the Sensible attributing the two higher elevated Elements Aire and Fire to Heaven because they alwayes tend upwards and Water and Earth which for their gravity tend downward but all that by him was
yet more mystically shadowed as Zâ—har sheweth it by the admirable construction of his Tabernacle then which there is nothing more spirituall Gold Silver and pretious Stones representing the Sensible world and Bezaleel that was the Conductor of the worke the Intelligible and the Workman filled with a Divine Spirit with Sapience Intelligence Knowledge and all the most accomplisht learning as almost every word carries it woven with Bezel the shadow and El God The prophane Poets have divided the Sensible World into 3 for they never tooke much paines to penetrate into the Intelligible And assigned the superiour part thereof from the circle of the Moone upward to Jupiter the low Terrestriall to Pluto and the middlemost which is from the Earth to the Moone to Neptune which the Platonists call the Generative Vertue because of the humidity impregned with Salt which provoketh much to generation according as the word Salacitas designes it as Plutarch puts it in the 4 Question of Naturall Causes and in his Treaty of Osiris wherefore the said Poets attribute more fecundity to the said Neptune then to all the other Gods Each of these 3 worlds furthermore hath particularly its science which is double the one common and triviall the other mysticall and secret The Intelligible world to our Theologie and the Caballe the Celestial to Astrologie and Magie and the elementary to the Physiologie and Alchymie which revealeth by the resolutions and separations of Fire all the more hidden and darke secrets of natures in three kindes of the composed for no man can know the composition of a thing that is ignorant of its destruction saith Geber But these three divine sciences have beene by the depravation of ignorant and evill spirits turned aside to a crying downe that men durst scarcely speak thereof but must presently incurre the bruite of being an Atheist Witch or a false money-coyner We say then after Empedocles and Anaxagoras All this our reason disputes by a Journey of composition and resolution going this way and that way up and downe That all the Elementary science consisteth in the mixtion and separation of the Elements which is perfected by fire to which Alchymy turnes all As Avicen declareth very openly in his Treaty of l'Almahad or Division of Sciences And Hermes in that of his 7 chapters Understand yee sonnes of the wise the Science of the four Elements whose secret apparition is no where signified except they bee divided and compounded because out of the Elements nothing is made profitable without such a Regiment for where Nature ends her operations there Art begins Take such a composed Elementary what you will herbe wood or other the like upon which fire may exercise its action and put it in an Alembic or Cornue Cornue first let them separate the water and afterwards the oyle if the fire bee moderate if more pressed and reinforced both together but the oyle will swimme above the water which may easily bee separated by a fonnel of Glasse This water is called Mercury which of it selfe is pure and cleane and oyle the sulphur adustible and infect that corrupts every compounded thing In the bottome of the vessel will rest the Ashes of which by a forme of lee with water the Salt will bee extracted and after you have withdrawn the water with Balneum Mariae as men call it for the oily unctuosities do not mount by this degree of fire no more doth the Salt but much lesse and the indissoluble Earths stript of all their humidities proper to vitrifie for saith Geber every private thing by its owne humidity doth performe none but a vitrificatory fusion So there are two volatill Elements namely the liquid Water and Aire which is Oyle for all liquid substances naturally shunne the fire which elevates the one and burnes the other But not those two which are dry and solid which are Salt wherein is contained Fire and pure Earth which is Glasse over whom the fire hath no power but to melt and refine them See there the four Elements redoubled as Hermes cals them and Raymund Lullius the great Elements for as every Element consists of two qualities these great Elements redoubled Mercury Sulphur Salt and Glasse participate of the two simple Elements to say better of all four according to the more or the lesse of the one or of the other Mercury holding more of the Aire to which it is attributed Oyle or Sulphur of the Aire Salt of Fire and Glasse of the Earth who findes it selfe pure and cleane in the Center of all the composed Elementaries and is the last to reveale it selfe exempt from others Of this sort by the Artifice and operation of Fire and of its effects we depure all infections and filth even to reduce them to a purity of incorruptible substance from this time forward by the separation of their inflamable and terrestriall impurities for saith Geber the whole intention of the Operator is versed in this that the grosser parts being cast away the worke may bee perfected with the lighter which is to mount from the corruptions here below to a purity of the Celestial world where the Elements are more pure and essential fire there predominating which is the chief of all others Hitherto touching Alchymie and wherein shee is versed Magick for the Celestial world was in times past a holy and venerable Science which Plato in his Charmis cals the true Medicine of the soule and in the first Alcibiades puts it that it was wont to shew the Elders of the great Kings of Persia to teach them to reverence God to forme their temporall domination according to the patterne of the order and policy of the Universe But it is nothing else properly as Orpheus saith but a forme of marriage of the starry heaven with the earth whither hee darts his influences by which shee impregnes comming from the Intelligences who assist therein and an application of agent vertues upon the passive and that without the cooperation of Daemons the most part evill false and deceptive yet some more then others with which it is thought that the three wise Kings Magi that came so farre to adore Jesus Christ were willing to have some acquaintance and commerce The third is that which men call Caballe or reception because men left it there verbally and by mouth from hand to hand from one to another It is divided into two the one of Berâ—sith that is to say of the Creation that consisteth in the Sensible world where Moses staid without speaking of the Intelligible or of separated substances The other is of Mercavah or of the Throne of God which Ezekiel principally treats of whose vision is almost all of fire So much is this Element throughout the whole holy Scripture appropriated to Divinity as one of the most perfect and neare symboles and markes in things sensible by meanes whereof wee are so elevated that by Jacobs Ladder or Homers golden Chaine we come to the knowledge of things
spirituall and intelligible for the invisible things of God from the Creation of the World are clearely seene being understood â—by the things that are made even his eternall power and Godhead For the world with the Creatures being there they are a portraict of God for the Creator is understood by the Creature saith Saint Augustine for God hath made two things to his image and resemblance according to Tresmegistus the world therein to rejoice and please our selves with the infinite brave pieces of worke and Man wherein hee set his most singular delight and pleasure which Moses hath tacitely expressed in Gen. 1. 2. where when there was question of creating the world Heaven Earth Vegetables Minerals Animals Sunne Moone Starres and all the rest hee did no more but command by his word for hee said and they were done hee commanded and they were created But in Mans formation hee insisted much further therein then in all the rest saith he Let us make man after our Image and Similitude hee created him male and female and formed him dust of the earth afterward breathed in his face the spirit of life and hee was made a living soule In which are touched 4 or 5 particularities So Cyrill observes it After the same manner then as the Image of God is the world so the image of the world is man therein there is such a relation of God with his creatures that they cannot bee well comprehended but reciprocally one by the other for all the Sensible nature as Zohar hath it in regard of the intelligible is as that of the Moone towards the Sunne who thereinto reverberates its light or as the light of a Lampe or torch which parteth the flame fastned to the weik which is therein nourished by a grosse matter viscous adustible without which this splendor and light could not communicate it selfe to our sight nor our sight comprehend it And likewise the glory and essence of God which the Hebrewes call Sequinah could not appeare but in the matter of this Sensible world which is an image or patterne thereof And it is that which God said to Moses Exod. 33. You shall not see my face you shall see my binder parts The face of God is his true Essence in the intelligible world which no man ever saw except the Messihe I did set the Lord alwayes before mee Psal 16.8 And his posteriour parts are his effects in the Sensible world The soule likewise cannot bee discerned and knowne but by the functions it exerciseth in the body whilst it is annexed thereunto By which Plato was moved to thinke that soules could not consist without bodies no more then fire without water So that after long revolutions of times they should come againe to incorporate themselves here below whereunto adheres that in the 6 of Virgils Aeneads All these when they have turned for many yeares God cals them to the floud of Lethe by great troopes Beiâ—g forgetfull that they must review the upper convexe And begin againe to bee willing to returne into bodies But this savours a little of new-birth and Pythagorean changings of soules into bodies in which Origen was likewise out of the way as may be seene in his booke of Princes and in Saint Jeromes Epistle to Avitus But more sincerely Porphyrius although in the rest an impious adversary a Calumniator of Christianisme that for the perfect beatitude of soules they must shunne and fly all bodies So that when the soule shall bee repurged from all corporal affections and when it shall returne to its Creator in its first simplicity it hath no great desire to fall againe into the hands and calamities of this age when the option should be left unto it free From the Intelligible world then it runnes downe into the Celestial and from thence to the Elementary all that which the spirit of man can attaine from the knowledge of the admirable effects of Nature which Art intimates in what shee can whence by the revelation of these rare secrets by the action of fire the most part is magnified the glory and magnificence of him who is the first motor and author thereof for mans understanding according to Hermes is as a Glasse where we come to shave off and to abate the cleare and luminous rayes of the Divinity represented to our senses by the Sunne above and the fire his correspondent here below which inflame the soule with an ardent desire of the knowledge and veneration of his Creatour and by consequent of his love for men love nothing but what they know So each of these three worlds which have their particular sciences hath also its fire and its salt apart both which do informe us namely of Moses his fire in the heaven And the Salt for its firme consistence and solidity to the earth What is this Salt aske one of your Chymicall Philosophers a scorched and burned earth and congealed water by the heat of fire potentially enclosed therein Moreover Fire is the operatour here below in the workes of Art as the Sunne and Celestiall Fire is in them of that nature and in the intelligible the holy Spirit by the Hebrewes called Binah or Intelligence which the Scripture designes ordinarily by fire and this spirituall fire or igneal spirit with the Chomah the verbe where the Sapience attributes to the Sonne Wisdome the Artist of all things taught mee are the fathers operators By the word of the Lord were the heavens firmed and all their beauty by the spirit of his mouth from whence that maxime of the Peripateticks differs not much Every worke of Nature is a worke of Intelligence Behold the three fires whereof we pretend to speake of which there is none more common amongst us then the elementary here below grosse composed and materiall that is to say alwayes fastned to matter nor on the the other part lesse known That which is of him from whence he came and whither hee goes reducing in an instant all to nothing assoone as his nourishment failes him without which he cannot consist a moment but goes as hee comes being all in the least of his parts So that he can in lesse then nothing multiply to infinity and in lesse then nothing empty it selfe for one little waxe light will at pleasure enkindle the greatest fires we can imagine without any losse or diminution of its substance Though they take a thousand yet nothing perisheth And in the third of Saint James Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth yea one onely small sparkle of fire would press in the twinckling of an eye all the immense hollow of the Universe if it were filled with Gun-powder or Napthe and presently after will vanish away So that of all bodies there is nothing that doth approach nearer to the soule then fire said Plotin And Aristotle in his fourth booke of Metaphysickes sets downe that â—ven to his time the most part of Philosophers had not well knowne fire nor yet Aire to bee perceivable
grosse and materiall then that above tends neverthelesse alwayes upward as if it endeavoured to unmingle it selfe from a corruptible substance where it remaineth fixed to returne free and exempt from all these hinderances to its first Original from whence it came as an imprisoned soule There is in them fiery vigor and celestiall Origin In seeds as much as our harmelesse bodies stay them And our terrene joints dull them and our dying members The other on the contrary though more subtill and essential rusheth out here below toward the earth as if these two aspired incessantly to encounter each other and to face each other in the fashion of two Pyramides whereof that above should have its basis planted in the Zodiack where the Sunne perfects his annuall course through the 12 Signs from the point of which Pyramis comes to cast here below all that which is here procreated and hath being according to the Astologers of Aegypt that there is nothing produced in the earth and in the water which was not first sowed in heaven which is there as a labourer to cultivate it and by his heate impregned here below with the efficacy of his influences conducts the whole to its compleat perfection and maturity which Aristotle also confirmes in his bookes of Beginning and Ending But the fire here below on the contrary at the basis of his Pyramis fastned to the earth making one of six faces of the Cube whereof the Pythagoreans give him the forme and figure because of its forme and invariable stability and from the point of this Pyramis the subtill vapours mount upwards which serve as nourishment to the Sun and to all the rest of the Celestiall bodies according as Phurnutus writeth after others Men attribute saith hee inextinguished fire unto Vesta peradventure for that the power of fire that is in the world takes it nourishment from thence and that from thence the Sunne is maintained and consisteth This is that also that Hermes would inferre in his Table of Emerandes That which is below is as that which is above and contrarywise to perpetrate miracles of one thing And Rabbi Joseph the sonne of Carnitol in his ports of Justice the foundation of all the inferior aedifices is placed above and their heap or top here below as a Tree inverted So that a man is but as a spirituall tree planted in the Paradise of delights which is the earth of the living by the roots of his haires following that which is written in the Canticles 7. The haire of thy head like purple the King is bound in the Galleries These two fires then the high and the low who do know themselves and so one another have beene no lesse unknowne to the Poets for Homer in the 18 of his Iliads having placed Vulcans forge in the eighth starry heaven where he is accompanied with his Artisans endowed with singular prudence and who know two sorts of workes which were taught them by the immortall Gods wherein they labour in his presence Virgill in his 8 of the Aeneads hath suffered him to set his shop here below in the earth in an Island called Vulcanian Vulcans house and by name Vulcans earth To shew that there is fire in the one and the other Region the Celestial and Elementary but diversly Men make moreover four sorts of fire that of the intelligible world which is all light the Celestiall participates of heate and light the Elementary of light heate and ardour And the infernall opposite to the intelligible with ardor and burning without light we see Lanthornes upon Mountaines that burne on the inside and other like called Vulcans And it is a thing very admirable as one of the Rabbins quoteth that Sulphur Pitch that are so ready and easy to take fire and continue so little in their combustion being exposed to the aire restrained neverthelesse within the Earths intrails it seemes they there renew themselves and multiply by their owne consumption although their heat and burning bee there much more violent without comparison then here above According as wee may see in Mountaines that burn for so many continued ages and hot Bathes This seemes to emancipate from the common order of Nature by a secret disposition of Divine providence who will have them continue so till the scurf and impurity of this inferiour world be exterminate with this infected stinking and corruptible odor and to banish it from hence and send it backe to hell for the punishment and torment of the damned whereof it is written in Psal 11.6 Vpon the wicked hee shall raine snares fire and brimstone and an horrible tempest this shall bee the portion of their Cup. This fire there which is blacke obscure thicke and dark the more devouring and burning it is resembles that of some great coales of stone which conceive a most strong ignition whereof it is spoken in the 20 of Job 26. A fire shall devour them which is not kindled And more particularly in the 4 of Baruch 26. Fire shall come upon them from the everlasting to continue many dayes and Devils shall a long time dwell there There where the Celestial fire is all clear and shining as a lamp whose flame should bee nourished with water of Life mingled with a certaine composition of Camphire Salnitre and other inflamative matters So that these combustible substances whereof there are infinite varieties may endure very long but it is true that it will bee but a gentle and weak flame And of the like but more subtill without comparison the Celestiall bodies are nourished and fed that need but little nourishment as approaching from spirituality I can tell you being at any other time brought to make the fashion of a shining Sunne in the darke P. 73. Lamp it was a fire of a Lampe so glittering that a whole great Hall might bee therewith rather dazled then lightened for this did more effect then two or three dozen of great Torches and yet in 24 houres used no more oile then I gave it with matches corresponding thereunto which held no more then a nut shell for this was a Lampe of Glasse plunged or dipped within a Globe of Crystall as great as a bead filled with vinegar distilled three or foure times for there is nothing more transparent nor more splendent Sea water is also good thereto and much better then fresh water how pure soever it may bee It is the Salt mingled among that gives it this luminous brightnesse But to returne to our discourse some have thought that sith the Starres receive nourishment they should also vanish in certaine periods of time and others come in their stead which were no other thing then a separation of their clearnesse and light with their Globe of substance more grosse and materiall by which they come to dissipate themselves and to vanish within the heaven as vitall spirits within the aire whilest they are absented from some animated body and leave it void of life So that by this
upon Genesis we must from the contemplation of the creatures ascend and come to the Creatour So that those then are very ignorant and void of understanding who cannot from the Creatures attain to the knowledge of the Creator Those that dwell in the extremities of the West where it goes as it were to bed in the waters of the Ocean see it at his rising of the same grandeur as those of Catai where it riseth which sheweth the smallnesse and disproportion of the earth in comparison thereof That if the Moone which is farre inferior in greatnesse thereunto sheweth it selfe almost equall it is by reason of the great distance from the one and the other for by so much as things are at a distance by so much the more they lessen themselves to our sight and this is sufficiently verified by the rules of perspective Surely these are two chiefe Masterworks that of these two great luminaries which are not of small ornament and commodity for the life of man as Saint Chrysostome puts it upon the 135. Psalme but it doth contribute much thereto yea almost all in regard of that which concernes the body for besides the light wherewith they enlighten us by day and by night they distinguish times and seasons help us to make voyages as well by Sea as Land they ripen fruits without which our corporall life could not be maintained with other infinite usages which proceed from them The Sunne is put for the whole Heaven for that it is the greater part thereof and for fire and Heaven is the seat and vessell of incorruptible and unalterable bodies The Moone president of moisture represents water and earth and salt composed thereof for there is nothing wherein moisture is more permanent nor which is more moist then salt whereof the Sea for the most part doth consist and there is nothing where the Moone doth more distinctly make her motions to appeare then in the Sea as we perceive in the ebbing and flowing thereof and in the braines and marrows of Animals so that for good cause she is called the Regent of the waters and of phlegmatick and waterish moisture which although it seem to be dead and inanimate in respect of fire which is living she is permanent chiefly in salt which hath an inexterminable humidity and is that which keepeth the Sea from drying up for without Salt it had been long agone drawn out and dryed up there where the fire lives not in it but in another for in that it is a materiall Element it hath no place proper to it Of these two namely the heat of the Sun and moisture of the Moone in which consisteth the life of all things and without which nothing would grow increase nor be maintained not fire it selfe which cannot subsist without air which is double one participating of the heat of fire ascending from the water out of the bowels of moist nature a sincere and light fire forthwith flying out seeks things aloft saith Trismegistus And the other as water descending from fire so long till it come to congeal For so there is one moist water which tends upwards to rarifie it selfe in the aire and another cold comming downe to thicken it selfe in the nature of Earth untill at last it comes to terminate in red fire which is in gold for gold is the last substance of all And Aire is the mediating conciliator betwixt the moisture of passable water that constitutes matter and the fires heat on which the Agent and form doth depend Earth is as the matrix where fire by the means of air and fire introducing its action excites and thrusts out which is thereby engendred to its determined end The other five Planets and the fixed starres come in but collaterally as assistants and coadjutors of the effects of the two luminaries where all their influxions are reduced as do the rivers of the Sea and from the earth reciprocally comes back their norriture so that heaven and fire are as the male the agent and water and earth as the female patient but under heaven the air is comprized And as mans seed inclosed and lâ—pped within the matrix is nourished fomented and entertained with corrupt bloud by the help of naturall heat so fiâ—e by the means of air and water is maintained in the earth for the production of things which engender thereof So the Heaven Sunne Fire and Air march together and the earth under which are comprised in the Elements below water and dry land on their side It is Moses Heaven and Earth and Hermes his high and low which relate one to the other that which is above is as that which is below and on the contrary to perpetuate the miracles of one thing as he saith in his Table of Esmeraulds Zohar the intellâ—gible and sensible World by the contemplation whereof we come to the contemplation of spirituall things which thâ— Apostle before him had touchâ—d in the fiâ—st to the Romanes The invisible things of him from the creation of the Word are made knowne in those things which are scene for all that is here below in the earth is of the same manner as in heaven above for God the Creator made all things annexed one to another which Homer was not ignorant of by his golden chaine to bind together this inferiour and superiour World and that they adhere one to the other that his glory may stretch through all above and below And in imitation thereof man the image of the great world and the measure of every thing was thereof made and formed of things low and high And God took dust and thereof formed Adam and breathed into him the breath of life the very light that shineth in the sensible world depends upon this superiour light that is hid from us from whence proceed all faculties and vertues which from thence are expressed to our knowledge for there is nothing here below that doth not depend from that above by a particular power committed unto it to govern and excite it to all its appetites and motions so that all is bound together We hold well for the remainder that all we have from light in the sensible world comes from the Sun for that of the Moon and of the Stars although inumerable is a very small thing yet it proceeds from the Sun and that of fire is but artificiall to give us light for default of the Sunne But how shall it square with that to be willing to attribute the primitive source of light and chiefly that of the producing and vivifying to the sunne for that we see in the beginning of Genesis that the first thing that was made was the light on the first day and the Sunne not till the fourth vegetables being produc't from the former This was say the Rabbins thereto most wisely advised by Moses as all his other writings proceeding from divine inspiration to take away from men all occasion to Idolize this luminary when we see that light was
of the aqua vitae Yet we see by experience in Germany and other cold Regions where aqua vitae is in good esteem as well for the quantity which they take it doth not for that make men drunke as wine would do in such a quantity as that wherewith it should be quenched and putting a little Salt in very strong wine it will make men drunk sooner then to drinke it pure I have often made tryall that often joyning together aqua vitae to that which men had drawne this mingling could not cause drunkennesse any more because the parts once separated of the compounded elements and then reconjoined take another nature then it had at the first Cerâ—tes it is a great support and comfort that aqua vitae hath for a weak stomach either through age or other accident although men thinke that it burnes and offends the noble parts for though it be inflamable it is not â—herefore burning He that would see the great vertues thereof let him read the Quintessâ—nces of Raimund Lullius Rupescissa Vlstadius his heaven of Philosophers for wee will not stay here as on a thing too triviall and beaten They call it the quintessence for the conformity it hath with the celestiall nature because that as the heaven which is as another Air but more subtill then the Elementary contains the Stars whence it receives divers impressions and effects that it doth infuse and communicate unto us here below the same Aqua vitae doth easily impregn it self with the qualities and specificall vertues which are therein put to infusion To this proposition of heaven and Stars and of their different impressions wee will not here passe over a fine dispute which here presents it self The Earl Pica de Mirandula truly a prodigious spirit accompanied with great Literature in his 3. Book against Judiciall Astrologâ— 25. chap. transported with too hot a curiosity to impugn this Art Will we saith he prove that the vertue of all the Stars is but even one Let us suppose this Maxime That the nature of heaven cannot more openly and sucinctly expresse then by saying heaven to be a unity of all bodies for there is nothing in all the universe that doth not depend upon this certain one as from his primitive course with many other premises wherewith hee would conclude that of the propriety and vertue of each Star indifferently depends the facultie and vertue of all the composed Elements without having there other difference between them if peradventure this was not in greatnesse as it is apparently seen nor can men say that one presides more particularly to one thing here below then to another for every Star presides to all so that if all were â—oined and united together in one onely body this should be as if infinite flames and fires should come to assemble to make but one which would be stronger then true but not of diverse propriety and nature which doth not change it self into homogeneall and homomaternall substances by a coacervation nor which comes to produce other effects then it did being separated as one may see in water and a great torch in respect of a little waxe light which will light infinite others as well as the torch though more powerfull to heat boil and burn as being in a greater volume But it is a very hard thing to overthrow an opinion already received of long durance chiefly if it bee supported with authority of holy Scripture which must bee to us as a touchstone by it to verifie our ratiocinations for the most part uncertain and erroneous if they bee not conducted by divine inspiration Is is written in the 147. Psal 5. He knoweth all the Stars and calleth them all by their names That if they have all different and particular names wherefore should it serve but to distinguish them in their effects proprieties qualities and vertues for the name of things imports the same Follow that which is said in the 2. of Gen. as Adam named every thing such was its true and proper name which Plato in his Cratylus saith is not onely the type and representation of things but their Essence And in this case there is a fair consideration to bee marked that God left to Adam the nomination of terrestriall things but reserved to himselfe that of Celestiall as hee expresseth in the 115. Psal 16. The Heaven of Heavens are the Lords but the Earth hath he given to the children of men which is as much to say according to Rabbi the Aegyptian in the 2. Book of his More or director 25. Cha. That the Creator knoweth himself alone the certain verity of the heavens what is their form substance and their motions but upon that under heaven he hath given power to man to know for Earth is properly mans world where hee produceth and the place of his conversation as long as hee liveth as fire and light attached to matter there where the causes upon which we might found our demonstrations concerning heaven are out of our knowledge being so far remote from us And in this case the Heaven of Heavens are the Lords there may be a double exposition according to the punctuation and reading That Heaven belongs to the Lord of Heaven and so the Hebrewes take it but who doubts but that the Earth also belongs to him as well as the Heaven The Earth is the Lords and the fulnesse thereof and in the 23. of Jer. Doe not I fill the Heaven and the Earth And the Heaven of Heavens is reserved for God and the Earth is left to the children of men which is a manner of speech usuall in the holy Scripture For if the Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens cannot comprehend thee saith Solomon to God for the Hâ—brewes metaphorically call Heaven things that are far distant from our sight and we also after their imitation as when wee speak of a Kite Heron or Gerfalcon when they fly so high that wee can hardly discern them that they goe to loose themselves in Heaven so that all which is here under the sphere of the Moon and generally all that is above us they call it Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens the Aethereall Region from the Moon to the Firmament as well the Firmament it self or the Empyrean Heaven But farther that the Stars should bee all of one nature propriety and effect to see them so like besides their greatnesse and clearnesse it follows not that the same appears of the same sort as of fire yet wee commonly call them fires and celestiall lights It is as if the seeds of trees and plants whereof there are infinite should all mixe together and the first buds also that they cast which differ as nothing but to the measure whereunto they grow their differences doe manifest them The Hebrewes hold that there is not so little and poor a herb on the Earth nor any other thing of the three kinds of the composed Mineralls Vegetables or animals that hath not above its
on high as a vapour to imply saith the same Zohar that wee must offer him nothing but what is cleane and candid for rednesse represents sinne and punishment that followes it and the white sinceritie with mercy and the finall recompence that doth accompany it What is it saith Zohar which is designed by the red Roses and the white Lillies It is the odour of the oblation proceeding from red blood and from fat which is white which God reserveth for his owne portion which fatnesse relates to the sacrifice or animall man who is nourished with this fat as the vitall spirits with blood wherefore it is said when we fast to extenuate and macerate the pricks of the flesh and concupiscence that we offer unto God fatnesse who will have from his Creature the soul which is fire and bloud and the body namely fat wherewith it is nourished but the one and the other incontaminate pure and neat without corruption as if they were to passe through the fire and salted Therefore he would that they should be burned to him that they may ascend in a white fume and an odour of suavity before him for fume is more spiritual then matter which the fire by subtiliation raiseth it after the manner of Incense And indeed all this world here is but an odour that mounts unto God sometimes good and agreeable sometimes wicked and hurtfull The forme of the thing which consisteth in its colour and figure remains incorporeall in the matter where the eye goes to apprehend it and associates with it The tast also remains attached to it as the spittle moistens it and communicates it to the tast But odor or smell separates them and comes from farre by an unperceivable vapor to the sense of the nose and braine Wherefore the Scripture doth particularize in the rose and in the lillies the Red and White whose smell doth not vanish And yet though the roses be red yet the water of them distilled and the fume if you burne them are white as those of incense whereof it is spoken in Psal 41.2 Let my prayer he directed as incense in thy sight by prayers are understood not only prayers but all our desires thoughts and comportmens and thereupon Rabbi Eliezer sonne of Rabbi Simeon the author of Zohar making his prayer doth thus paraphrase This is well knowne and manifest before thee O Lord my God God of our prayers that I have offered unto thee my fat and my blood I have offered them in an odor of Suavity with firme faith and beleefe macerating chastising the sensuality of my flesh That it will please thee then Lord that the odor of my prayer proceeding from my mouth may be presently addressed before thy face as an odor of a burnt offering which they burne unto thee upon the altar of propitiation and that thou wilt accept it as agreeable He said that because that after the comming of our Saviour the destruction of the second Temple by the Romans the Jewish sacrifices were converted into prayers the bloudy sacrifices signified by the red roses and colour of bloud and those without bloud as the minchad other the like of meal by the white lillies following that which was said Cant. Chap. 5. 6. My beloved is white and ruddy he feedeth among the lillies Under these four colours furthermore which signifie the four Elements Black the Earth White the Water Blew the Air and Red the fire are comprised the greatest secrets mysteries Otherwise reading in ch 10. of 35 book Plinie that Apelles had painted Alexander holding lightning in his hand fingers seemed to hang out and lightning to be without the Table but reading they remembred that all those consisted of four colours I cannot well specifie what those four colours were which must be principall in nature till I had learned out of Zohar to consider them in the light where that is to be noted that there are two fastned to the week namely black noting the Earth and red proceeding there from fire and two to the flame Blew in the root over against the black and white on the top opposite to red But let us see how this doth well suit with Chymicall Theorie which constitutes of these four Elements two solid and fix'd which prepare themselves together the earth and the fire which adhere to the week and the other two liquid volatills and flitting water and air white and blew as is the flame which is liquid and in perpetuall motion And we must not think it strange that the air the blew should be lower then the water or the white flame which is aloft because the aereall party which is the oil and fat separate more hardly and more difficultly from the composed then doth the water more opposite to fire But let us look more mystically thereinto which the Zohar hath more abundantly run through The red light as well in earth as in heaven is that which destroyes all dissipates all for it is the bark of the tree of death as we may see in a lamp candle and other light whose root is in the earth namely this corruptible and corrupting blacknesse which watereth the week the branches and the boughes are the flames blew and white The week with its blacknesse and rednesse is the Elementary world and the flame the Celestiall The red colour commands all that is under it and devoureth it And if you say that it domineers also in heaven not as in the inferiour world wee may answer And although there be vertues and powers above that are destructive and dissipate all base subjacent things All these superiors are anchored in this red light and not the inferiors for they are thick grosse and obscure and this red light which is contiguous to that above gnawes and devours them and there ia nothing in the low world which shall not be destroyed It penetrates and enters into stones it pierceth them and hollowes them that waters may passe over them and drowns all in the depths and hollowes of the earth where they divide themselves of the one side and on the other till they come to resemble anew in their Abyssus passing crosse the darknesses that are confounded with them which is the cause that waters rise and fall they mount when they come from the sea under earth to their sources to glide anew above the earth downwards returning to the place from which they parted So that the waters darknesse and light mingling themselves pellmell there is made within another Chaos which nature comes to unmingle the heat namely which is therein inclosed by Ordinance of the Soveraign Dispensator that commands it And there make lights which men cannot see because they are dark Every channell to be brief mounts upwards with his voices whence Abyssus are shaken and cry to their companion One depth calleth to another in the voice of their Catarracts And who is it that cries Open thee with thy waters and I will enter into thee
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
white as snâ—w and Apoc. 3.6 The Elect are ever clothed in white and in the 6.11 speaking of the martyred Saints for the faith of their Redeemer there was given unto every one of them white robes Having set down a little before that the Angell which had gotten the victory and the Crowne was mounted on a white horse as in the 19 and 20. the Throne of God is dressed with white and hee that was mounted on the red horse had a great bloudy sword in his hand that one might massacre another But yet more expresly in the first of Isaiah Although your sins were as red as fine Scarlet they should be as white as Snow And further though they were as red as crimson they will become as white as wooll But some may say here are many things which by little and little do turne us from our principall aime and are as it were extravagant dresses But not altogether yet as to mount some sharpe precipice wee must turne about to goe at more ease to shunne cliffes and precipices So are wee sometimes to make some small by-courses and digressions to facilitate our Theame Rivers that goe turning are more commodious for Navigation then those that runne impetuously one way downe There shall bee nothing at last God willing unprofitable nor from the purpose Then all this red and white is but Fire and Water the pillar of fire by night and the white cloud by day into which as the Apostle saith the people of the Jewes were baptized and in this cloud the divine Wisdome established his Throne that of the Law of Moses this of grace Fire and Salt Zohar speaking of Moses his two first Tables broken for the Idolatry of the Golden Calfe with two pillars the one of fire representing naturall heate by which all things are vivified the other is water that is radical moisture which maintaineth life from which that is not much different in the 15. of the Apoc. where it is said that he saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire which radicall moisture was perverted and changed in the deluge by the universall inundation so that it was not since so vigorous as before but shall at last bee brought to extermination on all sides at the end of time by a finall conflagration The first mutation shall meet with some mercy the race of mankinde being at that time not wholly extinct but the remainder was saved with Noah and his in the Arke but the second shall have none but all shall perish by the extreame rigour of fire To the purpose of these two substances the Assyrians and other people of the East adored Fire as that which represented to them naturall heat and the Aegyptians with all those on the South of Nilus which is radicall moisture which goes to render it selfe into a Sea impregned with salt to preserve it in the end from corruption Now for this effect all humours of animall bodies bloud spittle urine and the rest are salted without which all would corrupt each other in an instant Behold the difference that there is in holy writ that apply the meditations of things sensible to Sacramentall mysteries and of ratiocinations of blinde Paganisme who not turning it but above the barke penetrate no further then that which the uncertain and doubtful sense may make them comprehend without passing further to the relation of divine things where at last al must refer to spiritualty resembling therein properly to the Ostrich who beates sufficiently with the wing as if shee would mount to heaven but yet her feet for all that do not forsake the earth The Phaenician Theologie admitted but of one Element Fire which is the principall and chief of all the productor and destroyer of all things which doth not much disagree from that in the 118. Psal is the fiery word by which times were formed Heraclitus also puts fire for the first substance that informed all and from whence they drew all things from power into action as well superiour as inferiour celestiall and terrestriall For hot and cold moist and dry are not substances but qualities and accidents from whence naturall Philosophers forged four Elements whereas according to verity there is but one which according to the vestments that it receives from the accidentall qualitie takes divers appellations If from the heat it is from the Aire from moisture Water from drynesse Earth which three are but one fire but reclothed with divers and different habits Even as Fire extending it selfe in all and through all so all things come to render unto it as to the center So that it may be rightly called an infinite and indetermined vigour of nature or rather the vivification thereof for without it nothing could be comprehended seen or obtained above or below that which illightens is celestiall that which concocts and digests Aereall and that which burnes is terrestriall which cannot subsist without some grosse matter coming from the Earth which he reduceth in the end to it selfe as we may see in things burned converted to ashes from whence after the extraction of Salt rests nothing but pure earth Salt being a potentiall fire and waterish that is to say terrestriall water impregned with fire from whence all sorts of mineralls come to production for they are of the nature of Water The experiment may bee seene in strong Waters all composed of minerall Salts Alums Saltpeters which burne as Fire which produceth hot and dry exhalations agitated with winds easie to take flame also of flints of Iron and of Wood and of scraped bones especially those of a Lion as saith Pliny whence we may gather that there is potentiall fire in all Not without cause then did Pythagoras after Moses ordaine not to speake of God or divine things without fire for of all things sensible there is nothing that symbolizeth or more corresponds with Divinity then Fire Aristotle writing to Alexander related unto him that hee had learned of the Brachmans that there was a fift Element or Essence which is fire wherein the Divinity resides because it is the noblest and purest of all the Elements and that which purgeth all things according to Zoroastes Plutarch alledgeth that this Divinity is a spirit of a certaine intellectuall fire that hath no forme but transformes to it selfe all that it toucheth and transmutes it selfe into all as Proteus the Genius of Aegypt was wont to say Omnia transformat sese in miraecula rerum And according to Zoroastes all things were engendred of this fire It is the light which dwelleth this saith Porphyrius in an Aethereal fire for the elementary dissipates all But more authentically Saint Denis in the 15. of the Celestiall Hierarchy Fire forasmuch as its essence is void of all forme as well in colour as in figure hath beene found the most proper to represent Divinity to our senses forasmuch as they can conceive and apprehend of the nature and divine Essence The very Scripture in many places call
heale inflammations and gangrenes and yet there are two fires joined together But â—hâ—at which during this life must repurge our soules iâ— that whereof â—â—int Augustine in the 29. Sermon speakes thus out of the Apostles words for there is another afterwards Kindle in your selves a sparkle of good and charitable dilection blow it and kindle it for when it shall grow to a great flame that will consume the hay wood and chaffe of all your carnall concupiscences but the matter wherewith this fire must bee continued are prayers and good workes which must alwayes burne on your altar for it is it whereof our Saviour said I am come to put fire in the earth and what will I if in bee already kindled Luke 12.49 There are further two fires one on the bad part to wit of carnall concupisence the other of the good which is charity which consumes all the bad leaving nothing but good which exalts it selfe in a fume of a sweet odour for the heart of every on is as an altar either of God or of the adversary and therefore hee that is illuminated with the torch of charity which must more and more bee increased by good works that it may nourish in it selfe the ardour that our Saviour will vouchsafe to kindle whereby that is accomplished which the Apostle saith in the 5 to the Ephes That Jesus Christ hath appropriated to himselfe a Church not having spot or wrinckle holy and pure without blemish For that which the Church is in generall and common towards God the conscience of every one of us is in particular the same when it is sincerely prepared as it is requisite and that upon the fâ—â—ndation thereof men build Gold Silver pretious stones that is to say a firme faith and beleefe accompanied with good works without which faith is dead and buried all upon the model and pattern of the heavenly Jerusalem designed in the 21 of the Apoc. which is the type of the Church as is also the reasonablâ— soule where it must burne alwaies with fire upon the Altar and after the imitation of the wise and prudent virgins we may have our lamps ready well lighted and garnished with what is needfull to maintaine light attending the Bridegrome as our Saviour commanded is in Saint Luke 12. Zohar furthermore makes this repurgation of the soule to bee double which is not saâ—r â—â—sagreeing from our beleefe One is whilest the soule is yâ—â— jâ—â—ne body â—ee cals that according to the mysticall manner of â—â—king the conjunction of the Moon with the Sunne then when iâ—â—â—â—ard of â—â— here below it is not illuminated for as long as the soule is anâ—exed within the body it enjoyes very little of its owne light being all darkened thereby as if it were imprisoned in some darke obscure prison And this repurgation doth consist in repentance of its misdoings satisfaction for them and conversion to a better life in fastings almes prayers and other such penitences which may be exercised in this world The other is after the separation of soul and body which is made in the purgative fire which neither Jewes Mahometans or Ethnicks ever called in doubt But when with supreame light life leaves us yet all evill from miserable men nor yet all coporeall plagues do passe away and the punishment of old evils do weigh us some are exposed to vaine windes to others under a vast gulfe their infected wickednesse is washed off or burnt with fire Where there are set forth three repurgative Elements Aire Water and Fire But wee must not understand saith Saint Augustine on his third Sermon upon such as are diseased that by this transitory fire grievous and mortall offences and capitall sins are purged if they have not beene repented of in this temporall life or to blot out the expiation on the other side where the rest is perfected in the fire as man-slayers adulterers false witnesses concussions violences rapines injustices infidelitie erroneous obstinations and the like which are directly opposite to Gods Divine precepts and commandements but the smaller faults onely which they call veniall sinnes as eating and drinking to excesse vaine words foolish desires and depraved concupiscences not brought to effect not to exercise the works of mercy whither common charity and commiseration cals us and such other frailties of which if we repent not in this world fire shall repurge us in another and more sharply To this purpose the Hebrewes make a triple distinction of sins Chataoth are those that wee mistake against our selves without hurting any other but our selves gourmandizings inconstancies lazines idlenesse anger spite The Avonoth are addressed to our neighbour which do not blot out and pardon but by meanes of reparation and the Peschaim the transgressions praevarications and impieties directly addressed against God They draw this first out of the 34 of Exodus 7. pardoning iniquitie rebellion and offences more in the 106 Psal 6. We have sinned wee have committed iniquity wee have done foolishly and in the 9 of Dan. Chatanu Veavinu Vehirsannu there are sinnes saith Zohar imprinted above others below and others both in the one and in the other above against God below against our neighbour and in the one and in the other against our selves bodies and goods as well our neighbours as our owne noting that below the soule that above made after the image and semblance of God If they bee blotted out below they are so above Jesus Christ after his resurrection breathed on his Disciples and said unto them Receive the holy Ghost To whom soever you pardon sinnes they shall bee pardoned and whose sinnes soever yee retaine they are retained Joh 20.23 that which you shall binde on earth shall be bound in heaven But to returne to the recloâ—thing and to say something thereof the superiour is alwaies clad with the inferiour the intelligible world with the celestiall which is but as it were a shadow thereof and the celestiall with the elementary and notwithstanding it would seeme cleane câ—ntrary by the figure of Hypallage as in the 18. Psal God hath put his Tabernacle in the Sunne which is to say hee hath put the Sunne in his Tabernacle which is heaven for God doth not reside in this World but rather the World in God who comprehends all for in him wee live wee move and have our beeing Also the intelligible world should be clothed with the celestiall and the celestiall with the elementary But this to shew that we cannot well comprehend heaven being so remote from us but by that which is expounded to the knowledge of our senses here below nor of the s parated Intelligences but by the sensible There was nothing said the Philosopher in the intellect that was not first in the sensse And the Apostle in the first to the Romanes that the invisible things of God are seene in the Creation of the world by those that were made This all conformably unto Zohar In thee said he in the prayer of Elias
addressing himselfe to God there is no resemblance nor any image interiour or exteriour but further thou hast created heaven and earth and produced out of those the Sunne and the Moon the Starres and the Signes of the Zâ—diack and in earth Trees and Herbs delights in Gardens with Beasts Birds and Fishes and at last Men that from thence things above might bee knowne And of the suâ—eriours the inferiours together so that the one and the other may bee governed Plutarch alledgeth in his Treatise of Osiris that in the City of Sais in Aegypt there was such an inscription in the Temple of Minerva borne out of Jupiters braine which is nothing else but the sapience of the Father I am that which was which is and which shall bee and as yet there is none amongst mortall men that hath yet discovered my vaile for Divinity is so wrapped in darkness that you cannot see day through it I see him not for hee is darkened with an over dark cloud said Orpheus and in the 17 Psal which made darkenesse his hiding place Further in the 4 of Deut. You came to the foot of a mountaine that burned even to heaven and therein was darkness thick clouds and obscurity for in regard of God towards us light and darknesse are but one thing as is his darknesse such is his light And in the 16 of Isaiah Make thy shadow as the night in the midst of the noone day The very same as well the affirmative as the negative by which that which is aequippollent unto darknesse we may better apprehend something of the Divine Essence but not by the affirmative that relates unto light as Rabbi Moses doth excellently well dispute it in his 57. chapter of his first booke of More For the Divine light is insupportable above all to all his Creatures even to the most perfect following that which the Apostle sets downe in the 1 of Tim. 6. God dwels in light in accessible that no man can see So that it is to us in stead of darknesse as the brightnesse of the Sun is to Moulds Owles and other night birds which darknesses are the revestments and as the borders and cloisters of the light for represent to your selves some Lanthorne placed on the top of a mountaine all round about it as from the Center to the Circumference it shall spread its light equally as farre as it can extend it so that at the last darknesse will terminate it for darknesse is nothing else but the absence and privation of light Even the very same the exteriour man carnall animall is the coverture yea darknesse of the interiour spirituall after the manner or fashion of some Lanthorne of wood or stone and other darke matter which keeps that the light there shut in could not shew forth its light the Lanthorne symbolizing to the body and the light within to the soule But if the body bee subtiliated to an aethereall nature from thence it comes to passe as if the Lanthorne were of some cleare Crystall or of transparent horne for then the soule and its functions do shine there about openly without obstacle Sith then to the one of these two namely to the inner man is attributed fire that answers to the soule and salt to the outward man which is the body as the sacrifice or man animall is the revestment of the spirituall designed by the Man and by Fire The vestment of this Fire will bee Salt in which fire is potentially shut in for all Salts are of the nature of fire as being thereof begotten Geber saith that salt is made of every thing that is burned and by consequent participant of its proprieties which are to purge dry hinder corruption and unboile as wee may see in all salted things which are as it were halfe boiled and are kept longer uncorrupt then raw also in potentiall burning irons which burne and are nothing else but Salt Will it bee lawfull for us here to bring one entire passage of Rhases in a book of the Secret Triplicity for it is not common to all and wee will strongly insist on this number by reason of the three Fires and three Salts whereof wee pretend to Treat So that there is a Mystery in this number of 3 that must not bee forgotten for that it represents the operation whereof Fire is the Operator for 1 2 3 makes 6. the 6 dayes wherein God in the Creation of the world perfected all his workes and rested the seventh day There are saith Rhases three natures the first whereof cannot bee knowne nor apprehended but by a deepe elevated Meditation This is that all-good God Almighty Author and the first Cause of all things The other is neither visible nor tangible although men should bee all contrary that is to say heaven in its rarity The third is the Elementary World comprehending all that which is under the Aethereall Region is perceived and known by our senses Moreover God which was from all aeternity and with whom before the Creation of the world there was nothing but his proper name knowne to himselfe and his Sapience that which hee created on the first day was the water wherein hee mingled earth then came hee to procreate after that which had a beeing here below And in these two Elements thicke and grosse perceptible to our senses are comprehended the two other more subtill and rare Aire and Fire These four bodies being if we must call them bodies bound together with such a minglement that they could ot perfectly separate Two of them are fixed namely Earth nd Fire as being dry and solid the other two volatil Water and Aire which are moist and liquid so that each Element is agreeable to the other two wherewith is bounded and enclosed and by the same meanes containes two in it selfe the one corruptible the other not the which participates of the Divine nature and therefore there are two sorts of Waters the one pure simple and elementary and the other common which we use in Lakes Wels Springs and Rivers raines and other impressions of the Aire There is likewise a grosse Earth filthy and infected and a Virgin Earth crystalline cleare and shining contained and shut up in the Center of all the composed Elementaries where it remaines revested and covered with many foldings one upon another So that it is not easie to arrive there but by a cautelous and well graduated preparation by fire There is also a fire which is maintained almost of it selfe and as it were of nothing so small is the nourishment that it needeth whence it comes to bee more cleare and lucent and another obscure darke and burning and consuming all that to which it is fixed and it selfe at last And Aire on the other side pure and cleane with another corruptible full of legerity for of all the Elements there is none more easie to be corrupted then the aire all which substances so contrary and repugnant mingled with elementary bodies are the cause of
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
secrets whereof shee penetrates Alchymie is in naturall and elementary which shee reveals unto us Geber saith some man cannot know the composition of a thing that is ignorant of its destruction which destruction is perfected by the separations caused by fire Nature then taketh great pains care and pleasure to labour in metals and puts in them a very great length of Time to bring them to the last degree of perfection which settles in Gold the most perfect and incorruptible substance of all others and the homogeneall and equall in all his parties whence it is taken for distributive justice for mingle a party of Gold with 3. or 4. hundreds of silver or Copper leaving them melted together to sport never so little within a little Cruset every portion how small soever it may be of silver or copper will suck up its equâ—ll part and portion of gold It is moreover so exactly depured that it cannot be altered or corrupted by any thing that is either in the earth water air or fire nor by any corrosive or poyson that you can apply thereunto It is not corrupted by clay nor burnt with any burning thing nor mortified or devoured by any green colouring or dividing water there is nothing in it superfluous or defective There are saith Hermes seven Metallick bodies of which the most worthy and principall is gold attributed unto the Sun from whence it hath its name for the same that the Sun is to the stars gold is toward the elementary bodies what thing soever burning it can bee cannot burne it the earth cannot corrupt it nor the water destroy nor alter because its complexion is tempered in heat moisture coldnesse and drinesse and there is nothing in it superfluous or deficient By reason whereof I finde that those are farre wide of their accompt which to keep themselves from poysoning would serve themselves with vessells of gold to eat and drink in for gold respects no more poisons nor venomes then it would doe of capon broth So do silver pewter copper lead iron which would therewith change immediately Even as a fearful man and of small resolution who at the encounter of a Serpent or other venemous beast would grow suddainly pale and come to change colour The care curiosity and assiduous travell of infinite rare and meditating spirits by the space of 4 or 5000 years have found in metals secrets without number and yet knew not to do so well but that they have left much more to enquire into and to search after although there be but seven in all comprehending therein running quick-silver Wherein it is wonderfull that Nature so copious and abundant in all her procreations which are divers is pleased in this respect with so small a number Metals then being such whose regiment depends on fire which is one of the proper visible symboles to represent the most hidden secrets and mysteries of Divinity invisible and imperceptible to our senses The Prophets also were willing to serve themselves for the most part of their parables and similitudes aenigmaes allegories and figures where they have covered and hid that which they would not so openly declare for they have very seldome expressed themselves as did Esay in his 5 Chapter where he interprets that the vision of the Lord of Hosts whereof he there brought a parable was the people of Israel and the men of Judah his delectable plant And in another passage many waters are many nations Moreover Ezekiel 23. having spoken of the two sisters Ahoâ—ah and Aholibah he set downe that this was Samaria and that Jerusalem God by the mouth of Moses in the 28. of Leviticus and in the 28. of Deuteronomy threatned the Israelites said if they come to mis-know him and do not keep well his commandements that he would make the heaven over their head brasse and the earth under them iron which are the two most terrestriall metals and most hard and rebellious to melt and to handle opposing them to the durity of this people as it is there said I will bruise the pride of your hardnesse and will make heaven over you as iron and earth as brasse your labour shall consume unprofitably your earth shall not bring forth its seed nor the tree yeeld any fruit For metals produce nothing but are barren the Poets of their side have used many sorts of Metaphores and figures as in the 6. of the Aeneid an iron voice for a strong and resounding voice and Hesiod calleth the infernall dog Cerberus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a voice of brasse because it is the most sounding metall His voice shall sound as brasse Jer. 16. and Origen upon the 25. of Exod Brasse is taken for a strong and thundering voice because of its resounding Although I should speake with the tongue of Angels and have not charity in me I am as sounding brasse and as a tinkling cymball Pindarus hath appropriated to Heaven the Epithet of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heaven of brasse in the 10. of the Pythians because of the firme solidity of the firmament as the word importeth Homer doth the same in the 3. of his Odes calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most brasse as Euripedes and Anaxagoras make the Sunne a fired iron for the Greek Poets ordinarily doe put fire and brasse one for another the same doth Homer in many places as in the 4. of the Iliads where Apollo to encourage the Trojans remonstrates unto them that the Greeks have not impenetrable bodies of stone or of iron that they should be able to resist blowes of cutting brasse without hurting them These are manners of speech which are not very strange amongst the Prophets who have thereby figured out the most part of their solutions under which some mysteries were shadowed which if men would take altogether raw according to the letter without allegorizing thereupon they would find themselves farre from their reckoning as the Martyr Pamphilus said well in the defence of Origen speaking of those who to shunne allegories were constrained to stumble at gross impertinencies They think it of this sort said he for that they would not admit of allegories in the holy writ by reason whereof assubjecting themselves to the literall sense they imagine and invent to themselves fine fables and fictions And indeed how could a man take according to the letter that of the 33. of Deut. speaking of Aser Thy shoes shall be iron and brasse for he would not say that Aser was shod with iron and brasse but he would understand thereby his force and power denoted as well by the two metals as by the shoe I will extend my shoe against Idumaea strangers are my subjects These are all allegories and figure as also in the 60. of Esay For brass I bring thee gold and silver in stead of Iron brasse for wood and fire for stones Marke well how the Prophet observes the relations opposing brasse to gold and iron to silver and againe brasse to wood and iron to
travelled to obtaine that which others had better cheap and also to that which we reserve for our discourse of Gold and Glasse where we will declare that which shall here be left imperfect not having attained but by the end of the lip wherefore we will take but that which is necessary to clear what the Prophets have thereupon touched in their parables and similitudes In the first place of the two perfect gold silver on which they have most insisted on the good part for the imperfect tinne copper and iron they have ordinarily applyed to the worst part for vices and depravations contumacies and durities and lead for vexations and molestations Gold for true beliefe faith piety and religion and in sum all that which concernes the honour and service of God Silver for good and charitable works of mercy due in respect of our neighbour So that these two metals represent the two tables of the Decalogue And it would not be farre from the purpose to make a trimming of the Altar The first of gold containing four precepts in four azure letters which signifieth heaven and the other of silver in green letters signifying the earth Origen in the 2. Homil. upon this text of the first of Canticles We will make thee borders of gold with studs of silver triumpheth to allegorize the shape of gold this saith he holds the figure of the invisible and incorporeall nature and this for that it is of a substance so homogeneall and subtill that nothing can extend it selfe more fine and silver represents the vertue of the Verb following that which the Lord said in the 2. of Hosea I have given you gold and silver and you have therewith made Idols to Baal But we make the Holy Scripture Idols of gold and silver when we turne the sense thereof to some perverted interpretation or that we wâ—uld Pindarize it by elegances as if vertue consisted on the vaine flowers of Rhetoricke for in doing this we open our mouth as if we would swallow and suck in heaven whilst our tongue licketh the earth like as if the Prophet should say I have given you sense and reason whereby you ought to acknowledge me for your God and reverence me but you have turned them aside and therewith have made Idols By sense are understood the internall cogitations which represents them and by Reason which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word for it signifies the one and the other as silver denotes Psal 12.6 the words of the Lord are pure words as silver proved in the fire when they say or hold that silver tryed in the fire is the tongue of the just are not my words as fire But Cherubins are said to be gold because they interpret them for the pleâ—itude of divine Science And the Tabernacle of the alliance is of Gold also because it carries the type and iâ— age of the law of nature where consisted the gold of science so that Gold is referred to the concâ—ption and thought and silver to the word according to which the wise man alludeth in the 25. of the Proâ—erbe As Golden apples with silver nets so is he that speakâ— words in a fit seaâ—on Hitherto Origen But will we hear what Zohar sets down from whence Origen hath fished out the greatest part of his rare and profound meditations and allegories and to the purpose of those apples of gold enchased within the nets of silver The gold from above is the gold sagur inclosed or folded up that from below is more exeposed to our senses nothing should better agree to the Mâ—ssihe which is the true pure gold of Evihah mentioned Gen. 2. hee which is reinclosed within silver namely his divinity and reshut up with the humanity Zohar pursues it In the Tabernacle there were mingled gold and silver to assemble the divine mystery above in one subject where soveraigne perfection was found But the Cherubims were all of gold shewing their Angelicall nature which doth not participate of any corporeity without any silver or copper mingled therewith Gold within silver expresseth mercy by which the whole universe was built the world was built in mercy upon which Gods Throne is established His Royall seat shall be prepared in mercy But the rigour of judgement is designed by copper which approacheth to the colour of bloud without the effusion whereof also there is no remission And therefore it was ordained that Moses should erect a Serpent in the Wildernesse to heale those who were bitten by the vermine and cast thâ—ir eyes upon it Then gold silver and copper are the three metals that go together the Chasma'l or the electrum of Ezechiel And there is a faire meditation upon the 3 colours which are these white of silver that represents water is mercy manifested by the particle Jah assigned to the Father which the Apostle cals the father of mercies 1 Cor. 1.3 Copper that in rednesse imitates fire is the rigour and the severity of justice which the Aegyptians call Din attributed to the Holy Spirit against which if any blaspheme hee shall neither be pardoned in this world here nor in the other The third in the middle of two is the citrinity of the gold composed of white and red as we may see in saffron bloud vermillion and other the like tempered with water which is white for from thence is procreated a golden yellow for Citrinity saith Gebâ—r is nothing else but a determinate proportion of white and red And this guilded citrinity is attributed to the Sonne who participates of Mercy and Justice in pursuance of that spoken in the 16. of Eccl. 11. because mercy and wrath are with him But latten or copper which in its exteriour hath some resemblance with gold but within all impure and corrupt denoting hypocrisie which under a masque of pious zeale and religion hatcheth its wicked desires and detestable ambitions impieties erroneous opinions lusts animosities revenges and other unjust and perverse intentions The whitenesse of the silver on the one side of which this lett on participates for it is but at 16 Carats being pallied by the rednesse of copper that causeth it citrinity But this rednesse is but cruelty and malice which corrupteth gentle sincerity If your sinnes were as red as scarlet or vermillion they shall bee as white as snow Esay 1.16 In regard of lead it is put for vexations and molestations wherewith God doth visit us by means whereof hee bringeth us unto repentance for as lead burneth and exterminateth all the imperfections of metall which Boetius the Arabian calleth water of Sulphur so tribulation divesteth us here below from many spots which wee thereby have contracted so that St. Ambrose calleth it Heavens Key following that which is written Act. 14.22 Through many temptations we must enter into the Kingdome of Heaven The Apostle Rom. 5.3 and 4. c. useth a very fine gradation Trihulations begets patience tpatience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed because the love
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
with the azure flame doe signifie the soul and the Jod is the white unchangeable and permanent flame of the intellect where all at length comes to terminate which whitenesse is the seat of the true spirituall hidden light which is not seen nor known but by it self for indeed our nature to take it in it self is but a dark substance right resembling the Moon which hath no light but what it receives from the Sun which she is apt to receive as our soul is that of the intellectuall light And there is not a creature whatsoever which is of it self a substantiall light but only a participation of the only true light which shineth in all and through all plainly and sensibly It is the Chasmall of Ezechiel according to Zohar whence proceeds fire or light assembled of two which are yet but one thing the white light namely which mounteth and cleareth that which no mortall eye could suffer that of which is written in 46. Psal Light is risen to the just and gladnesse to the upright in heart which corresponds to the intelligible world and the inward man The other is a twinckling and flaming light of a red fiery colour joined and united to a coal or a weik signifying the sensible world and the outward corporall man The soul is placed in the middle namely the blew light part whereof is fastened to the weik and part to the white flame quickly adhering to one and quickly to another whence according as shee applies it self it comes to bee either burned or illuminated following that which Origen sets down upon the 14. of Jer. That God is a red burning fire consuming and destroying as concerning sinners and to holy and just persons a white rejoycing and vivifying light Jamblicus that doth not soar so high as Zohar being not assisted but by the light and instinct of nature said very well but afterwards the Phaenician Theologie that al which we can perceive of goodnesse and contentment in this sensible world comes from the light which is imparted to us from the Sun and Stars illustrated with it And as the Sun imparts his light to the Moon to the Stars and to the Heavens so God communicates his to the intelligible world the lively Fountain of all others to his blessed Intelligences So that all what our souls can have of good of joy of beatitude be it whilest they are annexed to the bodies or separated therefrom comes from this primordiall light which shineth in them by reflexion as the Sun beams in a basin a concave looking glasse or in water or twhart a looking glass according as St. Denys sets it down in his 4. chapter of divine names which proceeding from the Soveraign good carries therewith the same appellation And Rabbi Eliezer in his chapters sets down that the heavens were created with the light of the Creators vestment grounding himself upon the Psalmist 204.2 Clad with light as with a vestment and the Earth with snow which was under the throne of his glory All Rabinique Allegories may men say but where doe the great mysteries consist from which St. Denys doth not straddle far in the place alledged for even as this fair great and clear shining Sun that hath in it self such a manifest representation and image of Soveraign good extends it light throughout the Univers and doth communicate it to all that are capable to receive it So that there is nothing which doth not participate of his light and vivifying heat there is nothing that can hide it self from the heat thereof In the same manner this Eternall supercelestiall light illustrates vivifies and perfects all that which hath being and banisheth darknesses and all softning hoarinesse that may bee brought thereinto lightning our souls with a desire alwayes to participate more and more of this light for when she comes to prove it by little and little and by degrees that helps it and conducts to the joy and fruition of a Soveraign good which is the light of the Soul namely the Intellect that clears it to be able to apprehend the living spring from whence it came for light is not seen but by her self the most worthy and excellent property of fire with which it hath this in particular and proper that shee makes her self to see as it doth and by her means manifesteth all that which our sight may apprehend Yet there is nothing harder to comprehend then that which is either of the one or of the other for in shewing us and revealing us all it is then when shee hides her self most from us even to blinde us and to reduce our brightnesse into darknesse As is his darknesse so is his light Wee must then not speak of God without light because he is the crue light because O Lord thou art my Lantern which doth enlighten us by thy word Thy word is a Lantern to my feet the splendor of the Father and the living fountain of life as holy St. Augustine after St. John In him was life and the life was the light of men and light shined in darknesse and the darknesse comprehended it not So that from this light wee have double commodity the one that life by which wee live the other the light by which wee see that which enlightens us The spirituall man the true man enjoyes the one and the other the Carnall man life onely for touching the rest hee is in darknesse because they have been rebells to light saith Job because they have not her wayes Even as if one should inclose a toâ—ch within a Lantern of cut-stone or the like obscure and dark matter where its light would remain as quenched and buried without ability to extend it self abroad for the obstacle that hinders it And if we want light saith St. Ambrose there would bee no more comelinesse beâ—uty or pleasure in our house for it is it which makes all seem agreeable which he borrowed from Homer according to what was attributed in Suidas who through an unseasonable time of cold and rain having been received into an Inne where they made him a fire hee sodainly made verses containing in substance that children were the ornament and Crown of the Father Towers of walls horses of the fields ships of the Sea Magistrates of the places of the Assembly where they administred justice to the people and a fair burning and lighted fire the comelinesse and rejoicing of an house which renders it so much the more honorable To see a burning fire in an old hâ—use Some attribute them to Hesiod Trismegistus amongst the rest cals light the father of all who hath procreated man like unto iâ— participant of light and of life depending thereon and life was the light of men The Father is as the Sun in his Essence from whence comes splendor and heat which three are not separated one from another but remain united together â—lthough they are distinct in this fire then our souls are warmed in the Love and fear of God and lightened
in his knowledge Whereupon Pope Innâ—cent the 3. in a Sermon upon the Holy Spirit sets down that hee was sent to the Disciples in shape of fire to mâ—ke them shine by wisdome and to warm them by charity that which regulates and forms life and wisdom forms doctrine and as this fire hath life and heat by which it purifieth and cleanseth so the Holy Ghost by its light illuminates the spirit of man by wisdome and repurgeth it by its ardent charity This is the fire with which the inner man should be salted for to salt bake and burn doe communicate their appellations and significations by their consemblable proprieties and effects because that Salt boils in the tastes by reason of its acrimony and fire the sense when it burnes and a thing salted is half boiled as is before said as well to make it of more easie digestion as to conserve it longer which are the proprieties and effects of fire But to mount from fire here below to the Celestiall which is the Sunne the eye and heart of the sensible world and the visible Image of the invisible God Saint Denis cals it an all-apparent and cleare Statue of God and Iamblichus the Image of Divine intelligence the father of life the Image and portraict of the Prince and Soveraigne Dominator of all the universe the light of the one and the other world the Celestiall and Elementary But may we not here alledge at once this brave authority of Plutarch on the interpretation of the word El where after he had turned it and returned it about a pot by many discourses which at last concluding nothing vanished away in smoak he concludes that this word as indeed it is would say nothing else but thou art which hath been drawn from the two first letters of the holy four lettered word JEHOVAH transposed the one before the other in the Greek E.L. which sheweth that they have all drunke of this Caballine or Mosaicall fountaine And at last come to say We worship God in his essence by our thoughts and reverence the Sun which is its Image for the vertue which it hath given it to produce things here below only representing by its splendor which he communicates to all I know not what appearance or rather shadow of beatitude and mercy so much as it is possible for a visible Nature to represent an Intelligible and a moving to that which is immoveable and stable We see the Sunne as wel as fire but not so neare to be able so exactly to marke it we shall very well conjecture in our spirit of that which we may well apprehend by sight that this must be the most admirable peece of worke of all visible Creatures For although it appears unto us little bigger then a dish or platter in regard of the great distance betwixt us and it so that I tremble to conceive it after the very demonstrations Mathematicall which are certaine and infallible yet it is many times greater then the Globe of the Earth and Water joined together which containeth more then 6000 miles about an apparent witnesse of the wisdome and greatnesse of its Architect Of which Ecclesiasticus in the 43. chapter makes this fine Epiphonema Who is he that can ever satisfie himself to contemplate the glory of the Creator the Firmament in its height which comprehends all things under it so pure and cleare and the forme of this vast and immense hollow of Heaven so faire and admirable to the sight Is not this an apparent vision of his glorious and triumphant Majesty The Sunne at his rising shewing the light of the day an admirable vessell arrived in the middle of his dayly Carreer it burns and rosteth the earth and who is it that can subsist before its extreame heat It burneth thrice double the mountains more then the fiery furnaces the pottery which they put to scum off exhaling from it selfe flaming vapors and a splendor which darkens the most strong assured sight Surely the Lord which hath made and formed it of nothing so fair so great and admirable may well say it to be greater then his owne worke and which hasteth it so speedily as to measure this incomprehensible space in 24 hours With the surplus of this discourse which refers it selfe and is as a Paraphrase upon the 19. Psal where in few termes there are touched three principall points of the Sunne Its beauty compared to a spouse comming out of his bed chamber and he as a Bâ—idegroome comming out of his chamber his force and impetuosity as a Giant to runne his course nor is there any thing that can hide himselfe from the heat thereof And its extream celerity his going forth is from the end of the Heaven and his circuit to the ends of it So that as Saint Augustine in his third Sermon upon Advent there are three things in the Sunne its course its splendor and its heat the heat dries the splendor illuminates and its course runs through the universe And as in man which is the little world the heart is the chiefe seat of life first living and last dying So the Sunne in the great man which is the World is the spring the light and heat which vivifieth all things which imparteth to the Starres and to the Moone the light by which they shine even as Christ which is the Sunne of Righteousnesse and the light of our Souls which without it would remaine buryed in a blinde obscurity He that followes me shall not walke in darknesse but shall have the light of life which conserves it self for the good and extinguisheth it selfe against the wicked witnesse Job 18. The light of the wicked shall be put out Where light is such that sometimes the evill Angels transform themselves to deceive us for in as little as we can blow it backe behinde us it growes dead and dissipates But the true and right light doth illighten us without variation as well in the knowledge of God in this which dependeth on our Salvation as of things sensible and naturall whereunto the clearnesse of the Sunne and of Fire and their effects do guide us more then any other thing to apprehend some sparkle of this soveraigne Wisdome wherewith God built this great All by his Word For every science to which we may attaine by our ratiocination and discourse proceeds from the knowledge of sensible things for there is nothing in the intellect but was first in the sense but incertaine and variable to be in continuall variation and vicissitude So that the knowledge that comes from the light of Nature is very weake and full of doubts and incertitudes if it bee not illustrated by Divine Revelation which makes us see all as it is in its true and reall essence as the light of the Sunne doth all things corporall So that the most part of heathen Philosophers after they have alembeck't their spirit to the perquisition of naturall causes they finde themselves so confounded that they are
procreated before it But in this respect there presents a very rare mystery and worthy of observation that the compleat perfection of things fals out alwaies on the fourth day as of the light The Sunne and Moone were made the fourth day waters on the second day produced nought but fishes the fifth which is the fourth after and al animals the sixth with man for whom the fruits of the earth were made the third Which sheweth us that the 4 number so much celebrated by Pythagoras denoteth the perfection that resides in ten resulting from the four first numbers 1 2 3 4 make â—en So Plato was willing to informe his Timaeus where he treats of the procreation of things by these words one two three but where is the fourth Zohar upon this particle of the 14. of Leviticus you shall keepe my Sabbaths See saith Rabbi Eliezer what is the mystery here contained In six dayes was the world created in each of those is manifested the worke that was made therein and God gave it his particular vertue after he had finished it but on the fourth he attributed one more expresse for those of the third preceding being secret and hidden came not in evidence except that the fourth day happened their faculties would reveal themselves for water air and fire the three superiour elements remained as suspended and the workmanship of them did not appeare till the fourth day manifested them and then appeared all that was made on each But if you will alledge that this was the third day that then God said Let the earth sprout and produce the green herb producing seed and the fruit trees bearing fruit after his kinde which hath his seed in it selfe upon the earth and it was so yet this notwithstanding that this happened on the third day he suffered not to be annexed with the fourth without any separation the which fourth comes to meet with the Sabbath which is the fourth day the fourth and is by it selfe the perfect fourth where there appeared all the works of the six preceeding dayes and it is the fourth foot of the Merchavah O the divine throne whereon God sate for his repose all the six dayes Thus discourseth Zohar We must not here passe over another mystery which these two luminaries have each three names the Sunne is called Chomah wisdome Scemesch heat and Cheres drynesse Plato in Timaeus All moisture that the celerity of fire raised and that which remained arid and dry wee call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 potters earth That of Maor Luminary is common to the one and to the other The Moone is called Malchut reigne or kingdome Jareha which the Greek call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for that she perfects her course in a month and lebenab white for as the Sun representeth Jesus Christ the Moon denotes the Church which is all fair without any blemish following that which is written in the 6. of Canticles 10. Who is she that looketh forth as the morning fair as the Moone clear as the Sun Of this light of the Sunne of Righteousnesse whereof it is said in the fourth of Malachy But unto you that do feare my name the Sunne of Justice shall arise 4. 2. Where the Moone the Church is illustrated on a perpetuall day without darknesse according to Esay 60. v. 20. The Lord shall be thine everlasting light who hath planted his Tabernaele or Church within the fair clear shining Sunne that illuminates every man that comes into the world no more nor lesse then the starres which are innumerable and the least as big as the whole earth receive all their light from the visible sunne Of whom shall it not here bee lawfull to relate something of his praises of the Song that Orpheus made unto it Hear mâ—e most blessed Sunne Worlds heart and eie Heavenly brightnesse shining Living mens pleasing aspect Begetting Aurora in thy right hand And the night on thy left Thou governest the four seasons Who dance in a round At the found of thy golden harpe Thou runnest through this great vault Vpon thy shining Chariot Drawn with thy Coursers That respire heat and life Ardent unpolluted measurer Of times that shewes thy selfe to all A Soveraigne aid to each Keeping faith eye of Justice Brightnesse of shining light Behold that which we here thought to runne through concerning these three fires as for the three salts which relate thereunto we will speak thereof hereafter namely the Terrestriall and Elementary the Heavenly and Solary and the Intelligible that of the Divine Essence denoting the Father from whence proceeds the light which is the Sunne and these two the heat of the Holy Spirit which kindles our hearts with the love and knowledge of God and with charitable love to our neighbour The same in heaven the light of the Sunne expands it selfe to illighten all the starres and here below to the production and vivification of all that which is there begotten and maintained And in the Elementary world fire doth clear us warm us and boil our viands and lends us all other commodities and usages As for fire in the 66. of Esay 15 16. which the Evangelist cites here whose fire shall not extinguish and whose worme dieth not It is without doubt destinated to the punishment of reprobates which shall never be quenched nor the worme that stingeth the conscience shall never dye To keep that this worm that is engendred of corruption may not procreate we must salt it with discretion and prudence that it may do nothing which may offend and scandalize his neighbour according as the Evangelist specifies it Hee that shall scandalize one of these little ones that beleeve in mee And as for banishing and chasing away strange fire that devours our soul as a burning feaver doth vitall heat this must be done by the mediating intervention of divine fire which is much more puissant then any other Let us heare that which to this purpose Saint Ambrose alledgeth in the 3. chap. of his Offices Saint John baptized Jesus Christ with the Holy Ghost and with fire which is the type and image of the Holy Ghost who after his ascension must descend for the remission of sinnes so enflaming as a fire doth the soul and heart of the faithfull according as Jeremie saith in 20. 9. after he had received the Holy Ghost and it was as a burning fire in my heart shut up in my bones What is the meaning then of that in the Maccabees that the fire was become water and this water excites the fire but that the spirituall grace burneth by the fire and by the water it doth purifie and cleanse our sinnes for sinne washeth and burneth according to which the Apostle saith fire will prove what each mans works shall bee for it must necessarily be that this examination should bee perfected in all those that desire to returne into Paradise It was not without cause nor idlely set downe in the 3. of Genesis that after Adam and Eve were
banished from thence he placed at its entrance a brandishing sword of fire to keep the passage to the tree of life With this fire then we must all be salted that are in the way of salvation following that which Origen sets downe in his 3. Homil. upon the 36. Psalme Wee must all goe to the fire of Purgatory and Peter and Paul but all shall not passe thereby after the same sort as they did whereof it is said in the 43. of Esay 2. When thou shalt passe through the waters the waves shall not cover thee for I will be with thee when thou shalt march through the fire thou shalt not bee burnt The Israelites passed through the red Sea dry-shod and the Aegyptians were drowned therein The three children in Nebuchadnezzars furnace had no detriment and those that heated the fire without were therewith consumed And in the 19. Hom. upon the 16. of Leviticus All are not purged by this fire that parts from the Altar it is the fire of the Lord for hee that is from the Altar is not of God but a strange fire dedicated for the cruciating of sinners which shall never be quenched nor the worm that gnaweth shall never dye for after that the soul by a multitude of its wicked comportments hath heaped up within him abundance of sinnes this congregation of evils in succession of times comes to boil and enflame us with a paine and punishment internall as the body doth of a feaver proceeding from the excesse of the mouth or other superfluities when she shall come to thinke and relate a history of its delinquencies which will bee a perpetuall prickle wherewith it will bee tormented so that shee will make her selfe as an accuser and witnesse against her selfe aâ—cording as the Apostle said Rom. 2.15 Their conscience also bearing witnesse and their thoughts either accusing or excusing one another in the day when God shall judge the secrets of all men But Jeremie on the other side speaking of a drinke of the wrath of God which shall be poured out upon all manner of Nations whereof whosoever will not drinke shall not be purified and from that we learne that the fury of Gods vengeance profiteth for the purgation of souls as well in generall as in particular and there is nothing more purgative then fire of which the Prophet Malachy should say in his 3. chap. 3. The Lord will sanctifie them in a burning fire and such is the fire of tribulations and adversity with which we must be salted and purged for salt is purgative above any other thing as wee may sufficiently perceive in those that drink Sea water who all dye of a flux Of the other fire which is exterminative and strange of which it is also in the 10. of Leviticus 2. And a fire went out from the Lord and devoured Nadab and Abihu God said in the 32. of Deut. v. 22. They shall burne unto the lowest hell and shall consume the earth with her encrease and set on fire the foundations of the Mountaines For the justice of the Almighty said one of the good Fathers foreseeing that which must come from the beginning of the world created this fire of eternall hell that whereof Esay intends to speak whose fire is not quenched to beginne to be the punishment of the wicked without that burning and heat should cease now for that it is neither wood nor charcoale nor other matter to maintain it but shall be eternally tâ—rmented therewith in body and soul because they have offended with the one and the other for sins are the bait and nourishment of this fire which by a gathering together of misdeeds and superabundance of iniquity heaped one upon another enflame the soul to a perdurable punishment even as a burning feaver the repleat body and render it a joice of ill digestion by a superfluity of viands and other disorders and excesse from whence there was drawne a wicked habitude for the soul then comming to remember her delights agitated with the living and most rigorous pricks which gall it she comes to be her owne accuser by certaine remorse of conscience that can profit them no more because in hell there is no redemption and to be his witnesse and judge as the Apostle sets it downe in the 2. of the Romanes Their conscience bearing witnesse and their thoughts accusing them in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men But there is also a fire in this world by which we must be salted and purified for as much deduction of it as we must endure from thence namely tribulations which are to us as a Minorative in Physick of the compleat purgation that wee must receive thereby The two foresaid fires furthermore that of the Altar and the strange may be very properly compared that there to aqua vitae the other to aqua fortis which ends and destroyes all where aqua vitae serves for nourishment for all that wee eat or drinke participates thereof and is that which passeth and converts into nutriment It is true that it is revealed more nearly in some subjects then in other Wine is that where it manifests it self soonest and with lesse preparation and paâ—ne afterwards wheat and so of the rest for there is nothing wherein nâ—ture doth so soone make his profit as of these two Aqua vitae is also called burning because it conceives so easily the flame and burneth for that it is necessary that whatsoever doth nourish must suffer under the fires action Otherwise how is it that naturall heat could work thereupon which is much weaker then that of fire wee know by experience that we could not draw any nourishment from stones metals earth and other substances whereupon fire cannot bite and if wolves doe sometimes eat clay wild-ducks and other birds small flints and gravell it is either to avoid vacuity or for some medicament to them knowne by a secret instinct of nature but not that this doth digest or serve them for maintenance no more then Iron doth Ostriches which yet they corrupt by a strong and great heat of their stomach But you will say that this assimilation contraries the text of the 10. of Leviticus where Aarons sonnes are so burned for offering strange fire That which Rabbi Simeon to Zohar relates in part that they served at the Altar being drunk and overcome with wine for that which followes after demonstrates it that God said unto Aaron Thou nor thy sonnes shall not drink wine when you enter into the Tabernacle whereto may be answered that similitudes cannot in all or through all agree otherwise it would be the same thing they represent Aqua vitae doth not make drunke if men take not so much at a time that it may alienate people from their spirit And yet being separate from wine the remainder should be nothing but phlegme and residences which cannot in any sort make drunke nor being therewith mingled and adjoined by nature as to stoppe again the acuity
These are all mysteries uneasy to comprehend which intend nothing but to demonstrate the affinity and connexion of the sensible with the intelligible world and of the Elementary with the Celestiall for as it is said in another case the Universall firmament called the firmament of heaven containeth things superiour and inferiour although after divers manners This is wel seen in a torch where blacknesse that is the Earth is the ground of three elements and colours the red being but an inflammation and heat joined to the blacknesse without any flame or light as are the blew and white which proceed from one very root all tend a going to unite with the white flame that is above and more highly elevated then others Yet it is not therefore so pure and quit of all filthinesse but that it procreates soot with black and infected fume whereof it must be depured by fire till it hath perfected the consumption of its corruption and made it a perfect whitenesse which from that time forwards never alters And this is that which we said before that fire leaves two sorts of excrements not sufficiently depured for the first proof Ashes below whence by the same fire is extracted an incorruptible substance of salt and of glasse at the last which the Zohar was not ignorant of when he said upon Exod. of the lees of any confected a shes salt and glasse is drawn But now for that it was not so said it is a thing sufficiently common and manifest to those that deal with fire which Cinerall excrement comes from the adustion and burning of coals but the foot which is more spirituall for that mounts and elevates higher is born of the flame which hath no leasure or power to perfect its mundification so that the pure and impure mount together And assuredly nothing can better agree with our souls after their separation from the body which carries away with them the imapurities which they have attracted from it during their residence here below which they must repass by fire be perfected by white throughout Every man shal be salted with fire and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt The weik and ashes representing man the exterior animal and his body and the two flames blew and white the blew the Celestiall and Ethereall body and the white souls stript of all Corporeity which in good men shall be burnt with fire that burns alwaies upon the altar and salted with salt from the Covenant the promises namely of his Messiah into which the Prince of this world hath but seen as it hath done in the posterity of Adam which is al filled with ashes whereof it was first built with the soot of originall sin whereunto he fastned by his disobedience prevarication So that we are the night where Moses began to reckon the day for that we are according to the flesh before the Messiah who being come after is the enlightned day of this clear sun of Justice which the Cabballists say is the representation of Jehovah whose sheath as they call it is Adonei from whence God must be drawn out for it is hee that mundifies the righteous and burneth the wicked with dark and obscure fire To which that also beateth which is said of the Thrones Animalls there shall descend a Lion enflamed that shall devour the oblations There are Angells committed upon every member that sinneth of whom they constitute themselves the bringers on for every man that commits any offence he suddainly delegates to himself an accuser which will be no more favourable to him then he must be but will lend him a fire from above to burn that member that shall have trespassed But Jehovah interveneâ— from above who with his water of mercy quencheth this fire after the party Delinquent shall have his spots purged away And there is but he alone that is the angel of peace that make the souls reconcilation with God to whom she comes by the intercession of this sacred name there is no other name all that the Zohar sets down whâ—ch is as Christian-like spoken by a Rabbin which was never baptized That premised for a ground work of what we shall say hereafter St. Marks Greek text carries it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every sacrifice shall be seasoned with salt where the Latin version which the Church holdeth for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sacrifice as in truth this Greek word signifies all sorts of sacrifices hostia's victima's and ceremonies But Porphyrius in his second book of sacrifices doth particularize it to herbs that men offered to the Gods for from the beginning they did not present them this he spake of Incense Myrrhe Benjamin Storax Aloes Labdanum and other the like odoriferous gums but only certain green herbs as certain first fruits of seeds that the earth produced and trees were procreated from the Earth before Animalls and the earth was clothed with herbs before it produced trees By reason whereof the gathering certain pieds of herbs all entire with their leaves and rootes and seeds they burned them and sacrificed the odour and fume that proceeded therefrom to the Immortall Gods and of this exhalation they cast which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 suffitus perfumed whence comes the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 victima sacrifice Therefore they do not refer them properly to bloody sacrifices for the Romans for more then 800 years since by Numaes Ordinance had no Images of Gods nor other sacrifices then dough with salt which were from thence called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say without blood Hitherto Porphyrie It hath been said heretofore that there was nothing more common nor lesse well known then fire And as much we may say of salt wherefore it is that Moses made so great account of it as to apply it to all sacrifices Calling it the perpetual Covenant that God made with his people of which alliance by the Hebrews called Berith they found three or four marks in the Scripture The bow of heaven Gen. 9.9 Gen. 17.2 Circumcision to Abraham and the universall paction Numb 18.19 Further yet the Paction of the Law received in Horeb Deut. 5.2 3. The Lord our God made a Covenant with us in Horeb which hath been time out of mind in singular and venerable recommendation towards all sorts of people you bless your tables by putting on of saltsellers saith Arnobius to the Gentiles But Titus Livius in his 26. that they may have a saltseller a dish or platter for Gods cause And Fabricius that thrice valiant Roman Captain had never gold nor silver but a little drinking cup whose foot was of horn to make his offerings to the Gods saltseller to serve for sacrifices forbiddding as Plinie hath it in his 33. book 12. ch to have other Silvery then those two It was furthermore a marke and symbole of Amity as was salt Wherefore the first thing that they served strangers comming to them was Salt to note a firmity
nor sweetnesse But what shall we say of the Dolphin that saved Arion and of many others alledged by Plutarch in his treaty What animalls are the wisest those on land or those in the water of fishes likewise wherewith the Indians are served as with a chained Grayhound But it is very smal to take fish never letting go what he hath once fastned on Truely a Brach nor couching spaniell cannot bee more spirituall or docible then this fish at least if it be true what is related to have often times been seen by the eye in the thirteenth booke of Gonzalo d'Ovidiedo of his naturall history of the Indies Chap 10. And of Peter Martyr of another sort of fish called Manati which being taken at Sea very little and from thence put into a standing lake became tame and privately would come and take bread from mens hands and would not faile to come a good way off when hee was called leaving himselfe to be handled at their pleasure and carried them upon his back as on a bridge crosse the lake from one side to the other But fresh water fishes are they more docile then those of the Sea The Aegyptian Preists above all others abhorred the Sea calling it the finall end the death and destruction of all things because the water thereof killeth all Animalls that drink thereof and is as the sepulcher of all rivers that goe lose themselves and die therein and the earth is the same for all bodies from whence none are spewed out To this purpose Chiia in the Zohar deploring the death of Rabbi Simeon author thereof after he had cast himselfe on the earth and embraced him used such a language O earth earth dust dust how hard and unpitifull art thou For whatsoever is most desireable to the sight thou makest old and deformed thou breakest in peices the shining Columnes of the world How doest thou quench the cleare resplendent lights which received theirs from the eternall living spring wherewith the whole world was illustrated The Princes and Potentates given to the people to governe them and to administer Justice unto them by which they are maintained and subsist waxe old and end in thee and thou remainest alwayes persistent in thy selfe not being able to satisfie or satiate thy selfe with so many bodyes that returne thither so that the world is therein confounded and lost and afterwards renewes it self of a suddaine But for the regard of the Sea the Aegyptian Priests had it in such detestation that they could not endure to see the very Mariners nor the Islanders as people which on all parts were cut off from humane commerce And the Britains separated from the world by an element which they say is the fifth so austere outrageous and unpittiable and for that cause they abstained from salt because that among other things it provoked to lasciviousnesse The occasion also for which they so much rejected the Sea was something mysticall and allegoricall because it doth not wash spots or uncleannesse So that Homer made and not without reason that Nausicaa Alcinous daughter washed her linnen and clothes in a fountaine of fresh water on the Sea shore for the truth is that Sea-water doth not wash That which Aristotle as Plutarch puts it in the first of the Symposiaques 9. question referre to the pickle wherewith the Sea-water is alwayes filled so that there being nothing empty therein it could receive no filthinesse And lee is it not the same yea more full of salt yea more unctuous and fat then that of the sea so that according to Aristotles testimony men put sea-water in their lamps to make them shine clearer and cast upon the flame it becomes lighted in which there may be also mystery contained concerning fire and salt and their affinity together Join hereunto that wee may see that salt is an enemy to all filthinesse and uncleannesse and will not thereto adjoin or associate no more then fire which will nothing but pure things said good Raimund Lullius Yet to the aforesaid purpose Plutarch in his naturall causes sets down that the sea-water doth neither nourish nor feed trees or plants because being grosse and heavy it cannot mount into their stalks which thicknesse and grosnesse is seen for that carryeth greater burthens then the fresh water and this comes from the salt therein dissolved and it is earthly and consequently more uneasy to sinke Moreover trees being according to the opinion of Plato Democritus Anaxagoras and others a terrestriall Animall it cannot give it nourishment for bitter doth not nourish but sweet only But what shall wee say of so many fishes that are procreated and nourished in the sea of herbs also and of trees Francisco de Oviedo lib. 2. ch 5. sets down that in the first discoverie of Christopher Columbus they found as of great green and yellow medowes in the main sea more then two hundred leagues from land of certain herbes called Salgazzi which go floting on the top of the waters as the winds carry them from one side to another In the relation of Francis Vlloa he sets down that the root of the herbs whereof he gives the description and figure do not sink more then 12 or 15 fadome in the water yellow yet as wax But wee sufficiently see trees and bushes growing along the sea-shore and even in the very sea yet Plutarch insisteth that those that grow along the shore of the Red-sea are there procreated nourished with the slime which the flouds carry thither and fall therein which he might have spoken more properly of the greater sea otherwise called Pontus Euxinus And Plinie lib. 18. cha 22. that the herbs which grow within the water are nourished with rains but it would follow that if so they should procreate in all other places where it rains indifferently Aristotle with better reason refers it to the grosse and unctuous saltnesse which is therewith mingled Salt being fat and unctuous which is the cause that salt water doth not so easily quench fire as fresh water But this saltnesse is equall throughout all the sea Plinie himself lib. 19. ch 11. specifies Certain herbes which salt waters do much profit These are secrets of Nature to which mans discourse can hardly arrive For herbs by a providence thereof may well suck and draw from salt water a fresh or sweet substance wherewith they are procreated and nourished as the fishes But this is not our principall drift we have here endeavoured to shew that Salt is not unfruitfull but the cause of fertility provoking venereall appetite whence Venus is said to be begotten of the sea if men give salt unto animalls to heat them the more and make them eat salt as Plutarch puts it in his 3. queston of Naturall causes And wee see by experience that in ships laden with salt rats and mice are sooner engendred then in others this which must so much the more cry down salt in regard of holy things from whence all mutability and lubricity must be bannished but salt is in the number of things that are applyed to the good and to the bad part Of the good we have heretofore alledged many places Of the bad for the sterility Gen. 14.5 All shall assemble themselves in the wild valley which is now the sea of salt And in the 19. chap. 26. as also in the 10. of Wisdome v. 7. of Lots wife who for her incredulity and disobeying the Angels voice she was turned into a pillar of salt And Judges 9.45 the habitations of Rebells and Traitors were razed and sowed with salt And in the 2 of Zephaniah v. 9. Moab shall be as Sodome a desolation of nettles and thistles and heaps of salt But we see upon the ebbing and flowing of the salt pits in the Marshes of Zaiâ—tonge where they empty the durt which are as salt as the sea itself where it produceth the best wheat that possibly can be and in great quantity and very excellent wines also But there is another consideration in that as in Marle and in the dry places of Ardonne where they burne the cuttings of trees of 7 or 8 years as also quick chalk which supplies the place of dung in their grounds for those ashes would produce nothing of themselves no more then Marle or salt but they are the cause of production because they warm and fatten the land There is yet another reason that Plutarch alledgeth That throughout where there is Salt nothing can grow thick or be close together which constipation would hinder herbs to thrust out Moreover many medicaments and remedies do come from salt whereupon I will not here lose time on that which Plinie Dioscorides and others have set down and treated of cursorily and in hast with closed eyes one after another not having made proof thereof add to this it is so triviall and beaten as nothing more but will touch here in passing the Countrey an experiment whereof I have seen very admirable effects in burning feavers and unquietnesse where they could not take rest It is a frontall made in this manner Take the yolk of a fresh Eg and as much grosse salt beat them together in shape of an ointment which you shall apply to your forehead between two folded linnen clothes It doth not coole the brain nor cause such accidents as conserve of Roses do Oxyrhodinon likewise and brings much more comfort FINIS