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
travelled to obtaine that which others had better cheap and also to that which we reserve for our discourse of Gold and Glasse where we will declare that which shall here be left imperfect not having attained but by the end of the lip wherefore we will take but that which is necessary to clear what the Prophets have thereupon touched in their parables and similitudes In the first place of the two perfect gold silver on which they have most insisted on the good part for the imperfect tinne copper and iron they have ordinarily applyed to the worst part for vices and depravations contumacies and durities and lead for vexations and molestations Gold for true beliefe faith piety and religion and in sum all that which concernes the honour and service of God Silver for good and charitable works of mercy due in respect of our neighbour So that these two metals represent the two tables of the Decalogue And it would not be farre from the purpose to make a trimming of the Altar The first of gold containing four precepts in four azure letters which signifieth heaven and the other of silver in green letters signifying the earth Origen in the 2. Homil. upon this text of the first of Canticles We will make thee borders of gold with studs of silver triumpheth to allegorize the shape of gold this saith he holds the figure of the invisible and incorporeall nature and this for that it is of a substance so homogeneall and subtill that nothing can extend it selfe more fine and silver represents the vertue of the Verb following that which the Lord said in the 2. of Hosea I have given you gold and silver and you have therewith made Idols to Baal But we make the Holy Scripture Idols of gold and silver when we turne the sense thereof to some perverted interpretation or that we wâ—uld Pindarize it by elegances as if vertue consisted on the vaine flowers of Rhetoricke for in doing this we open our mouth as if we would swallow and suck in heaven whilst our tongue licketh the earth like as if the Prophet should say I have given you sense and reason whereby you ought to acknowledge me for your God and reverence me but you have turned them aside and therewith have made Idols By sense are understood the internall cogitations which represents them and by Reason which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word for it signifies the one and the other as silver denotes Psal 12.6 the words of the Lord are pure words as silver proved in the fire when they say or hold that silver tryed in the fire is the tongue of the just are not my words as fire But Cherubins are said to be gold because they interpret them for the pleâ—itude of divine Science And the Tabernacle of the alliance is of Gold also because it carries the type and iâ— age of the law of nature where consisted the gold of science so that Gold is referred to the concâ—ption and thought and silver to the word according to which the wise man alludeth in the 25. of the Proâ—erbe As Golden apples with silver nets so is he that speakâ— words in a fit seaâ—on Hitherto Origen But will we hear what Zohar sets down from whence Origen hath fished out the greatest part of his rare and profound meditations and allegories and to the purpose of those apples of gold enchased within the nets of silver The gold from above is the gold sagur inclosed or folded up that from below is more exeposed to our senses nothing should better agree to the Mâ—ssihe which is the true pure gold of Evihah mentioned Gen. 2. hee which is reinclosed within silver namely his divinity and reshut up with the humanity Zohar pursues it In the Tabernacle there were mingled gold and silver to assemble the divine mystery above in one subject where soveraigne perfection was found But the Cherubims were all of gold shewing their Angelicall nature which doth not participate of any corporeity without any silver or copper mingled therewith Gold within silver expresseth mercy by which the whole universe was built the world was built in mercy upon which Gods Throne is established His Royall seat shall be prepared in mercy But the rigour of judgement is designed by copper which approacheth to the colour of bloud without the effusion whereof also there is no remission And therefore it was ordained that Moses should erect a Serpent in the Wildernesse to heale those who were bitten by the vermine and cast thâ—ir eyes upon it Then gold silver and copper are the three metals that go together the Chasma'l or the electrum of Ezechiel And there is a faire meditation upon the 3 colours which are these white of silver that represents water is mercy manifested by the particle Jah assigned to the Father which the Apostle cals the father of mercies 1 Cor. 1.3 Copper that in rednesse imitates fire is the rigour and the severity of justice which the Aegyptians call Din attributed to the Holy Spirit against which if any blaspheme hee shall neither be pardoned in this world here nor in the other The third in the middle of two is the citrinity of the gold composed of white and red as we may see in saffron bloud vermillion and other the like tempered with water which is white for from thence is procreated a golden yellow for Citrinity saith Gebâ—r is nothing else but a determinate proportion of white and red And this guilded citrinity is attributed to the Sonne who participates of Mercy and Justice in pursuance of that spoken in the 16. of Eccl. 11. because mercy and wrath are with him But latten or copper which in its exteriour hath some resemblance with gold but within all impure and corrupt denoting hypocrisie which under a masque of pious zeale and religion hatcheth its wicked desires and detestable ambitions impieties erroneous opinions lusts animosities revenges and other unjust and perverse intentions The whitenesse of the silver on the one side of which this lett on participates for it is but at 16 Carats being pallied by the rednesse of copper that causeth it citrinity But this rednesse is but cruelty and malice which corrupteth gentle sincerity If your sinnes were as red as scarlet or vermillion they shall bee as white as snow Esay 1.16 In regard of lead it is put for vexations and molestations wherewith God doth visit us by means whereof hee bringeth us unto repentance for as lead burneth and exterminateth all the imperfections of metall which Boetius the Arabian calleth water of Sulphur so tribulation divesteth us here below from many spots which wee thereby have contracted so that St. Ambrose calleth it Heavens Key following that which is written Act. 14.22 Through many temptations we must enter into the Kingdome of Heaven The Apostle Rom. 5.3 and 4. c. useth a very fine gradation Trihulations begets patience tpatience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed because the love
procreated before it But in this respect there presents a very rare mystery and worthy of observation that the compleat perfection of things fals out alwaies on the fourth day as of the light The Sunne and Moone were made the fourth day waters on the second day produced nought but fishes the fifth which is the fourth after and al animals the sixth with man for whom the fruits of the earth were made the third Which sheweth us that the 4 number so much celebrated by Pythagoras denoteth the perfection that resides in ten resulting from the four first numbers 1 2 3 4 make â—en So Plato was willing to informe his Timaeus where he treats of the procreation of things by these words one two three but where is the fourth Zohar upon this particle of the 14. of Leviticus you shall keepe my Sabbaths See saith Rabbi Eliezer what is the mystery here contained In six dayes was the world created in each of those is manifested the worke that was made therein and God gave it his particular vertue after he had finished it but on the fourth he attributed one more expresse for those of the third preceding being secret and hidden came not in evidence except that the fourth day happened their faculties would reveal themselves for water air and fire the three superiour elements remained as suspended and the workmanship of them did not appeare till the fourth day manifested them and then appeared all that was made on each But if you will alledge that this was the third day that then God said Let the earth sprout and produce the green herb producing seed and the fruit trees bearing fruit after his kinde which hath his seed in it selfe upon the earth and it was so yet this notwithstanding that this happened on the third day he suffered not to be annexed with the fourth without any separation the which fourth comes to meet with the Sabbath which is the fourth day the fourth and is by it selfe the perfect fourth where there appeared all the works of the six preceeding dayes and it is the fourth foot of the Merchavah O the divine throne whereon God sate for his repose all the six dayes Thus discourseth Zohar We must not here passe over another mystery which these two luminaries have each three names the Sunne is called Chomah wisdome Scemesch heat and Cheres drynesse Plato in Timaeus All moisture that the celerity of fire raised and that which remained arid and dry wee call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 potters earth That of Maor Luminary is common to the one and to the other The Moone is called Malchut reigne or kingdome Jareha which the Greek call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for that she perfects her course in a month and lebenab white for as the Sun representeth Jesus Christ the Moon denotes the Church which is all fair without any blemish following that which is written in the 6. of Canticles 10. Who is she that looketh forth as the morning fair as the Moone clear as the Sun Of this light of the Sunne of Righteousnesse whereof it is said in the fourth of Malachy But unto you that do feare my name the Sunne of Justice shall arise 4. 2. Where the Moone the Church is illustrated on a perpetuall day without darknesse according to Esay 60. v. 20. The Lord shall be thine everlasting light who hath planted his Tabernaele or Church within the fair clear shining Sunne that illuminates every man that comes into the world no more nor lesse then the starres which are innumerable and the least as big as the whole earth receive all their light from the visible sunne Of whom shall it not here bee lawfull to relate something of his praises of the Song that Orpheus made unto it Hear mâ—e most blessed Sunne Worlds heart and eie Heavenly brightnesse shining Living mens pleasing aspect Begetting Aurora in thy right hand And the night on thy left Thou governest the four seasons Who dance in a round At the found of thy golden harpe Thou runnest through this great vault Vpon thy shining Chariot Drawn with thy Coursers That respire heat and life Ardent unpolluted measurer Of times that shewes thy selfe to all A Soveraigne aid to each Keeping faith eye of Justice Brightnesse of shining light Behold that which we here thought to runne through concerning these three fires as for the three salts which relate thereunto we will speak thereof hereafter namely the Terrestriall and Elementary the Heavenly and Solary and the Intelligible that of the Divine Essence denoting the Father from whence proceeds the light which is the Sunne and these two the heat of the Holy Spirit which kindles our hearts with the love and knowledge of God and with charitable love to our neighbour The same in heaven the light of the Sunne expands it selfe to illighten all the starres and here below to the production and vivification of all that which is there begotten and maintained And in the Elementary world fire doth clear us warm us and boil our viands and lends us all other commodities and usages As for fire in the 66. of Esay 15 16. which the Evangelist cites here whose fire shall not extinguish and whose worme dieth not It is without doubt destinated to the punishment of reprobates which shall never be quenched nor the worme that stingeth the conscience shall never dye To keep that this worm that is engendred of corruption may not procreate we must salt it with discretion and prudence that it may do nothing which may offend and scandalize his neighbour according as the Evangelist specifies it Hee that shall scandalize one of these little ones that beleeve in mee And as for banishing and chasing away strange fire that devours our soul as a burning feaver doth vitall heat this must be done by the mediating intervention of divine fire which is much more puissant then any other Let us heare that which to this purpose Saint Ambrose alledgeth in the 3. chap. of his Offices Saint John baptized Jesus Christ with the Holy Ghost and with fire which is the type and image of the Holy Ghost who after his ascension must descend for the remission of sinnes so enflaming as a fire doth the soul and heart of the faithfull according as Jeremie saith in 20. 9. after he had received the Holy Ghost and it was as a burning fire in my heart shut up in my bones What is the meaning then of that in the Maccabees that the fire was become water and this water excites the fire but that the spirituall grace burneth by the fire and by the water it doth purifie and cleanse our sinnes for sinne washeth and burneth according to which the Apostle saith fire will prove what each mans works shall bee for it must necessarily be that this examination should bee perfected in all those that desire to returne into Paradise It was not without cause nor idlely set downe in the 3. of Genesis that after Adam and Eve were
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