the Doctrine of the Hetrurians It is not beleeveable that Moses so deare and and welbeloved of God and so illustrated with his inspirations whence proceeded all the documents that he left and so hot a persecutor of Idolatries and Ethnique superstitions that hee would borrow any thing from them But more likely that the Devils instigations who makes himselfe alwayes as his Creators ape to make himselfe to idolize was willing to divert those sacred mysteries to their abusive impieties according to which Josephus against Appion and Saint Jerome against Vigilantius doe very well sute so that as in the Judaicall Law they used no Sacrifices and oblations in Paganisme but they used Salt as Pliny witnesseth in 31. Book 7. Chap. Especially in holy things the authoritie of Salt is understood when none were made without a Salt Mill. Plato to Timaeus when in the medly and commixtion of the elements the composed is destitute of much water and of the more subtill parts of the earth water resting therein comes to bee halfe congealed saltnesse is there brought in which hardens it the more and so there is procreated a body of Salt communicated to the use of our life for as much toucheth the body and senses accommodated by the same meanes according to the tenor of the Law on that which depends the service of God as being sacred and agreeable to God wherefrom hee called it a body beloved of God for which Homer called it Divine whereof Plutarque in his 5. Booke of his Symposiaques 10. question renders many reasons and among others for that it symbolizeth with the soule that is of Divine nature and as long as it resides in the body keepes it from putrefaction as Salt doth dead flesh where it is brought in in stead of a soule that keepeth it from corruption whence some of the Stoicks would say that Hogs flesh of it selfe was dead and that a soule which was sowed therein in a manner of salt to conserve it longer exempt from putrefaction to which a soule was given for Salt Our Theologians say that the ceremony of putting Salt into water when they hallow it came from that which Elisha did 2 Kings 2.22 23. to sweeten the waters of Jericho by casting Salt upon the Spring And that notes the people which is designed by water many waters are many Nations were sanctified must teach us by the Word of God what Salt signifies with the bitternesse and repentance that men should have for offending God as water also doth the confession as well of faith as of sinnes Of the commixtion of these two salt and water proceeds a double fruit to separate from ill doing and convert to good workes And for that repentance for sinne ought to precede auricular confession which repentance is denoted by the bitternesse of salt they blesse it also before water It is also taken for wisedome You are the salt of the earth and have salt in your selves And because that in all their ancient Sacrifices they used salt from thence it came that in Baptisme they put salt in the mouth of the Creature before it is baptized with water for that it cannot yet actually have the mystery of salt applyed for the present On fire then and on salt depend great and secret mysteries comprized under two principal colours red and white for as Zohar hath it all things are white and red but there is a great space betwixt the one and the other God dieth our sinnes which are red for concupiscence comes from the blood and from the sensualitie of the flesh besprinkled with blood and we doe die his whitenesse in red or rigour of Justice by the fire which inflameth our carnall desires and purchaseth their judgement which is throughout where there is fire if it bee not mortified with saving water And when the perverse doe prevaile in the world as ordinarily they doe rednesse and judgement extend themselves therein and all whitenesse covers it self which is rather changed into rednesse then rednesse into whitenesse which if it have domination all on the contrary growes resplendent therewith To these two colours also the ancient and the Evangelicall Law the rigour of justice and mercy the pillar of fire in the nights darkenesse and the white cloud by day wine and bread blood and fat which were not lawfull to eate You shall not eate flesh with the blood Gen. 9.4 And in Levit. 3.16 17. All the fat is the Lords it shall bee a perpetuall Statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings that yee eate neither fat nor blood where it is yet more particularly repeated in the 17. and 14. where the reason is rendred for that the soule that is to say the life of the flesh is in the blood which mystically represents that of Messiah wherein consisted eternall life so that it was not lawfull to use any other before his comming Of the same fat was reserved for God as well that which the Hebrewes call cheleb that covereth the inwards and is separated from the flesh as the other called schumen which is thereunto annexed but metaphorically the fat is taken for the most exquisite substance as in Numb 18. the tenths the best of the fruits are called the fat of them which manner of speech wee also life when wee say make the portion to be very fat of any thing that there is And in the 81. Psal 16. Hee fed them with the fat of Wheate It may bee also that Moses well knowing that these two substances blood and fat are of ill tast and nourishment and quickly corrupted out of their vessells hee forebad them the use thereof Or if wee would enter into a certaine mystery for that the vitall spirits consist in the blood which are of a fiery nature and that fat is very susceptible of flame and proper to make lights which are a representation of the soule But Oile is also for Lamps which was not forbidden to bee eaten and wee doe not see that in Divine service wee use Tallow Candles yet these two fire and salt doe signifie Wine and Milke I have drunke Wine with my Milke Cant. 5.1 By Wine is designed the tree of knowledge of good and evill namely vaine curiosities of worldly things and by Milke that of life whereof Adam was deprived being desirous to tast of that other which was humane prudence Before Adam had transgressed said Zohar hee was made participant of the sapience of superiour light being not yet separated from the tree of life but when hee would distract himselfe after the knowledge of base things this curiositie ceased not till hee had wholly cast off life to incorporate himselfe to death Jacob and Esau the two principall Potentates on earth which are descended therefrom Item the Rose and the Lilly whose water extracted mounts by the fires heat that elevates it and becomes white although the Roses bee red as is the fume exhaled from blood and fat which they burne to God to send it
resolutions and resisting one the other chiefly afterward from all liquid humidity unctuous but inconsumptible It is moreover the first originall as well of mineralls as of stones and pretious stones yea of all other mineralls Likewise of vegetables and of Animalls whose blood and urinall humour and all other substance is salted to preserve it from putrefaction and in generall from all mixed and composed Elements which is herein verified that they resolve themselves into it so that it is as the other life of all things and without it saith the Philosopher Morien nature can no wayes work nor can any other thing be ingendred according to Raimund Lullus in his testament Whereunto all chymicall Philosophers doe adhere that nothing hath been created here below in the Elementary part better nor more pretious then salt There is salt then in every thing and nothing can subsist but for the salt which is therein mixed which ties the parts together as a chain otherwise they would all go into small powder and give them nourishment for there are two substances in salt the one viscous gluish and unctuous of the nature of air which is sweet and indeed there is nothing that nourisheth but what is sweet the bitter and the salt do not The other is a dust sharp pricking and biting of the nature of fire which is laxative For all salts are laxative and nothing doth loose the body that participates not of the nature of salt Mark then wherefore is it that those that drink salt water die speedily of dysenteries the salt which is mingled therewith causing a gnawing in the bowels for there is nothing corrosive but salt or of the nature of salt fiery of it self saith Plinie lib. 31. ch 9. and yet enemy of actuall fire for it leaps up and down it danceth to and fro and crackles corroding also all to which it is fastened and drying it although it be the strongest and most permanent humidity of all others and it is a moisture saith Geber that above all other moistures expects an encounter with fire So wee see in metals which are nothing else but congealed and baked salts by a long and successive decoction within the earths entralls where their humidity is abundantly fixt by the temperate air it meets withall there And these salts do participate of sulphur and quicksilver which joined together make a third name Metalline salt which hath the same fashion and resolution as common salt which is taken for a symbole of equity and justice as also are metals but for another consideration For melt Gold Silver Copper and other metals together they wil all mingle equally So that if upon a hundred parts of silver yea two hundred you melt one of gold the least part of this silver in what regard soever you will take it from the totall masse shall in respect of it self take its just and equall portion of gold and no more nor lesse wherefore they are taken for distributive justice But salt is for that throughout where it attacheth flesh fish vegetables it keeps them from corruption and conserves them in their entire and makes them durable for many ages Fire on the contrary is an evill host for it stealeth and destroyeth all that lodgeth near it never ceasing till it hath converted all into ashes whence salt was extracted that was before therein contained So that these two fire salt accord and convene together and also with the ferments in this that they convert all that whereupon they can exercise their action Plutarch in his book and 4 question of Symposiaques extolling salt sets down that all flesh and fish that was eat is a dead thing and proceeds from a dead body but when the faculty of salt comes to be introduced it is a soul that revivifies and gives them grace and savor And in the 5 book 10. quest renders a reason why Homer calls salt divine he puts that salt is as a temperament and fortification of the viands within the body and that it gives it an agreement with the appetite But it is rather for the vertue that it hath to preserve dead bodies from putrefaction which is as to resist death that which appertains to Divinity Thou shalt not suffer thy holy one to see corruption not permitting that what is deprived of life should perish so suddenly in all kinds but as the soul that divine part within us keeps the body alive a soul is given to hogs for their safety this Plinie sets down after the Stoicks So salt also takes into its safeguard dead flesh to keep it from putrefaction whence the fire of lightning is reputed for divine because those that have been touched therewith remain a great while without corruption as salt doth on its part which hath this property and vertue which sheweth the great affinity and agreement which they have together Wherefore Evenus was wont to say that fire was the best sauce in the world and the very same is also attributed to salt All which things here above do confirme the occasion for which Moses and after him Pythagoras made so great esteem of salt to cover under his Allegorie that which they would give to understand by it that our souls and consciences signified by man in St. Mark namely the internall man and our body for the sacrifice ought to be offered up unto God pure and not soiled with corruption That you offer up your bodies a living sacrifice holy pleasing vnto God c. Therein was there it may be another reason that moved Moses to exalt salt so much that according as Rabbi Moses the Aegyptian discourseth at large in his third book of his More 47 ch where he renders a particular reason for the most part of Mosaical ceremomonies his principall aim was to overthrow all Idolatries even rhose of the Aegyptians where they had a greater vogue then in any other part He seeing that their Priests so greatly detested salt that they would not use it in any sort for that of the sea from whence it proceeded in the bitternesse whereof the sweet substance of Nilus went to lose and salt it self which they held to be for the radicall moisture from whence all things here below do sprout and nourish themselves in despite of them and contrary to their traditions he would thereof make a form of alliance paction from God with the Jewish people that all their oblations should be accompanied with sait And in the 2 of Paralip 13.5 chap. It is said that God gave to David and his children the Kingdom of Israel by a Covenant of Salt that is to say most firm and indissoluble for that salt hinders corruption And therefore the Saviour chose his Apostles to be as the salt of men that is to say to deliver the pure and incorruptible doctrine of the Gospel and to confirm them firm persistent faith as wel by words as deeds The Caballists penetrating further into the mysteries inclosed therewithin meditate certain
earth the sensible Each of them is subdivided into two in every case I speake not but after Zohar and the ancient Rabbins The intelligible into Paradise and Hell and the sensible to the Celestiall and Elementary world Upon this passage Origen makes a faire discourse at the entry on Genesis that God first made the heaven or the intelligible world following that which is spoken in the 66. of Esay Heaven is my seat and Earth my footstoole Or rather it is God in whom the world dwelleth and not the world which is Gods habitation For in him we live Act. 17.28 move and have our being for the true seat and habitation of God is his proper essence and before the Creation of the World as Rabbi Eliezer sets downe in his Chapteâ—s there was nothing but the essence of God and his name which are but one thing Then after the heaven or the intelligible world Origen pursues God made the Firmament that is to say this sensible world for every body hath I know not what firmnesse and solidity and all solidity is corporal and as that which God proposed to make consisteth of Body and of Spirit for this cause it is written that God first made the Heaven that is to say all spirituall substance upon which as upon a certaine throne hee reposeth himselfe The Firmament for our regard is the body which Zohar calleth the Temple and the Apostle also Yee are Gods Temple 1 Cor. 3.17 And the Heaven which is spirituall is our soule and the inner man the Firmament is the externall that neither seeth nor knoweth God but sensibly So that man is double an animall and spirituall body the one Internall Spirituall Invisible that which Saint Marke in this place designeth for man the other Externall Corporall Animal which he denotes by the Sacrifice which comprehendeth not the things that are of the Spirit of God but the Spirituall discerneth all So that the exteriour man is an animal compared to brute beasts whereout they tooke their offerings for Sacrifices He is compared to foolish Beasts and is made like them for a man hath no more then a Beast we must understand the Carnall and Animall that consists of this visible body that dyeth as well as Beasts are corrupt and returne to Earth Whence Plato said very well that which is seene of man is not man properly And in the first of Alcibiades yet more distinctly that Man is I know not what else then his body namely his soule as it followes afterwards That which Cicero borrowed out of Scipio's dreame But understand it thus that thou art not mortall but this body thou art not that which this forme declares but every mans minde is himselfe not that figure which may be demonstrated by the finger And the Philosopher Anaxarchus while the Tyrant Nicocreon of Cyprus caused him to be brayed in a great Marble Morter cried out with a loud voice Stampe hard bruise the barke of Anaxarchus for it is not him that thou stampest But will it be permitted for me here to bring something of Metubales All that is is either Invisible or Visible Intellectuall or Sensible Agent and Patient Forme and Matter Spirit and Body the Interiour and the Exteriour man Fire and Water that which seeth and that which is seen But that which seeth is much more excellent and more worthy then that which is seen and there is nothing that seeth but the invisible where that which is seene is as a blind thing therefore Water is a proper and serviceable subject over whom the Fire or Spirit may out-stretch his action Also he hath elevated it for his habitation and residence for by introducing it he elevates it on high in the nature of Aire contiguous unto it which invisible Spirit of the Lord was carryed on the waters or rather did sit over tâ—e waters did see the visible moved the immoveable for water hath no motion of it selfe there is none but Aire and Fire that have and speake by the Organs of one that is dumb for as when by our winde and breath filling a pipe or flute we make it sound though never so mute This Body and Spirit water and fire are designed unto us by Cain and Abel the first Creatures of all others engendred of the seed of man and woman and by their Sacrifices whence those of Cain issuing from the fruits of the earth were by consequent corporall dead and inanimate and together destitute of faith which dependeth of the Spirit and are by Fire dissolved into a waterish vapour Pour le nouveau so that to go to finde it in its sphere and habitation for the newes we are to suffer thereunder But those of Abel were spirituall animate full of life that resides in the bloud full of piety and devotion This also Aben Ezra and the author of the Handfull of Myrrh call a fire descending from one above to regather them which happened not to those of Cain which a strange fire devoured and from thence was declared the exteriour man sensuall animall that must bee salted with Salt But Abel the interiour spirituall salted with Fire which is double the materiall and essentiall the actuall and potentiall as it is in burnings All what is sensible and visible is purged by the actuall and the invisible and intelligible by the spiritual and potentiall Saint Ambrose on the Treatise of Isaac and of the Soule What is man the soule of him or the flesh or the assembly of those two for the clothing is one thing and the thing clothed another Indeed there are two men I leave the Messibe apart Adam was made and formed of God in respect of the body of ashes and of earth but afterwards inspired in him the Spirit of Life if he had kept himselfe from misprision he was like unto Angels made participant of eternall beatitude but his transgression dispossessed him The other man is he which comes successively to be borne of man and woman who by his originall offence is made subject to death to paines travails and diseases therefore must hee returne from whence he came But touching the soule that came from God it remains in its free will if it will adhere to God it is capable to bee admitted into the ranke of his children who are borne not of blood nor of the will of the flesh Joh. 1.13 nor of the will of man but of God Such was Adam before his first transgression The soule then which is the inner man spirit and the very true man which liveth properly for the body hath no life of it selfe nor motion and is nothing else but as it were the barke and clothing of the inner man according to Zohar alledging that out of the 10 of Job 11. Thou hast clothed me with skinne and flesh whereunto that in the 6. of S. Matthew seemeth to agree where to shew us how much the soule ought to bee in greater recommendation then the body as more worthy and
God and Angels Fire and doth not onely propose unto us Chariots and wheeles of Fire but of igneall animals of burning brookes and rivers of coales and men all burned All these celestial bodies are but flaming lights and thrones and Seraphims all of fire there is so great affinity and agreement with Divinity for the fire that the feeling and smelling perceiveth is separated in respect of the substance from all others that may bee joined and mingled therewith except it bee of the matter to which it is incorporated to burne It shines it spreads it selfe from side to side and gathering it selfe to its selfe with its light it illustrates all that is neare it nor can it bee seene without the matter whereto it adheres and exerciseth its action no more then Divinity but by its effects nor arrest nor fasten nor mingle with any thing nor change so long as it liveth there where it handleth all things and draws them to its selfe and to its nature It renewes and rejoyceth all with vitall heat it illustrates and illuminates all tending alwaies upward with agility and incomparable speed It communicates his motion to all its light its heat without any diminution of its substance what portion soever it lends but ever remaines entire in it selfe It comes suddenly and returneth as fast without mans knowledge whence it comes or whither it goes with many other worthy considerations of this common fire which brings us to the knowledge of the divine fire whereof this materiall is but as a garment and coverture and Salt the coverture of Fire which is appeased in Salt and agreeth with its enemy Water as Earth in Saltpeter doth with its contra-opposite the Aire by reason of the water that is betweene them for Saltpeter participates of the nature of Brimstone and of Fire for that it burnes and of Salt for that it resolves into water For saith Heber it is the property of Salts and Alums to bee dissolved into water sith they were made thereof But of this more to the purpose hereafter in its place The meditations of the Covertures and revestments are of no small importance to mount from things sensible to things intelligible for they are all infolded one in another as an Encyclie or a spirall Moone Zohar makes these revestments double Pag. 29. Encyclides ab 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 round Eph. 4.22 24. the one mounting and devesting its selfe Put off the old man and put on the new for no spirituall thing descending downwards operates without a vestment Sit yee in Jerusalem till you be clad with power from above Luk. 24.49 And in this case the body envelopeth and reclotheth the spirit the spirit the soule the soul the intellect the intellect the Temple the Temple the Throne the Throne the Sechinah or the glory and presence of God which shineth in the Tabernacle In descending this glory is shut out from the Throne and from the Arke of the Covenant which is within the Tabernacle or Intellect the Tabernacle within the Temple which is our Soule Yee are the Temple of God the Temple is in Jerusalem our vital spirit Jerusalem in Palestine our body and Palestine in the midst of the earth whence our body is composed God then being a pure Spirit stript of al corporeity and matter for our soule being such for more reason must hee be so that made it to his image and resemblance hee cannot bee in this simple and absolute nakednesse comprehended nor apprehended by his Creatures but by certaine attributes which they give him which are as many vestments which the Caballists do particularize to ten Zephirots or numerations 3 in the intelligible world and 7 in the celestiall which come to terminate in the Moone or Malcut the last in descending and the first in mounting from the Elementary world upwards for it is a passage from here below to heaven So that the Pythagoreans call the Moone the Celestial earth and the heaven or terrestrial Star all the nature here below in the elementary world being in regard of the celestiall and the celestiall of the intelligible this Zohar called feminine passible as from the Moone towards the Sunne from whom so much as she absents her selfe till she comes to its opposition by so much she increaseth in light for our regard here below where on the contrarry in her conjunction that shee remaines all darkened the party upward is all illightned to shew us that the more that our understanding doth abate to things sensible so much the more doth he disjoine or sever them from the intelligible and contrariwise this was the cause that Adam was lodged in an earthly Paradise to have more leisure to contemplate on divine things when he thought to turne after sensible and temporall things willing to taste of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evill whereby hee departed from that of life to assubject himselfe to death he was banished from thence and put out To this very purpose Zohar doth yet adde that two vestments come from heaven to this temporall life The one formall white and resplendent masculine fatherly and agent for whatsoever is active takes place from forme of the male and from the father and this very thing comes to us from fire and from the clearnesse of the stars to illustrate our understanding The other is red maternall faeminine for the soule coming from the substance of heaven which is more rare then that of heavenly bodies That of the understanding is lodged in the braine and the other of the soule in the heart The intellect or understanding is that part of the reasonable soule made and formed after the image and semblance of its Creators and the soule in it the animal faculty called Nephesch the life namely that which resideth in the bloud and as the heaven containes the stars this contains the intellect which to us is for the rest common with brute beasts But the intellect or reasonable soule is proper and particular to men that which can merit or demerit therefore it needs repurgation and cleansing from the spots that it hath drawne and conceived from the flesh wherein it was plunged according to that in the 8. of Genesis 21. The thought and imagination of mans heart were inclined to evill from his youth And fith it is a question about cleansing the vestment which is of a fiery nature it must likewise be that it be done b◠meanes of fire for wee see by experience that one fire chaseth away another as it hath been said heretofore so that if a man bee burnt there is no readier remedy then to burne it againe in the same place enduring the heat of the fire as much as you can which drawes the inflammation to its selfe out of the party or else tempering it with Aqua vitae wherein Vitriol hath beene calcined from whence Chirurgeons have not found a more soveraigne remedy to take away the fire of a musket sho◠to
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
their destruction wherefore of necessity that which is pure and incorruptible must be separated from its contrary the corruptible and impure which cannot be done but by fire the separator and purificator But the three liquid Elements Water Aire and Fire are as inseparable one from the other for if the Aire were distracted from the fire the fire which hath therefrom one of its principall maintainments and food would suddenly extinguish and if the water were separated from the Aire all would bee in a flame That if the Aire should be quite drawne from the water for as much as by its legerity it holds it somewhat suspended all would be drowned Likewise if Fire should be separated from the Water all would bee reduced into a deluge For three Elements neverthelesse may well bee disjoined from the Earth but not wholly there must remaine some part to give consistence to the Body and render it tangible by the meanes of a most subtill and thinne portion thereof which they will elevate with them out of this gross thickness that remaines below as wee may sensibly see in glass which by an industrious Artifice of fire is depured of the darknesse that was in the ashes to passe from thence to a transparent clearnesse which is of the nature of Fire and indissoluble Salt accompanied with a firme and solid thicknesse having neither transpiration nor pores But wherefore should wee not hereto file all in one traine those so excellent Meditations of Zohar sith all depends on the same purpose God formed Adam of the slime of the earth or according to the Hebrew God formed man dust of the earth which word of forming belongeth properly to Potters who fashion of earth all that they thinke good And touching the dust this is but to abate our pride with which wee may bee swolne when wee consider the vile and corruptible matter whereof wee are made in respect of our bodies which is nothing else but mire and dirt Consider then three things saith Zohar and thou shalt not fall into transgression Remember from whence thou art come of such filthy and foule stuffe and whither thou must at last returne to dust wormes and rottennesse and before whom thou art to render an account and reason of all thy actions and comportments who is the soveraigne Judge the King of all who leaves no transgression unpunished nor good worke irrecompensed Adam then and all his posterity were formed of the dust of the earth which had before beene moistned with the fountaine or vapour which was highly elevated by the Sunnebeams to water and to soften the earth For the Earth being of it selfe cold and dry is altogether sterill and fruitlesse if it be not impregned with moisture and heat whence proceed fecundity So that Adam was composed of Earth and Water mingled together These two elements betoken a double faculty in him and double formation the one of the body in regard of this age the other of the soule in another world Water shewes the celestiall Meditation whereto our spirit may exalt it selfe and the earth of it selfe immoveable and that can never budge from below nor willingly mingle with the other three volatil elements by reason of its extreame drynesse so that it doth but grow hard by the action of fire and makes it selfe more contrary and untractable by the spirit of contradiction hard and refractory from the flesh against the spirit so that shee should reject the water which men thought to put therein if it were not by meanes of the subtill Aire interposing and mingling therewith and penetrating into the smallest parts which being suckt within the water forces the earth to feed on it to inclose it in her selfe as if shee would detaine it prisoner and by that meanes remaines great as the female by a male for every superiour thing in order and degree holds the place of male to that which is inferiour and subject thereunto Now if the Aire absent it selfe which associates and unites them together as being suppeditated and banished which is moist and hot from the extreame drynesse and coldnesse of the earth it will force it with all its power to reject the water and so reduce it selfe to its first drynesse which we may perceive in Sand which will never receive water except it be quickly separated Even so the earth is alwaies rebellious and contumacious of it selfe to bee mollified be it by water by aire by fire and after this manner there was a spirit of contradiction and disobedience introduced into Adam by reason of the earth whereof he was formed as his Companion and himselfe do shew when by the suggestion of the Serpent the most terrestriall animall of all others they so easily contradicted that extreame prohibition which was given them of not tasting the fruit of the knowledge of good and evill for the punishment whereof it was said to the Serpent thou shallt eat earth all the dayes of thy life which Isaiah resumes in 65. chap. Dust is thy bread And to Adam that the earth should produce nothing but thornes briars and thistles by means whereof if he would live he must cultivate it with the sweat of his browes till he returne to that from whence he was drawne for being dust hee must returne to dust But water which notifies Divine speculations disirous to mingle and unite with all things to whom it gave beginning and made them grow and multiply is as the carriage or vestment of the spirit following that which was said in the beginning of the Creation that the Spirit of God was stretched over the waters or as the Hebrew word Marachephet caries it hovering over them fomenting and vivifying them as a Henne doth her Chickens with a connaturall heat for this word Elobim imports I know not what of heate and fire By Water then the docill spirit obedient to the invitations of the intellect insinuated it selfe into Adam and by Earth the refractory and opiniaster that spurneth against the pricke for as the earth was the most ignoble Element of all others water rejecteth it and disdaineth it and could agree with it but as to a lee and excrement but if the pure and neat spirit remaines within the water where it made choice of its residence for from the three natures of earth water at least never joines with the two that is to say sand for its extreame drynesse that causeth a discontinuation of parts and the dirt to be fatty and unctuous there is not any thing else Argilla but slime only with which some food and mingling which may bee thereof made the water at last lets it reside below and it swimmes over as being of a contrary nature the one altogether immoveable solid and compact the other fluent removing and gliding as bloud through the veines wherein the spirits reside who can easily bee elevated to bee of a fiery quality alwayes soring upward So that the water which notifies the interiour spirit endeavours to
spirituall and intelligible for the invisible things of God from the Creation of the World are clearely seene being understood â—by the things that are made even his eternall power and Godhead For the world with the Creatures being there they are a portraict of God for the Creator is understood by the Creature saith Saint Augustine for God hath made two things to his image and resemblance according to Tresmegistus the world therein to rejoice and please our selves with the infinite brave pieces of worke and Man wherein hee set his most singular delight and pleasure which Moses hath tacitely expressed in Gen. 1. 2. where when there was question of creating the world Heaven Earth Vegetables Minerals Animals Sunne Moone Starres and all the rest hee did no more but command by his word for hee said and they were done hee commanded and they were created But in Mans formation hee insisted much further therein then in all the rest saith he Let us make man after our Image and Similitude hee created him male and female and formed him dust of the earth afterward breathed in his face the spirit of life and hee was made a living soule In which are touched 4 or 5 particularities So Cyrill observes it After the same manner then as the Image of God is the world so the image of the world is man therein there is such a relation of God with his creatures that they cannot bee well comprehended but reciprocally one by the other for all the Sensible nature as Zohar hath it in regard of the intelligible is as that of the Moone towards the Sunne who thereinto reverberates its light or as the light of a Lampe or torch which parteth the flame fastned to the weik which is therein nourished by a grosse matter viscous adustible without which this splendor and light could not communicate it selfe to our sight nor our sight comprehend it And likewise the glory and essence of God which the Hebrewes call Sequinah could not appeare but in the matter of this Sensible world which is an image or patterne thereof And it is that which God said to Moses Exod. 33. You shall not see my face you shall see my binder parts The face of God is his true Essence in the intelligible world which no man ever saw except the Messihe I did set the Lord alwayes before mee Psal 16.8 And his posteriour parts are his effects in the Sensible world The soule likewise cannot bee discerned and knowne but by the functions it exerciseth in the body whilst it is annexed thereunto By which Plato was moved to thinke that soules could not consist without bodies no more then fire without water So that after long revolutions of times they should come againe to incorporate themselves here below whereunto adheres that in the 6 of Virgils Aeneads All these when they have turned for many yeares God cals them to the floud of Lethe by great troopes Beiâ—g forgetfull that they must review the upper convexe And begin againe to bee willing to returne into bodies But this savours a little of new-birth and Pythagorean changings of soules into bodies in which Origen was likewise out of the way as may be seene in his booke of Princes and in Saint Jeromes Epistle to Avitus But more sincerely Porphyrius although in the rest an impious adversary a Calumniator of Christianisme that for the perfect beatitude of soules they must shunne and fly all bodies So that when the soule shall bee repurged from all corporal affections and when it shall returne to its Creator in its first simplicity it hath no great desire to fall againe into the hands and calamities of this age when the option should be left unto it free From the Intelligible world then it runnes downe into the Celestial and from thence to the Elementary all that which the spirit of man can attaine from the knowledge of the admirable effects of Nature which Art intimates in what shee can whence by the revelation of these rare secrets by the action of fire the most part is magnified the glory and magnificence of him who is the first motor and author thereof for mans understanding according to Hermes is as a Glasse where we come to shave off and to abate the cleare and luminous rayes of the Divinity represented to our senses by the Sunne above and the fire his correspondent here below which inflame the soule with an ardent desire of the knowledge and veneration of his Creatour and by consequent of his love for men love nothing but what they know So each of these three worlds which have their particular sciences hath also its fire and its salt apart both which do informe us namely of Moses his fire in the heaven And the Salt for its firme consistence and solidity to the earth What is this Salt aske one of your Chymicall Philosophers a scorched and burned earth and congealed water by the heat of fire potentially enclosed therein Moreover Fire is the operatour here below in the workes of Art as the Sunne and Celestiall Fire is in them of that nature and in the intelligible the holy Spirit by the Hebrewes called Binah or Intelligence which the Scripture designes ordinarily by fire and this spirituall fire or igneal spirit with the Chomah the verbe where the Sapience attributes to the Sonne Wisdome the Artist of all things taught mee are the fathers operators By the word of the Lord were the heavens firmed and all their beauty by the spirit of his mouth from whence that maxime of the Peripateticks differs not much Every worke of Nature is a worke of Intelligence Behold the three fires whereof we pretend to speake of which there is none more common amongst us then the elementary here below grosse composed and materiall that is to say alwayes fastned to matter nor on the the other part lesse known That which is of him from whence he came and whither hee goes reducing in an instant all to nothing assoone as his nourishment failes him without which he cannot consist a moment but goes as hee comes being all in the least of his parts So that he can in lesse then nothing multiply to infinity and in lesse then nothing empty it selfe for one little waxe light will at pleasure enkindle the greatest fires we can imagine without any losse or diminution of its substance Though they take a thousand yet nothing perisheth And in the third of Saint James Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth yea one onely small sparkle of fire would press in the twinckling of an eye all the immense hollow of the Universe if it were filled with Gun-powder or Napthe and presently after will vanish away So that of all bodies there is nothing that doth approach nearer to the soule then fire said Plotin And Aristotle in his fourth booke of Metaphysickes sets downe that â—ven to his time the most part of Philosophers had not well knowne fire nor yet Aire to bee perceivable
with lead tinne which is more dry so that those two mingled together strengthen one another better then being separated and of their mingling comes to procreate a glewing viscosity which causeth in them a greater durity then they had and binds them more firmly just as sand and chalke in the composition of Morter which Albertus also confirmes in his fourth and fifth chapters of Minerals But wee will put off all these metallique particularities and their divers transmutations to our Treatise of Gold and Glasse upon the 28. of Job where under gold we wil comprehend all that shâ—l depend on metals and under glasse stones as well naturall as artificiall and all vitrifications and enamels Here we will take but that which will conduce to our subject which is to treat of things intelligible by the sensible after the imitation of the Prophets and chiefly metals and fire whose operation is better known in metals then in the other composed elements The Prophets then have set downe iron and brasse for a firme resistance My strength is not the strength of stones nor is my flesh brasse Job 6. and in the 18. Psal Thou hast made my arms as a bow of brasse Furthermore in the 4. of Micah I will make thy horne iron and will make thy hoofs brasse As touching iron for a hard and rigorous oppression according as it is hard and inflexible of its nature and which doth suppeditate almost all I will rule them with a rod of iron in the 2. Psalm and in the 4. of Deut. I have brought thee out of the iron fornace of Aegypt there where iron denotes servitude wherein they were for the oppression of their persons and the fornace of fire was that of their souls and consciences constituted amidst so many Idolatries and impieties which must be unto them a servitude more intolerable then all travails and afflictions and the most cruell and pitilesse usages of their bodies for as much as the soul excels it for the zeal which they carry to their God with the same locution the Ecclesiasticke served himself in his 28. speaking of a wicked tongue happy is he that can save himself from a wicked tongue for the yoke thereof is as iron and his band as the band of brasse But for affliction and anguish all openly in the 105. Psal v. 18. Iron pierced his soul speaking of Joseph a prisoner in Aegypt untill his word came To be short there is not a point of locution figurative more frequent in the Prophets then those that are drawn from metals and from fire which for the reason of its proprieties and effects as it is one of the most commodious and necessary things of all others according as it is said before for it bakes our viands it warms us and doth revigour us against the colds it clears and lightens in the darkness in lieu of the suns brightnesse and other infinite usages and chiefly for the execution of arts and trades Otherwise we may say that without iron fire it selfe would as it were be almost unprofitable for this respect And Plato doth not exempt one onely art from fire but the pottery of clay in the 3. of his Lawes where he treats very excellently of the life of the first men and although iron and copper had brought them commodities to civilize themselves and to polish them to a more humane life So that not without cause these poor beastly Savages of the West Indies did wonder in their grosse understanding how people in these parts so well advised and industrious for a little piece of gold or silver unprofitable to all uses should offer them so liberally hatchets sithes reaphooks and other iron work commodious for all usages and which they â—ould so shorten that which they had with so great pain perfected but to the halfe with fire which was to to them for all instruments and tools with some base pointed flints But we may here likewise alledge to the contrary the hurts and incommodities that iron bringeth for of it are forged all offensive arms wherewith men shorten their dayes by their reciprocall Massacres for that it is Mars his true Minister and exterminator and ruine of mankinde as Jupiter qualifies it in the 5. of the Iliads Mars Mars the plague and ruine of men contaminated with murders overthrower of wals Which he could not do at the least very uneasily without the means and aid of fire Also they give it the name of Mars But let us here a little consider a pleasant allegory covered under the fiction of Venus Vulcan and Mars Venus without doubt is mankind which is continued by venereall propagation of linage It s lawfull spouse is Vulcan which by conjugall love brings him all or the greatest part of his necessary commodities by reason of Mars which is iron But for that he is his adultererer he also destroyes the greatest part of what shee procreates and the husband maintains iron for a double use good and bad for we must not measure the works of the Creator by their apparent incommodities or commodities For God saw all that he had made and they were very good for this goes according as the Creatures apply it Is there any thing more fair more pleasant or more delectable to the sight then a cleare shining flame any thing that doth more rejoice then light And on the other side there is nothing more hurtfull fuller of damage nor more dangerous then fire which burneth and consumeth all that comes neare it A Satyre the first time he saw it he rejoyced stâ—angely to see it so fair so clear but thinking to approach nearer to embrace and to caresse it when he perceived it so offended with extreame griefe hee was never after able to come near it We may also say the same of iron as Plinie cals it the best and the worst instrument of life for therewith saith he we til the earth graffe trees prune vines with other infinite commodities and usages as chiefly to build houses for our covert and safety But on the other side we imploy it no lesse if not more in our mutuall assassinates and massacres to shorten our life as if it were troublesome to continue so long Yet it is so short without the inconveniencies that shorten it and make of iron the most pernicious minister and instrument of all others To which purpose Isiodorus said very well From whence a long while agone earth was drawn from thence now bloud is shed Which proceeds rather from our malice and depravation then from the fault of this inanimate insensible substance which neither moves to good or to bad but by our selves And yet saith the same Plinie it seems that nature was not willing wholly to excuse it but to punish it onely rendring it subject so to rust more then any other of the brother hood and principally by mans bloud which it is so apt to spill The same natures benignity exacting punishment from very iron by rust
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
addressing himselfe to God there is no resemblance nor any image interiour or exteriour but further thou hast created heaven and earth and produced out of those the Sunne and the Moon the Starres and the Signes of the Zâ—diack and in earth Trees and Herbs delights in Gardens with Beasts Birds and Fishes and at last Men that from thence things above might bee knowne And of the suâ—eriours the inferiours together so that the one and the other may bee governed Plutarch alledgeth in his Treatise of Osiris that in the City of Sais in Aegypt there was such an inscription in the Temple of Minerva borne out of Jupiters braine which is nothing else but the sapience of the Father I am that which was which is and which shall bee and as yet there is none amongst mortall men that hath yet discovered my vaile for Divinity is so wrapped in darkness that you cannot see day through it I see him not for hee is darkened with an over dark cloud said Orpheus and in the 17 Psal which made darkenesse his hiding place Further in the 4 of Deut. You came to the foot of a mountaine that burned even to heaven and therein was darkness thick clouds and obscurity for in regard of God towards us light and darknesse are but one thing as is his darknesse such is his light And in the 16 of Isaiah Make thy shadow as the night in the midst of the noone day The very same as well the affirmative as the negative by which that which is aequippollent unto darknesse we may better apprehend something of the Divine Essence but not by the affirmative that relates unto light as Rabbi Moses doth excellently well dispute it in his 57. chapter of his first booke of More For the Divine light is insupportable above all to all his Creatures even to the most perfect following that which the Apostle sets downe in the 1 of Tim. 6. God dwels in light in accessible that no man can see So that it is to us in stead of darknesse as the brightnesse of the Sun is to Moulds Owles and other night birds which darknesses are the revestments and as the borders and cloisters of the light for represent to your selves some Lanthorne placed on the top of a mountaine all round about it as from the Center to the Circumference it shall spread its light equally as farre as it can extend it so that at the last darknesse will terminate it for darknesse is nothing else but the absence and privation of light Even the very same the exteriour man carnall animall is the coverture yea darknesse of the interiour spirituall after the manner or fashion of some Lanthorne of wood or stone and other darke matter which keeps that the light there shut in could not shew forth its light the Lanthorne symbolizing to the body and the light within to the soule But if the body bee subtiliated to an aethereall nature from thence it comes to passe as if the Lanthorne were of some cleare Crystall or of transparent horne for then the soule and its functions do shine there about openly without obstacle Sith then to the one of these two namely to the inner man is attributed fire that answers to the soule and salt to the outward man which is the body as the sacrifice or man animall is the revestment of the spirituall designed by the Man and by Fire The vestment of this Fire will bee Salt in which fire is potentially shut in for all Salts are of the nature of fire as being thereof begotten Geber saith that salt is made of every thing that is burned and by consequent participant of its proprieties which are to purge dry hinder corruption and unboile as wee may see in all salted things which are as it were halfe boiled and are kept longer uncorrupt then raw also in potentiall burning irons which burne and are nothing else but Salt Will it bee lawfull for us here to bring one entire passage of Rhases in a book of the Secret Triplicity for it is not common to all and wee will strongly insist on this number by reason of the three Fires and three Salts whereof wee pretend to Treat So that there is a Mystery in this number of 3 that must not bee forgotten for that it represents the operation whereof Fire is the Operator for 1 2 3 makes 6. the 6 dayes wherein God in the Creation of the world perfected all his workes and rested the seventh day There are saith Rhases three natures the first whereof cannot bee knowne nor apprehended but by a deepe elevated Meditation This is that all-good God Almighty Author and the first Cause of all things The other is neither visible nor tangible although men should bee all contrary that is to say heaven in its rarity The third is the Elementary World comprehending all that which is under the Aethereall Region is perceived and known by our senses Moreover God which was from all aeternity and with whom before the Creation of the world there was nothing but his proper name knowne to himselfe and his Sapience that which hee created on the first day was the water wherein hee mingled earth then came hee to procreate after that which had a beeing here below And in these two Elements thicke and grosse perceptible to our senses are comprehended the two other more subtill and rare Aire and Fire These four bodies being if we must call them bodies bound together with such a minglement that they could ot perfectly separate Two of them are fixed namely Earth nd Fire as being dry and solid the other two volatil Water and Aire which are moist and liquid so that each Element is agreeable to the other two wherewith is bounded and enclosed and by the same meanes containes two in it selfe the one corruptible the other not the which participates of the Divine nature and therefore there are two sorts of Waters the one pure simple and elementary and the other common which we use in Lakes Wels Springs and Rivers raines and other impressions of the Aire There is likewise a grosse Earth filthy and infected and a Virgin Earth crystalline cleare and shining contained and shut up in the Center of all the composed Elementaries where it remaines revested and covered with many foldings one upon another So that it is not easie to arrive there but by a cautelous and well graduated preparation by fire There is also a fire which is maintained almost of it selfe and as it were of nothing so small is the nourishment that it needeth whence it comes to bee more cleare and lucent and another obscure darke and burning and consuming all that to which it is fixed and it selfe at last And Aire on the other side pure and cleane with another corruptible full of legerity for of all the Elements there is none more easie to be corrupted then the aire all which substances so contrary and repugnant mingled with elementary bodies are the cause of
which doth nothing by reason of the contrarieties of their natures which do not suffer them to be able to joine and unite And where there is no mixtion there is also no alteration because that which doth not enter doth not change saith Gebeâ— So that Salts being in the nature of Fires have from them their proprieties and effects that is to say to purifie and cleanse all ordures and uncleanness For as Salt the same Zohar pursues it hinders putrefaction to which every corruptible thing is subject so the Fire of Gods love and of Gods knowledge which is illightned in the soul repurging it from all corporall coinquinations causeth that after it hath been duly purged and cleansed it remaines for ever in its purity for as much as fire devours and consumes the filthy scumme thereunto fastned cloathing it selfe with a new and pure fire which it could not otherwise do For if it were not so assisted with this pure fire the Cherubin which is committed to the keeping of the Gate of the City of Delices with a fiery sword to forbid the approach to the tree of Life would not permit it to enter therein from whence the curiosity of tasting of the knowledg of good and evill excluded our forefathers and us with them hereditarily Hitherto Zohar then which nothing could seem more conformable nor which carryed it selfe better to our subject Every man shall be salted with Fire and every Sacrifice with Salt For to salt in this regard to cleanse and purifie are but one thing as also to salt and to burn because of their consemblable effects Burne my reines and my heart where burning is put for repurging and cleansing according to the Hebrew and the Chaldee and in the 13 of Zachary 9. I will burn them as silver is burned To which sutes also that which the Apostle writ in the 1 Cor. 3.12 If any man build upon this foundation gold silver pretious stones or wood hay stubble Every mans work shall be made manifest for the day shall declare it because it shall be revealed by fire and the fire shall try every mans work of what sort it is If any mans work abide which he hath built thereupon he shall receive a reward If any mans work shall be burnt he shall suffer losse but he himself shall be saved yet so as by fire Saint Augustine citing this place throughout the whole scope of his works interpreteth it in the 21. of the City of God 26. chap. for the vanities which men have too narrowly embraced in this age which we shall not enjoy in another but they must be abolished and defaced by the repurgation of fire for that which he had not without provoking love he shall not lose without burning grief And at length shall be saved as by fire because nothing shall be able to remove it from this foundation upon which it shall be built S. Ambrose to the same purpose in his third Sermon upon the 118. Psal As good gold even the very Church when it is burnt receives not detriment but its lustre and resplendency encrease more and more The Persians esteemed that when they voluntarily burned themselves the soul remained thereby repurged from all iniquities misdoings which consumed by the flames as touching the body which had power to move the Indian Calanus and some others to come from thence for God would not that we should advance our dayes by one moment who at the time they receive him he washeth us and cleanseth us from all preceding faults Whereby some abusing themselves thereby attended to receive it as slowly as they could and others baptized themselves for those which were already deceased In Aethiopia one who had conspired against the proper person of their Neguz or Emperour by baptizing himself thereupon before he was imprisoned remained quit So the proprieties of fire are in the first place to shine and lighten and that is by it common to the Sunne but it is thereby much surmounted And afterwards to warm digest and bake which this luminary doth also primitively as we may see in that the Earth produceth but for that the naturall heat doth not bring them wholly for our use to the last and perfect degree of maturity fire for the most part supplyes its wants and defaults for the regard of the concocting of what we eat for we hardly thereby make our profit being raw there where it is baked in the fire it becomes of more facil digestion and lesse corruptible as having lesse of crudities afterwards the fire separates strange things and not alike and after having taken away the corrupting superfluities namely the waterish humidity which it dâ—iveth out and the oily unctuosity which it burns and consumes with the terrestrieties that remain at last it doth gather together in a new composure the pure homogenealities which composure then consisteth of soul body and spirit from now forwards inseparable and incorruptible which relates to the three worlds the soul to the intelligible the spirit to the celestiall and the body to the elementary but this is not a reasonable soul or sensitive nor a vitall spirit such as is in animals but substances equipollent unto them which may be seen in glass which is an image of the Philosophicall Stone Whereupon Raymond Lullius enquiring of the confection of the said Stone and how men may attain thereunto made answer hee that knoweth to make glasse because their manner of proceeding are alike and such ought that pretious substance to be which Hermolaus Barbarus in his Annotations upon Plinie and Appian in his disquisition of antiquities alledgeth to have been found in an old Sepulchre in the Territory of Padua not above a hundred years since having this Distique with two others For he shut in with great labour the digested Elements under this small vessel greatest Olybius The Roman Morienes to Calid King of Aegypt on his Treatise of Metallick transmutation Whosoever shall know well how to neatify and whiten the soul and make it mount on high and can well preserve its body and take therefrom all obscurity and blacknesse with the evill smell she may then replace it in its body and in the hour of their rejunction great marvels will appear yet Rhases in his Epistle So every soul doth reconjoin to its first body which in any other manner cannot be reunited to another and from thence forwards shall never separate for then the body shall be glorified and reduced to incorruption and to a subtilty and brightnesse unspeakable So that it will penetrate all solid things whatsoever they be bccause its nature shall be such as of a Spirit that which he borrowed out of Hermes it shall penetrate every subtill thing An admirable thing that these Chymicall Philosophers under the vaile and curtain of this Art treating wholly about things so materiall as are metals and that which depends thereon with their transmutations by fire have comprized the most high secrets of Intelligibles and even
I and he will Bâ—ptize you with the holy Spirit and with fire Of which fire we may see in the 16. of Wisdome 17. for it is woâ—derfull that in the water that quencheth all things fire should be most powerfull That which made St. Auguistine himself say that in the Sacrament of Baptism which they exercise and Catechise they first came to fire and after to the Baptism of water where the same comes to the temptations of this age where in the anguish which oppresseth us the fire first presents it self but when the fear therein is out it is to bee feared that a wind of vain glory proceeding from temporall felicity dissolve it not into rain which will come to quench the fire of heat and Charity which affliction hath taken within our Souls To this purpose from fire to baptismall water designed by the aforesaid passage wee have passed through water and fire this bâ—ats upon the 31. of Numb of clensing by fire and bâ— water according as the things may suffer for visible baptism is made by visible water and wherein the water consists in parts which is nothing else but congealed water by the acuity of fire thrust thereinto with which salt every Sacrifice must bee salted that is to say the externall man and the invisible baptism of the internall spirituall man is wrought by the Grace of the holy Spirit represented by fire which of it self is invisible and unperceivable except it bee attached to some matter as the soul is in the body This fire there burneth in us mortall sins and the water washeth away Veniall and Originall But some wil demand What is that fire from whence comes it that so purifies our souls and warms them in the Love of God and illightens them with his knowledge for wee love nothing but what wee know and wee cannot know God nor see his light but by his light In thy light wee shall see light that is to say by his word and parol who hath vouchsafed to revest us with our flesh Thy word is a fiery word and thy servant loveth it It this fire then which our Saviour saith hee was come to send into the earth and what will I if it bee already kindled For as Prometheus brought fire here below which hee had lighted in one of the wheels of the Suns Chariot The word hath rendred lightened in the Mercavah Chariot or throne of God which is all of fire as also in the 17. of Dan. vers 9. Origen in his 13. Homil. upon the 25. of Exodus Jacinth Purple double Scarlet and Silk sets down that these four represented the four Elements Silk or Linnen the Earth from whence it came Purple Water because extracted from bloud with the shell or cockle of the sea Jacinth in Hebrew Techeleh the Air for it is without heavenly blew and Scarlet fire by reason of its red enflamed colour But wherefore is it there said that Moses redoubled the fire and not one of the rest Because that fire hath a double propriety the one to shine and to bee bright and the other to burn wee must understand corruptible things for upon the incorruptible wee must look upon for this regard to refine them and amend more and more Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked with us by the way and while hee opened to us the Scriptures Luke 24.32 said the Pilgrims of Emaus And this is it wherefore it is commanded in the Law to offer double Scarlet to adorn the Tabernacle But how can this bee Aske Origen a Doctor instructing people in the Church of God designed by the Tabernacle if hee did but cry after the vices blasphem and reprove them without bringing instruction and consolation to the people explaining to them the Scriptures and the obscure sense therein concealed wherein consisteth the internall Doctrin and the mysticall understanding hee well offers Scarlet but simple and not double because that this fire doth not but burn and not lighten But on the other side if they doe but clear and interpret Scripture without reprehension of vice and sin and to shew requisite severity to a declarer of the Word of God wee offer as it were simple Scarlet for this fire there doth not but illuminate doth not enflame persons to repentance of their misdoings correction and amendment of life whereunto cooperates the Grace of the Holy Spirit which is domestique fire with which wee must salt our souls to preserve them from corruption for there is nothing that doth more symbolize to the nature of the soul then fire because it is that of al things sensible which approacheth more to spirituality as well for its continuall and light motion which soars alwayes upwards as for its light which Plotin saith must properly be attributed to the intelligible world heat to the Celestiall and burning to the Elementary And for as much as it participates more of light then any of the other Elements that likewise acquires unto it a precellency above the rest for the Earth being a body wholly without motion dark and duskish is by consequent lesse in dignity as the settlement and lees of all others Water because it is clearer is more worthy and the Air yet more But fire is that which surpasseth all therefore it is lodged in a higher place and nearer to the Region of the air It is that which Vincent no despicable Author was pleased to say in his Philosophicall Mirror 2. Book 33. chap. Every thing for as much as it participates more of light so much the more it approacheth nearer to the Divine Essence which is perfect light by which God began the Creation of the Universe or the first thing that hee ordained to bee made was light and to shew us that wee must alwayes walk in light and not in darknesse And on the contrary how much more the Elements are distant from light by so much they approach to their dissemblance and deformity which is a token of corruption For as much as the parties of the composed Elements are homogeneall and homomaternall or like one to another so much lesse are they corruptible and separable as wee may see in gold the most proportionate substance of all and which approacheth nearest to fire that which moved Pindarus from the beginning of his first Olympian to join these three water fire and gold together water is best gold and shining fire c. Doe wee not see that at every end of a field almost that the Earth doth change nature and quality and that there are infinite sorts of them Not so many of Water Air is most like unto it self but if there bee any changes or alteration therein it is by accident as if some maladies should fall thereupon which doe more readily adhere thereunto because of its rarity of substance then to any others Fire is altogether exempt therefrom being alwayes one and in its al like to his parts which are like to themselves except the matter
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
forced to avow that by the only way of ratiocination you cannot draw truth therefrom As Aristotle discourseth thereupon well at large in the 4. of the Metaphysicks Ptolomie also that we must not ground and rule our conceptions for regard of corporall things above spirituall for they are farre distant each from other and there is much disparity and disproportion between them But yet lesse between intelligible above sensible although they serve us herein as a ladder following that which the Apostle saith That the invisible things of God are seen by the Creation of the world by things made also his eternall power and divinity We must therefore run back to this spiritual light which holdeth the highest soveraign place in the knowledge of the understanding So that light is more properly of things spiritual then corporal and more certain and true are the invisible then the visible for as much as God only is a true light in his essence from whence he derives into our spirit all the knowledg wherewith it can be illustrated as the potentiall light of our eye is from the brightness of the Sun or of something artificial traversing the transparence of the air the place of which eye the soul holds in spiritualty as the divine Intelligence maketh that of the Sun which is a representation and image thereof By reason whereof so long as our understanding shall leave it felfe to be cleansed by the fire of Divine love he will ever keep its living and luminous brightnesse But if it suffer it selfe foolishly to go after exterior light it shall be also obscured and extinguished with the interiour which domineers over it even as a small candle or wax taper with the twinckling beames of a cleare shining Summer Sunne Sith then this sensible light saiâ—h Saint Thomas upon the 36. of Job by the absolute Omnipotency of God who disposeth it as he pleaseth it is sometimes hid to mortals sometimes communicated from whence we may gather that there is another light more perfect and excellent namely the spiritual which God reserves for a recompence of good works following that which Job sets downe God covereth the light in his hands and ordaineth it that it should returne againe and manifest it self He sheweth it to those he loveth that they may well mount unto it Whereto that of Zoroastres word for word was conformable You must mount up to the true light and to the bright bâ—ams of your father from whom the soul was sent you revested with much intellect Behold the relations of these Sunnes the sensible and intelligible and of the two lights that proceed therefrom For as that of the Sunne obtains the first place in corporall things saith Saint Augustine in his book of freewill and that by means thereof the inferiour communicate with the superiour the same doth the light of the spirituall Sun in regard of intelligibles There are also things that have heat and no light as that of Animals of quick chalk besprinkled with water horse and pigeon dung which Galen writes he hath seen to wax a fire of it selfe heapes of oats and other graines except Barly new wines which boil the lees in the vintage heaps of Olives Apples and Peares which is a kind of putrefaction whence also there is engendred some strange heat as we see in Apostemaes and in flesh which begins to bee corrupted and on the contrary wee see others that have light and no heat as worms that glister in the night and of little flies that fly in the dark in summer time of shels and scales of fish in rotten wood in stones and in the eyes of ravenous beasts Suidas speaking of the visible and invisible this said he cannot wel be expressed in words it is as little flyes which flye in the summer which by displaying their wings fly into the eyes with small sparkling fires the worms also that shine in the night the shels and scales of some fishes and other the like which cannot be perceived in the light but very well in the darke for the fire which so shineth from them in the dark is not a colour whose property is to make it seene at the brightnesse of the Sunne or other light because that the air being transparent and deprived of all colours the sight might very easily pierce it and passe through to apprehend them But there are four differences of visible things some cannot see but by day the others on the contrary but by night others by day and night and others that have no place in darknesse Colours are not seen but by day not by night Of things called resplendent some by day others by night others by day and night for there are some that are illustrious and cleare others darke and heavy and others betwixt both others that have luâ—tre and splendor dark and waterish and are not seene but by night as the foresaid flyes worms fish scales rotten wood and the like for in the day time their splendor is surmounted by another more powerfull which defaceth it as also there are more stars so that the darker the night is the clearer they shine Those betwixt both as the Moon and some Stars by day and by night as the morning and the evening Stars called by the Greeks Phosphor by the Latines Lucifer this is Venus Starre Fire also which pierceth the air more then it may and illustrates it to demonstrate the colours that are therein for the rest it is content to make it see without bringing into action the transparence that is in the air as we may see in the darke where wee see fire a great way off but not by the colours that are betwixt them By day it shines also but not act against the air for that it is suffocated and extinguished by a stronger light The clearnesse of the Moone likewise for that shee is not very dark shee is seen in the day time but better in the night Suidas runs through all this But to the purpose of lights without heat I have read of nothing more admirable and strange then that which Gonzalo de Oviedo in the 15. Book 8. chap. of his Naturall History of the Indies alledgeth of a certain little flying animal of the bignesse of an Hanneton very frequent in the Isle of Spaine and in other Islands thereabouts having two wings above strong and hard and two below them two others more thinne and fine The little beast called Cocuye hath shining eyes as lighted candles so that wheresoever he passes he illuminates the air and gives it such a brightnesse that a man may see him a great way off and in a chamber as dark as it may be even at midnight men may read and write by the light that comes from them So that if a man binde two or three together this would give more light then a Lanthorne or a Torch in the field and amidst the Woods in the night as darke as may bee they make themselves to be seen
banished from thence he placed at its entrance a brandishing sword of fire to keep the passage to the tree of life With this fire then we must all be salted that are in the way of salvation following that which Origen sets downe in his 3. Homil. upon the 36. Psalme Wee must all goe to the fire of Purgatory and Peter and Paul but all shall not passe thereby after the same sort as they did whereof it is said in the 43. of Esay 2. When thou shalt passe through the waters the waves shall not cover thee for I will be with thee when thou shalt march through the fire thou shalt not bee burnt The Israelites passed through the red Sea dry-shod and the Aegyptians were drowned therein The three children in Nebuchadnezzars furnace had no detriment and those that heated the fire without were therewith consumed And in the 19. Hom. upon the 16. of Leviticus All are not purged by this fire that parts from the Altar it is the fire of the Lord for hee that is from the Altar is not of God but a strange fire dedicated for the cruciating of sinners which shall never be quenched nor the worm that gnaweth shall never dye for after that the soul by a multitude of its wicked comportments hath heaped up within him abundance of sinnes this congregation of evils in succession of times comes to boil and enflame us with a paine and punishment internall as the body doth of a feaver proceeding from the excesse of the mouth or other superfluities when she shall come to thinke and relate a history of its delinquencies which will bee a perpetuall prickle wherewith it will bee tormented so that shee will make her selfe as an accuser and witnesse against her selfe aâ—cording as the Apostle said Rom. 2.15 Their conscience also bearing witnesse and their thoughts either accusing or excusing one another in the day when God shall judge the secrets of all men But Jeremie on the other side speaking of a drinke of the wrath of God which shall be poured out upon all manner of Nations whereof whosoever will not drinke shall not be purified and from that we learne that the fury of Gods vengeance profiteth for the purgation of souls as well in generall as in particular and there is nothing more purgative then fire of which the Prophet Malachy should say in his 3. chap. 3. The Lord will sanctifie them in a burning fire and such is the fire of tribulations and adversity with which we must be salted and purged for salt is purgative above any other thing as wee may sufficiently perceive in those that drink Sea water who all dye of a flux Of the other fire which is exterminative and strange of which it is also in the 10. of Leviticus 2. And a fire went out from the Lord and devoured Nadab and Abihu God said in the 32. of Deut. v. 22. They shall burne unto the lowest hell and shall consume the earth with her encrease and set on fire the foundations of the Mountaines For the justice of the Almighty said one of the good Fathers foreseeing that which must come from the beginning of the world created this fire of eternall hell that whereof Esay intends to speak whose fire is not quenched to beginne to be the punishment of the wicked without that burning and heat should cease now for that it is neither wood nor charcoale nor other matter to maintain it but shall be eternally tâ—rmented therewith in body and soul because they have offended with the one and the other for sins are the bait and nourishment of this fire which by a gathering together of misdeeds and superabundance of iniquity heaped one upon another enflame the soul to a perdurable punishment even as a burning feaver the repleat body and render it a joice of ill digestion by a superfluity of viands and other disorders and excesse from whence there was drawne a wicked habitude for the soul then comming to remember her delights agitated with the living and most rigorous pricks which gall it she comes to be her owne accuser by certaine remorse of conscience that can profit them no more because in hell there is no redemption and to be his witnesse and judge as the Apostle sets it downe in the 2. of the Romanes Their conscience bearing witnesse and their thoughts accusing them in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men But there is also a fire in this world by which we must be salted and purified for as much deduction of it as we must endure from thence namely tribulations which are to us as a Minorative in Physick of the compleat purgation that wee must receive thereby The two foresaid fires furthermore that of the Altar and the strange may be very properly compared that there to aqua vitae the other to aqua fortis which ends and destroyes all where aqua vitae serves for nourishment for all that wee eat or drinke participates thereof and is that which passeth and converts into nutriment It is true that it is revealed more nearly in some subjects then in other Wine is that where it manifests it self soonest and with lesse preparation and paâ—ne afterwards wheat and so of the rest for there is nothing wherein nâ—ture doth so soone make his profit as of these two Aqua vitae is also called burning because it conceives so easily the flame and burneth for that it is necessary that whatsoever doth nourish must suffer under the fires action Otherwise how is it that naturall heat could work thereupon which is much weaker then that of fire wee know by experience that we could not draw any nourishment from stones metals earth and other substances whereupon fire cannot bite and if wolves doe sometimes eat clay wild-ducks and other birds small flints and gravell it is either to avoid vacuity or for some medicament to them knowne by a secret instinct of nature but not that this doth digest or serve them for maintenance no more then Iron doth Ostriches which yet they corrupt by a strong and great heat of their stomach But you will say that this assimilation contraries the text of the 10. of Leviticus where Aarons sonnes are so burned for offering strange fire That which Rabbi Simeon to Zohar relates in part that they served at the Altar being drunk and overcome with wine for that which followes after demonstrates it that God said unto Aaron Thou nor thy sonnes shall not drink wine when you enter into the Tabernacle whereto may be answered that similitudes cannot in all or through all agree otherwise it would be the same thing they represent Aqua vitae doth not make drunke if men take not so much at a time that it may alienate people from their spirit And yet being separate from wine the remainder should be nothing but phlegme and residences which cannot in any sort make drunke nor being therewith mingled and adjoined by nature as to stoppe again the acuity
it meet with food and nourishment it will in a short time set on fire great Townes and Cities Forrests and whole Countries Leaven is the same for how little soever you put in your Past or Dough it will alter it in short space and convert it to its owne nature Perverse Doctrine is of the very same which gaineth Countries by little and little as a Canker doth in the whole body And in his third Book against Parmenian to glorifie himselfe not in his sinnâ—s but in those of others as the Pharisee said Luk. 18.11 I give thee thanks O Lord God that I am not as other men are Extortioners Vnjust Adulterers c. I fast twice in the weeke c. comparing his owne innocence to the defaults of others this is but a little leaven but to boast himself in iniquities and trespasses is a great one Furthermore Leaven is taken in good part as well as in bad part in holy Writ which relates to the two fires The first hath been touched heretofore for pride and naughtinesse that corrupts the soule Touching the good in the 7. of Levit. 12 13. there are loaves of leavened bread which they offer for peace offerings with oblation of thanksgiving and in the 23. 17. of every family two loaves of the first eares of wheat at Pentecost and in St. Matthew and the 23 of St. Luke Jesus Christ compared the Kingdome of God to leaven that a woman had put into three measures of dough till it was all leavened for there it is taken for the fervent zeale of ardent faith and it is the fire wherewith we must be salted for as the fire boyles our meats and the salt seasons them also leaven is the cause that the past bakes the better and prepares thereby to make more wholesome and of lighter digestion more savoury and of better tast In which case leaven relates to the Evangelicall Law as Saint Augustine saith and old leaven to the Mosaicall which the Jewes tooke by the barke and by the hairs By reason whereof the Apostle admonisheth us to cast it farre from us that is to say all superstition and malice Cast off the old leaven that you may be a new lump as ye are unleavened for even Christ our Passeover is sacrificed for you Therefore let us keep the Feast not with old leaven neither with the leaven of malice and wickednesse but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth which leaven is without doubt this strange fire that devoures and consumes us within that is to say our soul to swallow us up and make us goe downe living into Hell And the Fire of the Altar the celestiall fire of charity faith hope it is that which we must desire of God to kindle in our hearts and to season our thoughts and our desires that no corruption be begotten there as it doth here below in things corruptible and corporall the prompt Minister and executor of that which the divine goodnesse will please to give of comforts and commodities in this temporall life What obligations then do wee owe thee thou excellent portion of Nature without which we should live in so great misery thou doest lighten in darknesse thou dost make us rejoyce in obscurity bringing us another day Thou doest chase away from about us hurtfull powers feares and nocturnall illusions thou doest warm us being cold thou doest redry us being wet thou bakest our viands thou art the soveraigne Artizan of all arts and manufactures which have been revealed unto us to serve as a rampard against our naturall Imbecillities that make us in regard of our bodies the feeble and infirm animall of all others All this by reason of thy Divine beneficence thou doest communicate to all mortals And thou O cleare luminous Sunne the visible image of the invisible God the light whereof doth rebate it selfe in thee as within a fair manifold multiplying glasse rendring thy selfe overflowing with all sorts of happinesses which afterwards thou communicatest to all thy sensible Creatures being so fair and so desireable a liberall benefactor thou arisest most resplendent with luminous beams which thou doest spread abroad into all parts of the world and by the vertue of thy spirit and breath by thy vivifying vigour thou governest and maintainest this little All. Thou the illustrious Torch of Heaven thou the light of all things cause and secondary Author of all that groweth here below which by the faculty and power which the Soveraigne dispensator of all goodnesse hath given thee obligeth all nature to thy selfe which with an unwearied course doest dayly run through the foure corners of the Universe Thy beauty thy light thou doest lend unto our senses by thy unknowne and imperceptible Divinity and impartest it with a liberall largesse without any vaile or covverture that come to enterpose betwixt them to the Church thy deare spouse to break open to us here below the effects illightning by the same meane of thy inextinguible and inexhaustible Torch all the celestiall fires Looke upon us then with a benigne and favourable eye and by the excellent beauty which shewes it selfe in thee elevate our understanding to the contemplation of this other more great that no mortall eie can behold nor spirit apprehend but by a profound and pious thought for as much as it will please him to gratifie it But thou Soveraigne Father of this intellectual fire and light what can wee bring thee here but devout supplications and prayers that it will please thee to burne with the fire of thy Holy Spirit the wills and courages of us thy most humble Creatures that wee may serve thee with a chast body and to agree with thee by a pure and neat conscience to the honour and glory of thy holy name and salvation of our soules through our Lord Jesus Christ thy deare Sonne who liveth and raigneth with thee God coeternall for ever and ever AMEN The second Part of the Lord BLAISE his Treatise touching FIRE and SALT EVery man shall be salted with Fire and every Sacrifice shall be salted with Salt Mark 9.49 Wee have already spoken of Fire Salt remaineth of which there is no lesse to say But it is strange that the Ceremonies of Paganisme should be found in this respect and many other in Mosaicall Traditions Fire shall alwayes burne on the Altar Lev. 6.12 13 The Priest shall burne wood thereon every morning c. And in the 2.13 Thou shalt season with salt all the Oblations of thy Sacrifices and thou shalt not forget to put the salt of Gods Covenant under them with all thy Offerings thou shalt offer Salt which Salt Numb 18.19 is called the everlasting Covenant before God to Aaron and his sonnes And Pythagoras in his Symboles ordaines not to speak of God without light and to apply Salt in all Sacrifices and Oblations And not onely Pythagoras but also Numa which most part of men hold to have been 100 years before Pythagoras instituted the same according to
These are all mysteries uneasy to comprehend which intend nothing but to demonstrate the affinity and connexion of the sensible with the intelligible world and of the Elementary with the Celestiall for as it is said in another case the Universall firmament called the firmament of heaven containeth things superiour and inferiour although after divers manners This is wel seen in a torch where blacknesse that is the Earth is the ground of three elements and colours the red being but an inflammation and heat joined to the blacknesse without any flame or light as are the blew and white which proceed from one very root all tend a going to unite with the white flame that is above and more highly elevated then others Yet it is not therefore so pure and quit of all filthinesse but that it procreates soot with black and infected fume whereof it must be depured by fire till it hath perfected the consumption of its corruption and made it a perfect whitenesse which from that time forwards never alters And this is that which we said before that fire leaves two sorts of excrements not sufficiently depured for the first proof Ashes below whence by the same fire is extracted an incorruptible substance of salt and of glasse at the last which the Zohar was not ignorant of when he said upon Exod. of the lees of any confected a shes salt and glasse is drawn But now for that it was not so said it is a thing sufficiently common and manifest to those that deal with fire which Cinerall excrement comes from the adustion and burning of coals but the foot which is more spirituall for that mounts and elevates higher is born of the flame which hath no leasure or power to perfect its mundification so that the pure and impure mount together And assuredly nothing can better agree with our souls after their separation from the body which carries away with them the imapurities which they have attracted from it during their residence here below which they must repass by fire be perfected by white throughout Every man shal be salted with fire and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt The weik and ashes representing man the exterior animal and his body and the two flames blew and white the blew the Celestiall and Ethereall body and the white souls stript of all Corporeity which in good men shall be burnt with fire that burns alwaies upon the altar and salted with salt from the Covenant the promises namely of his Messiah into which the Prince of this world hath but seen as it hath done in the posterity of Adam which is al filled with ashes whereof it was first built with the soot of originall sin whereunto he fastned by his disobedience prevarication So that we are the night where Moses began to reckon the day for that we are according to the flesh before the Messiah who being come after is the enlightned day of this clear sun of Justice which the Cabballists say is the representation of Jehovah whose sheath as they call it is Adonei from whence God must be drawn out for it is hee that mundifies the righteous and burneth the wicked with dark and obscure fire To which that also beateth which is said of the Thrones Animalls there shall descend a Lion enflamed that shall devour the oblations There are Angells committed upon every member that sinneth of whom they constitute themselves the bringers on for every man that commits any offence he suddainly delegates to himself an accuser which will be no more favourable to him then he must be but will lend him a fire from above to burn that member that shall have trespassed But Jehovah interveneâ— from above who with his water of mercy quencheth this fire after the party Delinquent shall have his spots purged away And there is but he alone that is the angel of peace that make the souls reconcilation with God to whom she comes by the intercession of this sacred name there is no other name all that the Zohar sets down whâ—ch is as Christian-like spoken by a Rabbin which was never baptized That premised for a ground work of what we shall say hereafter St. Marks Greek text carries it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every sacrifice shall be seasoned with salt where the Latin version which the Church holdeth for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sacrifice as in truth this Greek word signifies all sorts of sacrifices hostia's victima's and ceremonies But Porphyrius in his second book of sacrifices doth particularize it to herbs that men offered to the Gods for from the beginning they did not present them this he spake of Incense Myrrhe Benjamin Storax Aloes Labdanum and other the like odoriferous gums but only certain green herbs as certain first fruits of seeds that the earth produced and trees were procreated from the Earth before Animalls and the earth was clothed with herbs before it produced trees By reason whereof the gathering certain pieds of herbs all entire with their leaves and rootes and seeds they burned them and sacrificed the odour and fume that proceeded therefrom to the Immortall Gods and of this exhalation they cast which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 suffitus perfumed whence comes the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 victima sacrifice Therefore they do not refer them properly to bloody sacrifices for the Romans for more then 800 years since by Numaes Ordinance had no Images of Gods nor other sacrifices then dough with salt which were from thence called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say without blood Hitherto Porphyrie It hath been said heretofore that there was nothing more common nor lesse well known then fire And as much we may say of salt wherefore it is that Moses made so great account of it as to apply it to all sacrifices Calling it the perpetual Covenant that God made with his people of which alliance by the Hebrews called Berith they found three or four marks in the Scripture The bow of heaven Gen. 9.9 Gen. 17.2 Circumcision to Abraham and the universall paction Numb 18.19 Further yet the Paction of the Law received in Horeb Deut. 5.2 3. The Lord our God made a Covenant with us in Horeb which hath been time out of mind in singular and venerable recommendation towards all sorts of people you bless your tables by putting on of saltsellers saith Arnobius to the Gentiles But Titus Livius in his 26. that they may have a saltseller a dish or platter for Gods cause And Fabricius that thrice valiant Roman Captain had never gold nor silver but a little drinking cup whose foot was of horn to make his offerings to the Gods saltseller to serve for sacrifices forbiddding as Plinie hath it in his 33. book 12. ch to have other Silvery then those two It was furthermore a marke and symbole of Amity as was salt Wherefore the first thing that they served strangers comming to them was Salt to note a firmity
will be mounted and keep it as the former This is the second sal Armoniac volatill which is extracted from the water and the one and the other have great power to the dissolution of gold carrying no danger with then as your common sal Armoniac may doe which hath bad qualities in it there where this is extracted from a substance so familiar to mans body which is sweet water Now take all the feces residences which remain in the bottome of the vessell bruise them and make them dissolve in the first water which you shall have distilled after you have warmed it a little that it may dissolve the salt that may be there Let them repose then evacuate and put them to distill with halfe the water Then change the Recipient and with a little stronger fire distill the Surplusage of the water and keep them each a part in a cold place But doe not perfect to congeal all the salt in the bottome of the vessell but leave therein a little moisture to create flakes of ice If it be not white enough let it calcine for three or foure houres in a pot of earth not leaded after dissolve it in the second water filter and congeale it and keep it in a dry place for this is salt fix and fusible If in drawing the first Salarmoniac volatill the foule oile that is nothing worth mounts with it you must put salt and oile in new water and depure and putrifie it as before which was to begin againe therefore we must goe wisely to worke There is another manner of proceeding therein which is shorter for there are more wayes to one intent and to one end saith Geber Take raine or fountain water put it in a Cornue upon the sand with a slow fire and distill thereof a fourth part which is more rare and subtill Continue afterwards the distillation even to the feces which you cast away And see that you have good store of this meane substance with which you shall reiterate the distillation seaven times being alwayes the fourth part that will first issue out which is the phlegme and the feces are the slime In the fourth you shall begin to see the sulphurities of all colours in the forme of huskes and pieces of gold The seaven distillations being perfected put your meane substance in an alembec to the fire with a soft bath and draw that which may ascend which shall be yet of phlegme then you shall see created little stones and pieces of all colours which will goe to the bottome stay your distillation and let them settle then evacuate that which remains sweetly with water and doe so with all your mean substance and make there little stones to multiply in the bath When you shall have enough dry them in the Sun or before an easie fire and put them in a glasse-bottle well sealed with the fire of a lampe or the like for three or foure months and your matter will be congealed and fixed except a certaine small portion thereof which will arise along the sides of the vessell This here is the mean substance of the first matter of all things which is water But that we be not deceived or abused all these practises which are but an image and portrait halfe rudely hewen out of the manner which we must hold in the extraction of liquors From whence they resolve of themselves into moisture all sorts of salt as well common as Salalkali tartar and other the like the sweet oleaginous substance swimming above the water with the salt and bitter which there remaineth dissolved and after the extraction of the water remaineth a congealed salt in the bottome that is to say to separate the oile from salts which cannot be done without great artifice But it is not reasonable to discover it and divulge all openly but to reserve something therein for far of doing wrong to the curious endeavours of some learned men who have taken so much paines and travail to come to the knowledge of these fine secrets It hath pleased me in some sort to runne through the foresaid experiments of water as well for the importance and rarity which they have as for that it depends upon salt whereof water makes the principall part and likewise of the sea from whence separating the sweet substance the salt remains solid congealed and of this salt resolved by it selfe to moisture they extract by distillation the greatest part of sweet water by meanes whereof without departure from this subject of salt it will not be amisse to touch here something of the Sea whose water is as a body the salt enclosed not perceiveable to the sight but well to the tast are the vitall spirits and the oleaginous inflamable substance envelopped within the salt the soule and the life of the nature of aire or of wind remember because wind is my life There are then two substances in the Sea and by consequent in salt the one liquid and volatile which ascends upward and is double water namely and oile the one and the other sweet and fresh And the other fix and solid which is bitter and salt wherefore it was that Homer called the Ocean the father of Gods and of men for by stretching out of all side crossewise the Conduits and spongiosities of the earth which hee holds encompassed round about as a dry hanging on to some rock there within by a providence of nature is made a separation of substances of the fresh namely and of the salt for the Marine water passeth through these Conduits they unsalt it even as they should distill it by an Alembic of Cornue or as one should passe it through sand many times part whereof should remaine baked in the earth for the production and nouriture of vegetables part passeth through springs wells and fountaines whence all flouds and rivers are formed Eccles 1.7 All rivers runne into the Sea yet the Sea is not full unto the place from whence the rivers come thither they returne againe And part elevates it selfe aloft by meanes of the Sun and starres which draw and suck them as well for their nouriture as for the formation of raines snowes hailes and other aqueous expressions in the aire The salt which is more grosse heavy and terrestriall remains invisqued in the veines and conduits of the earth where heat inclosed bakes it digests alters and changes it into another nature for the production of all sorts of Minerals by meanes of the portion of fresh water mingled therewith which dissolves and washeth off these salts so that finally having been brought to their last perfection according to natures intention shee enformes that which shee hath determined The Sea then is not so barren and unfruitfull as some poets and Philosophers have made it Plato himselfe in his Phaedon where he saith that nothing could be there procreated worthy of Jupiter because all the Animals procreated therein are wild untameable and indocill and in which there is neither amity
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