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
pretious our Saviour saith Take no care then how to cloth your body is not your body better then raiment and by consequent the soule more then the body since the body is but as it were the vestment of the soule which is subject to perish and to use all shall wax old as doth a garment And the Apostle in the 1 to the Corinthians The old man falleth away but the inner man is renewed dayly for it washeth it selfe according to Zohar by the fire as doth a Salamander and the outward man by water with Soaps and Lees that consist of Salts Of which two manners of repurging it is thus said in the 31. of Numb v. 23. All that which shall support the fire shall be purged thereby and that which cannot beare it shall be sanctified by the water of Purification which was a figure of that which the Fore-runner spake in the 3. of Matthew It is true that I baptize you with water unto repentance but he that comes after mee shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with Fire But behold how Zohar speakes more particularly If it bee so Adam what is he it is nought but skin and flesh and bones and nerves he must not passe so But to speak truth man is nothing else but the immortall soule that is in him and the skinne flesh bloud bones and nerves are the vestments wherein it is wrapped as a little creature newly borne within the beds and linnen of its Cradle These are but the utensils and instruments allotted to womens children not to man or Adam for when this Adam so made was elevated out of this world he is devested of those instruments wherewith he had beene clothed and accommodated This is the skinne wherewith the Son of man is envelopped with flesh bones and nerves and this consisteth in the secret mystery of Sapience according to that which Moses taught in the Curtains or Vails of the Tabernacle which are the inward vestment and the Tabernacle the outward To this purpose the Apostle in the fifth of the 2 to the Corinthians saith We know that if our earthly house of this Tabernacle were dissolved we have an Aedifice not built with mans hand but eternally permanent in the high Heavens For in this we groane earnestly desiring to bee clothed upon with our house which is from heaven if so be that being clothed wee shall not bee found naked So Adam in respect of his body is a representation of the sensible world where his skinne corresponds with the Firmament extending heaven like a Curtaine For as the heaven covereth and enveloppeth all things so doth the skin every man in which are introduced and fastned its starres and signes that is to say the draughts and lineaments in the hands the forehead and visage in which wise men know and reveale and makes them discerne the inclination of its naturall imprinted in the inward And he that doth conjecture from thence is as he to whom heaven being covered with Clouds cannot perceive the constellations that are there or otherwise darkened from his sight And although the sagest and most expert in these things can finde out something therein denoted by the draughts and lineaments of the palme of the hand and fingers or within them for by the outside it is case a part and shew nothing but the nailes which are not a little secret and mystery because by death they are obfuscate but have a shining lustre while they live in the haire eyes nose and lips and all the rest of his person For as God hath made the Sunne Moone and Stars thereby to declare to the great World not only the day night and seasons but the change of times and many signes that must appeare in the earth So hath he manifested in the little world Man certaine draughts and lineaments holding place of lights and starres whereby men may attaine to the knowledge of very great secrets not common nor knowne of all Hence is it that the Intelligences of the superiour world do distill and breath as it were by some channels their influences whereby the effects come to struggle and accomplish their effects here below as of things drawn with a rude and strong bow will plant themselves within a Butt where they rest themselves But to retake the discourse of this double man and the vestment of him the Apostle in the 1 Cor. 15. saith That there are bodies Celestial and bodies Terrestrial yet there is a glory both of the one and of the other There is a naturall or animall body and there is a body spirituall he will raise up the spirituall body incorruptible To this relates the Fire to the corruptible Salt From these vestments furthermore the occasion presents it selfe to a larger extension the better to declare who must be seasoned with Fire and who with Salt which is here expressed by the offering to whom the exteriour doth correspond according to the Apostle Rom. 12. I pray you brethren by the mercy of God that you offer up your bodies a living Sacrifice holy and acceptable unto him which is your reasonable service which it could not make it selfe the habitation of the Holy Ghost if it were not pure neat and incontaminate Know you not that your Body is the Temple of the holy Spirit which is in you which in Scripture is commonly designed by fire with which wee must be salted inwardly that is to say preserved from corruption and from what corruption from sinne that putrifies our soules Origen in his 7. book against Celsus speaking of its vestments sets downe that being of it selfe incorporeall and invisible in what corporall place soever it findes it selfe it must have a body convenable to the nature of the place where it resides As then when it is in this Elementary world it must have also an elementary body which it takes when it is incorporated in the belly of a woman to grow there and there to live this base life with the body that it hath taken to the limited terme which expired it devests it selfe of this corruptible vestment although necessary in the earth from whence it came following that which God said to Adam in the third of Genesis Thou art dust and shalt returne to dust to be revested with an incorruptible whose perpetuall abode is in Heaven For this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortall must put on immortality And so the soul putting off its first Terrestriall vestment takes another more excellent above in the Aethereall Region which is of the nature of Fire hitherto Origen to which nothing could be found more conformable then that which Pythagoras puts towards the end of his golden verses Thus forsaking this mortall body thou passest into the free Aethereall Aire you shall become an immortall God incorruptible and no more subject to death as if he would say that after this materiall corruptible body shall put off the Terrestriall and impure vestment the perfect portion of
God and Angels Fire and doth not onely propose unto us Chariots and wheeles of Fire but of igneall animals of burning brookes and rivers of coales and men all burned All these celestial bodies are but flaming lights and thrones and Seraphims all of fire there is so great affinity and agreement with Divinity for the fire that the feeling and smelling perceiveth is separated in respect of the substance from all others that may bee joined and mingled therewith except it bee of the matter to which it is incorporated to burne It shines it spreads it selfe from side to side and gathering it selfe to its selfe with its light it illustrates all that is neare it nor can it bee seene without the matter whereto it adheres and exerciseth its action no more then Divinity but by its effects nor arrest nor fasten nor mingle with any thing nor change so long as it liveth there where it handleth all things and draws them to its selfe and to its nature It renewes and rejoyceth all with vitall heat it illustrates and illuminates all tending alwaies upward with agility and incomparable speed It communicates his motion to all its light its heat without any diminution of its substance what portion soever it lends but ever remaines entire in it selfe It comes suddenly and returneth as fast without mans knowledge whence it comes or whither it goes with many other worthy considerations of this common fire which brings us to the knowledge of the divine fire whereof this materiall is but as a garment and coverture and Salt the coverture of Fire which is appeased in Salt and agreeth with its enemy Water as Earth in Saltpeter doth with its contra-opposite the Aire by reason of the water that is betweene them for Saltpeter participates of the nature of Brimstone and of Fire for that it burnes and of Salt for that it resolves into water For saith Heber it is the property of Salts and Alums to bee dissolved into water sith they were made thereof But of this more to the purpose hereafter in its place The meditations of the Covertures and revestments are of no small importance to mount from things sensible to things intelligible for they are all infolded one in another as an Encyclie or a spirall Moone Zohar makes these revestments double Pag. 29. Encyclides ab 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 round Eph. 4.22 24. the one mounting and devesting its selfe Put off the old man and put on the new for no spirituall thing descending downwards operates without a vestment Sit yee in Jerusalem till you be clad with power from above Luk. 24.49 And in this case the body envelopeth and reclotheth the spirit the spirit the soule the soul the intellect the intellect the Temple the Temple the Throne the Throne the Sechinah or the glory and presence of God which shineth in the Tabernacle In descending this glory is shut out from the Throne and from the Arke of the Covenant which is within the Tabernacle or Intellect the Tabernacle within the Temple which is our Soule Yee are the Temple of God the Temple is in Jerusalem our vital spirit Jerusalem in Palestine our body and Palestine in the midst of the earth whence our body is composed God then being a pure Spirit stript of al corporeity and matter for our soule being such for more reason must hee be so that made it to his image and resemblance hee cannot bee in this simple and absolute nakednesse comprehended nor apprehended by his Creatures but by certaine attributes which they give him which are as many vestments which the Caballists do particularize to ten Zephirots or numerations 3 in the intelligible world and 7 in the celestiall which come to terminate in the Moone or Malcut the last in descending and the first in mounting from the Elementary world upwards for it is a passage from here below to heaven So that the Pythagoreans call the Moone the Celestial earth and the heaven or terrestrial Star all the nature here below in the elementary world being in regard of the celestiall and the celestiall of the intelligible this Zohar called feminine passible as from the Moone towards the Sunne from whom so much as she absents her selfe till she comes to its opposition by so much she increaseth in light for our regard here below where on the contrarry in her conjunction that shee remaines all darkened the party upward is all illightned to shew us that the more that our understanding doth abate to things sensible so much the more doth he disjoine or sever them from the intelligible and contrariwise this was the cause that Adam was lodged in an earthly Paradise to have more leisure to contemplate on divine things when he thought to turne after sensible and temporall things willing to taste of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evill whereby hee departed from that of life to assubject himselfe to death he was banished from thence and put out To this very purpose Zohar doth yet adde that two vestments come from heaven to this temporall life The one formall white and resplendent masculine fatherly and agent for whatsoever is active takes place from forme of the male and from the father and this very thing comes to us from fire and from the clearnesse of the stars to illustrate our understanding The other is red maternall faeminine for the soule coming from the substance of heaven which is more rare then that of heavenly bodies That of the understanding is lodged in the braine and the other of the soule in the heart The intellect or understanding is that part of the reasonable soule made and formed after the image and semblance of its Creators and the soule in it the animal faculty called Nephesch the life namely that which resideth in the bloud and as the heaven containes the stars this contains the intellect which to us is for the rest common with brute beasts But the intellect or reasonable soule is proper and particular to men that which can merit or demerit therefore it needs repurgation and cleansing from the spots that it hath drawne and conceived from the flesh wherein it was plunged according to that in the 8. of Genesis 21. The thought and imagination of mans heart were inclined to evill from his youth And fith it is a question about cleansing the vestment which is of a fiery nature it must likewise be that it be done b◠meanes of fire for wee see by experience that one fire chaseth away another as it hath been said heretofore so that if a man bee burnt there is no readier remedy then to burne it againe in the same place enduring the heat of the fire as much as you can which drawes the inflammation to its selfe out of the party or else tempering it with Aqua vitae wherein Vitriol hath beene calcined from whence Chirurgeons have not found a more soveraigne remedy to take away the fire of a musket sho◠to
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
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
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
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
to our sight and feeling But men may say the same that neither Aristotle nor other Grecians of his time knew so well the fire and its effects at least wise not so exactly as did so long while after the Arabians by Alchymie on which all the knowledge of fire dependeth The Aegyptians said that it was a ravishing and insatiable Animal that devoures that which taketh birth and increase and at last it selfe after it is therewith well fedde and gorged when there is no more to feed or nourish it for that having heat and motion he cannot passe from food and aire to breath therein if for want hereof it remaines at last extinct with that wherewith it was fed All things proper to animate substances and which have life for life is ever accompanied with heat and motion which prâ—c eds from heate rather then heate from motion although they be reciprocalls for one cannot be without the other But Suidas thereupon formed such a contradiction that not onely animals but all that which take nourishment and encrease tend to a certaine butt whither being come it stayes without passing any further where neither nourishment nor increase of fire are limited nor determined for the more is administred so much the more it would have and grow every day greater for neither the one nor the other can be limited as do these animals Then by consequent it must not be put in their ranke So that the motion of fire should rather be called generation then nourishment or growth for there is but that one element that nourisheth and increaseth it In the others that which superabounds therein is by apposition as if you would joine water to water or earth to earth you shall never do the same to fire to thinke to make it greater by joining thereunto other fire but by the apposition of matter upon which it may bite and exercise its action as wood and other like things which perforce must turne into its nature and so it augments it selfe The Poeticall fictions relate that Prometheus went into Heaven to steale it to accommodate mortals for which he was so grievously punished by the Gods as to remaine 30. yeares bound to a Rocke in Mount Cancasus where a Vulter dayly eate up his entrails which did grow againe in course Autor de roolle p 61. in course in order one after aâ—othâ—r But it is to bee beleeved that the Gods that are so watchfull and so affectionate towards mankinde would not deny this so necessary a portion of Nature without which the condition of their life were worse then that of beasts as well for the boyling of their meats as to warme them and dry them and infinite other necessary commodities Besides of that which soares alwayes upwards being of one celestial original whither he aspires to returne it seemes that this belongs properly to man Sith other thingt lookes downe unto the earth It gave man a face to looke up and see the heavens To erect his countenance unto the Stars Almost all other animals do shun the fire whence Lactantius to shew that man was a divine Animal alledgeth for one of his most pregnant reasons that hee onely amongst others used fire And Vitruvius in his second booke sets downe that the first acquaintances of men were contracted by comming to meete to warme themselves at common fires So that the cause why God sent fire downe to men must bee that by the meanes thereof they are come to penetrate into the profound and hidden secrets of Nature whereof they could not well discover know the manner of proceeding for that shee workes so rarely but by his counterfoote 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the resolution and separation of the Elementary parts which are made by fire whereof proceeds the execution almost of all Artifices that the spirit of man hath invented So that if the first had no other instrument and toole then the fire as we may lately see by the discoveries of the West Indies Homer in the Song of Vulcan sets downe that hee assisted with Minerva taught men their Arts and brave Workmanship having formerly beene accustomed to dwel in Caves and hollow Rockes after the fashion of wilde beasts willing to inferre by Minerva the Goddesse of Arts and Sciences the understanding and industry and by the fire Vulcan that puts them in execution wherefore the Aegyptians were accustomed to marry these two Deities together willing thereby to declare nothing else but that from the understanding proceeds the invention of all Arts and Sciences which fire afterwards effected and brought from power to action for the Agent in all this world is nothing else but fire and heat saith Johannicius and Homer Whom Vulcan and Minerva knew Which was the cause as may bee seen in Philostratus by the birth of Minerva that shee forsooke the Rhodians for that they sacrificed unto her without fire to goe to the Athenians Moreover Vulcan according to Diadorus was a man who from an accident by a clap of Lightning whereby a Tree was set on fire first revealed to the Aegyptians the commodâ—ty and use of Fire for being therewithall overcome all joyfull of his light and heate he thereunto added other matter to keepe it whilest hee went to seeke the people who afterward for this deified him Whereto Lucretius agrees Do not in these tbings tacitely and by chance require Lightning brought fire on earth to mortalls First thence all heate of flame was given The Greekes attribute it to Phoroneus and put it that it was neare to Argos That fire being fallen from heaven there-about it was afterward there kept within the Temple of Apollo which if by chance it came to extinguish they lighted it againe anew by the Sunnebeames as also they did at Rome that of the Vestals And in Persia their sacred fire which they carried ordinarily where the King marcht in person singularly reverencing it for their respect to the Sunne which they adored above all other Deities for they esteemed it here below their Image They caryed it I say in great pompe and solemnity on a magnificent Chariot drawne by four great Coursers and followed by 365 young Ministers for as much as there are so many dayes in the yeare which describe the Sunne by its course clad with yellow guilded the colour conformable to the Sunne and fire singing hymnes to their praise And there was amongst them no crime more capitall and irremissible then to cast any dead carkasse or other uncleannesse therein or to blow it with your breath for feare to infect it but they did it to give it aire for in all this they hazzarded no lesse then life as to quench it otherwise in water So that if any one had perpetrated any grievous forfeit to obtaine grace and pardon therein the best expedient then was as Plutarch puts in his first Treatise of the first cold to put himselfe in running water with fire
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
meanes their Globe from this time forward would remaine darke as a Lampe whereby light which before gave it light should bee quenched for lacke of nourishment or other accident This light or luminous fire is in the Starres as the bloud is in animals or juice in vegetables whereto Homer seemes willing to grant in the 5. of his Iliads where he puts that for as much as the Gods do not live by bread and wine as mortalls but by Ambrosia and Nectar so they have no bloud but in lieu thereof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a substance which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is as it were a subtill saltish waterishnesse hindering corruption in animals and all other composed Elements but wee must here a little better cleare this for the great affinity that the Sunne and Fire have together Wee must then understand that the Sunne arising by its attraction elevates the spirits of the earth which are of two natures a moist vapour including and a dry vapour included are together exalted saith the Philosopher in the 5. of his Meteors the one hot and moist as is the Aire and Water potentially this which is properly called Vapour the other hot and dry of the nature and power of fire called Exhalation The first resolves into water as raines snowes hailes mists fogges and other such moist impressions as are formed of this vapour in the middle Region of the Aire for being grosse and heavy they cannot mount higher but afterwards being thickned and congealed by the cold that resides there they fall backe here below more materiall then those which were not mounted from thence and at last all do resolve into water The second called Exhalation is subdivided into three kindes the first more viscous grosse and heavy is that whereof your fires are formed which are called Castor and Pollux otherwise Saint Herme the foole fires and the like which cannot mount higher then the low Region of the Aire the second is a little lighter more subtill and depured penetrating even to the middle Region where thunders and lightnings are formed the wandring starres barres of fire cheurons and other such inflamations P. 75. The third is yet more dry and light and more free from unctâ—osity almost of the nature of that Quintessence which we observe in Aqua vitae soveraignly depured therefore it may mount not onely to the highest Region of the Aire and that of Fire contiguous but escape yet whole and safe higher then the Heaven with which for its greatest subtilty and depuration which it hath gotten in this long way it hath a great conformity For being come to the Globe of the Sun it is there perfected to concoct and to digest into a pure and cleare light for the nourishment as well of it selfe as of other starres the same that Pliny toucheth in the 8 and 9 chapters of his second booke So that the Starres receive all their light and nourishment from the Sunne after that it hath been there concocted and fitted and not by the forme of reflexion as from its raies which would lessen themselves either in water or in a looking Glassse for all that which participates of fire hath need of nourishment This is done as in the Animall where the most pure bloud comes from the Liver to empty it selfe through the Arteries into the heart which conducts it to its last perfection for the nourishment of Spirits But this must be understood if these Exhalations and vapours finde issue atwhart the pores and spongiosities of the Earth Tuffe p. 76. a kind of white Sand or soft and brittle Stone to evaporate upwards But if peradventure it meet with Tuffe or Sand or the like lets and hindrances which do contradict them or let them they stay there and wax thicke for procreation of minerals that is to say a hot and a dry exhalation in the nature of Brimstone and a moist vapour in the nature of Quicksilver not vulgar but a substance yet spirituall and full of fume from the assembling of which two in a subtill vapour they come to procreate in themselves afterwards by a long continuance of time metals and meane minerals according to the purity or impurity of their coagulated substances and the temperature defect or excesse of the heat that recocts them in the entrails of the earth Without going from my intention of the foresaid exhalations I thought fit to touch a little upon an experiment whereunto I arrived by my industry which I thinke will not be disagreeable Take good old Wine and put therein a certaine quantity of Salnitre and Camphire in a Platter upon a fire pan within a Closet well firmed that aire cannot enter and make it evaporate therein and that there be no more covering then the thicknesse of the backe of a knife to give it so much aire as it must have to make it burne This being done shut well your little window that nothing may vapour out after you have withdrawne the dish or platter from thence to 10. 20. or 30. yeares provided that the aire do not enter and that the winde blow not in bringing in thither a lighted waxe candle you shall see infinite little fires capring as lightnings in the great heate of Summer which are not accompanied with thunders and lightnings nor with stormes windes and raines having nothing but an inflamation of Aire by reason of Saltpeter and Sulphur which are elevated from the Earth Before wee passe from our intention of vapours and exhalations that no man doubts but do proceed from heat introduced within the earth by the continuall motion of the heaven round about and of the Celestial bodies whence light is accompanied with some heat that it darts thereinto Let us come to the experiments next approaching to our sensible knowledge wee see that the fire leaves two sorts of excrements the one grossers namely Ashes remaining in the bottome of its adustion that containeth Salt and Glasse and the two fixed and solid Elements Fire and Earth The other more light and subtill which the fume carries upwards that is the Soote wherein are contained the two volatill and liquid Elements called by the Chymists Mercury and Sulphur and by the Naturalists Vapour and Exhalation By Mercury is designed Water or Vapour and by Sulphur Oile and Exhalation Of Salt and of Earths therein there are found a very small quantity yet sufficient thereby to perceive how the four Elements are found out in the resolution of all the composed Elementaries Take then the Soote of Chimney but of that which shall mount highest in a very long Chimney pipe and in the very top where it must bee most subtill thereof fill a great Cornue or an Alembic two parts of three then apply thereunto a great recipient which you wrap about with linnen wet with fresh water Give fire by small quantities the water and the oil will distill together although the water ought in order to issue out first After that
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
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
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
correspondent Star that assists it and from which it receives its maintenance and conservation But how can that agree will some say to the contrary because it seems to derogate and contradict that which in expresse terms is set down in the 1. of Gen. where it is written that in the third day the Earth of her self brought forth herbs and trees containing in them their seeds according to their kinds neverthelesse the Sun nor the Moon nor the Stars were created till the day after the fourth by which is designed its effect and function Let there bee lights made in the firmament of the heaven namely the Sun the Moon and the Stars to separate the night from the day and let them bee for signes and seasons for dayes and years without attributing any thing of their assistance upon trees and plants and other elementary things But to return to the particulars of Aqua vitae there will be no hurt here to touch upon this experiment thereof made very gentile and rare leaving others that are more common Aqua vitae hath this particular that it dissolves not sugar nor joines not with it as doth its flegm and common water vinegar and other liquors but by artifice it self of two it makes a thrice sweet liquor very proper against the fluxes of Catarrhs and salt rheumes that molest the stomach and throat and is thereunto very good and comfortable Lay in steep a day or two Cinnamon grossely beaten and take off the infusion very neat take fine sugar within a pottage dish that hath ears brought into fine small powder and so perfume it mingle it with a small portion of Sugar roset Poure thereon this Aqua vitae and make them a litâ—le warm upon ashes then put fire thereto with a lighted paper stirring all well with a little spit of clean wood so long untill the Aqua vitae burn no more there will remain a liquor most agreeable to the taste and mervailously comfortable you may add theâ—eto liquor of pearls Coral and other the like which dissolve easily in the juice of Citron or distilled vinegar which makes it sweet to stream out upon it a quantity of common water or the phlegm of Aqua vitae and not by calcining it as Paracelsus and his followers do with Salt-Peter which is manifest poyson so that things are done in vain by more that may be done by fewer so that it bee justly done Further every one sufficiently knowes how to draw Aqua vitae filling two parts of the Alimbeck with Glasse or Beuvois Earth with good old wine and distilling it with an easie fire through a Bath in a Caldron full of water with chaffe Continue the distillation untill you see long veines and sprouts appear in the Chappe and in the Recipient For it is Aqua vitae which mounts first and the phlegm comes after in grosse drops as tears which is a token that there is no more Aqua vitae Men may refine it passing again another time But I should not bee of an opinion that to take it into the body it should bee more then once And it is a strange thing that by its own subtilty for it will mount through five or six doubles of paper brovillas without wetting it I have seen them cast a full glasse thereof in the air and not one drop to fall to the earth It is of soveraign force against all burnings and chiefly that of small shot with which shee hinders as was said before the Estiomenes and Gangreenes An inflamation arising from purecholer in the skin exulcerating it with pain which sheweth sufficiently the purity of its fire which may by good right be called Celestiall See here that which Raimund Lullius sets down of his proprieties and vertues Wee must not understand saith he that neither quintessence nor any other thing here below can render us immortall It is ordained for all men once to die nor can we prolong our dayes beyond and above the prefixed time for that is reserved to God Mans daies are short and the numher of his moneths are with thâ—â—â— thou hast appointed his limits which hee cannot passe there where on the contrary they may well bee accidentally shortned Aqua vitae then nor all other sorts of quintessences and restoratives cannot prolong our life for one minute of an hower yet they may conserve and maintain it to the last but preserving it from putrefaction which is it that shortens it most But to defend putrefaction by corruptible things that cannot bee we must therefore find out some incorruptible substance proper and familiar to our nature which conserves and maintains the radicall heat as oil doth the light of a Lampe Such is the aqua vitae drawn from wine the most comfortable and connaturall substance of all others provided it be not abused with excesse Plutarch in the 3. Book the 8. question of his Symposiaques compares wine to fire and our body to clay If you give fire he sets it down there which is of a mediocrity to the clay and earth to the Potter he will consolidate it in the pots bricks tiles and other the like works but if it be excessive hee resolves it and makes it melt and run Moreover Aqua vitae preserves strongly from their corruption as wee may see by things vegetable and Animall which men put there to mingle which by this means conserves them in their entire length It comforts and maintains a man in vigor of youth which it restoreth from day to day it rejoyceth and strengtheneth the vitall spirits it digests crudities taken fasting and reduceth the equality the excessive superfluities and the defaults which may bee in our bodies causing divers effects according to the disposition of the subject where shee applies her selfe as doth the Sunnes heat which melts wax and hardens durt and fire doth the same And there is that celestiall spirit residing in Aqua vitae so susceptible of all qualities proprieties and vertues that she can make her hot empregning it with hot things cold with cold things and so of the rest being shee is naturall conformably to our soule inclinable to good and evill for although it consists of the foure Elements they are therein so proportioned that the one doth not domineer over the other Wherefore they call it Heaven whereto wee apply such starres as wee will namely of the simple Elements of which she conceives the proprieties and the effects herein we may compare celestiall fire to the Altar But strong waters which dissipate and ruine all are this strange fire and so Alchymists call them and fire against nature externall fire and other the like exterminatives Certes if the effects of Cannon Powder be so admirable consisting of so few species and ingredients which may be well called the true infernall fire the devourer of mankind The action of strong waters is no lesse which burne all being compounded onely of two or three substances that which wee commonly call
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