upon Genesis we must from the contemplation of the creatures ascend and come to the Creatour So that those then are very ignorant and void of understanding who cannot from the Creatures attain to the knowledge of the Creator Those that dwell in the extremities of the West where it goes as it were to bed in the waters of the Ocean see it at his rising of the same grandeur as those of Catai where it riseth which sheweth the smallnesse and disproportion of the earth in comparison thereof That if the Moone which is farre inferior in greatnesse thereunto sheweth it selfe almost equall it is by reason of the great distance from the one and the other for by so much as things are at a distance by so much the more they lessen themselves to our sight and this is sufficiently verified by the rules of perspective Surely these are two chiefe Masterworks that of these two great luminaries which are not of small ornament and commodity for the life of man as Saint Chrysostome puts it upon the 135. Psalme but it doth contribute much thereto yea almost all in regard of that which concernes the body for besides the light wherewith they enlighten us by day and by night they distinguish times and seasons help us to make voyages as well by Sea as Land they ripen fruits without which our corporall life could not be maintained with other infinite usages which proceed from them The Sunne is put for the whole Heaven for that it is the greater part thereof and for fire and Heaven is the seat and vessell of incorruptible and unalterable bodies The Moone president of moisture represents water and earth and salt composed thereof for there is nothing wherein moisture is more permanent nor which is more moist then salt whereof the Sea for the most part doth consist and there is nothing where the Moone doth more distinctly make her motions to appeare then in the Sea as we perceive in the ebbing and flowing thereof and in the braines and marrows of Animals so that for good cause she is called the Regent of the waters and of phlegmatick and waterish moisture which although it seem to be dead and inanimate in respect of fire which is living she is permanent chiefly in salt which hath an inexterminable humidity and is that which keepeth the Sea from drying up for without Salt it had been long agone drawn out and dryed up there where the fire lives not in it but in another for in that it is a materiall Element it hath no place proper to it Of these two namely the heat of the Sun and moisture of the Moone in which consisteth the life of all things and without which nothing would grow increase nor be maintained not fire it selfe which cannot subsist without air which is double one participating of the heat of fire ascending from the water out of the bowels of moist nature a sincere and light fire forthwith flying out seeks things aloft saith Trismegistus And the other as water descending from fire so long till it come to congeal For so there is one moist water which tends upwards to rarifie it selfe in the aire and another cold comming downe to thicken it selfe in the nature of Earth untill at last it comes to terminate in red fire which is in gold for gold is the last substance of all And Aire is the mediating conciliator betwixt the moisture of passable water that constitutes matter and the fires heat on which the Agent and form doth depend Earth is as the matrix where fire by the means of air and fire introducing its action excites and thrusts out which is thereby engendred to its determined end The other five Planets and the fixed starres come in but collaterally as assistants and coadjutors of the effects of the two luminaries where all their influxions are reduced as do the rivers of the Sea and from the earth reciprocally comes back their norriture so that heaven and fire are as the male the agent and water and earth as the female patient but under heaven the air is comprized And as mans seed inclosed and lâ—pped within the matrix is nourished fomented and entertained with corrupt bloud by the help of naturall heat so fiâ—e by the means of air and water is maintained in the earth for the production of things which engender thereof So the Heaven Sunne Fire and Air march together and the earth under which are comprised in the Elements below water and dry land on their side It is Moses Heaven and Earth and Hermes his high and low which relate one to the other that which is above is as that which is below and on the contrary to perpetuate the miracles of one thing as he saith in his Table of Esmeraulds Zohar the intellâ—gible and sensible World by the contemplation whereof we come to the contemplation of spirituall things which thâ— Apostle before him had touchâ—d in the fiâ—st to the Romanes The invisible things of him from the creation of the Word are made knowne in those things which are scene for all that is here below in the earth is of the same manner as in heaven above for God the Creator made all things annexed one to another which Homer was not ignorant of by his golden chaine to bind together this inferiour and superiour World and that they adhere one to the other that his glory may stretch through all above and below And in imitation thereof man the image of the great world and the measure of every thing was thereof made and formed of things low and high And God took dust and thereof formed Adam and breathed into him the breath of life the very light that shineth in the sensible world depends upon this superiour light that is hid from us from whence proceed all faculties and vertues which from thence are expressed to our knowledge for there is nothing here below that doth not depend from that above by a particular power committed unto it to govern and excite it to all its appetites and motions so that all is bound together We hold well for the remainder that all we have from light in the sensible world comes from the Sun for that of the Moon and of the Stars although inumerable is a very small thing yet it proceeds from the Sun and that of fire is but artificiall to give us light for default of the Sunne But how shall it square with that to be willing to attribute the primitive source of light and chiefly that of the producing and vivifying to the sunne for that we see in the beginning of Genesis that the first thing that was made was the light on the first day and the Sunne not till the fourth vegetables being produc't from the former This was say the Rabbins thereto most wisely advised by Moses as all his other writings proceeding from divine inspiration to take away from men all occasion to Idolize this luminary when we see that light was
on high as a vapour to imply saith the same Zohar that wee must offer him nothing but what is cleane and candid for rednesse represents sinne and punishment that followes it and the white sinceritie with mercy and the finall recompence that doth accompany it What is it saith Zohar which is designed by the red Roses and the white Lillies It is the odour of the oblation proceeding from red blood and from fat which is white which God reserveth for his owne portion which fatnesse relates to the sacrifice or animall man who is nourished with this fat as the vitall spirits with blood wherefore it is said when we fast to extenuate and macerate the pricks of the flesh and concupiscence that we offer unto God fatnesse who will have from his Creature the soul which is fire and bloud and the body namely fat wherewith it is nourished but the one and the other incontaminate pure and neat without corruption as if they were to passe through the fire and salted Therefore he would that they should be burned to him that they may ascend in a white fume and an odour of suavity before him for fume is more spiritual then matter which the fire by subtiliation raiseth it after the manner of Incense And indeed all this world here is but an odour that mounts unto God sometimes good and agreeable sometimes wicked and hurtfull The forme of the thing which consisteth in its colour and figure remains incorporeall in the matter where the eye goes to apprehend it and associates with it The tast also remains attached to it as the spittle moistens it and communicates it to the tast But odor or smell separates them and comes from farre by an unperceivable vapor to the sense of the nose and braine Wherefore the Scripture doth particularize in the rose and in the lillies the Red and White whose smell doth not vanish And yet though the roses be red yet the water of them distilled and the fume if you burne them are white as those of incense whereof it is spoken in Psal 41.2 Let my prayer he directed as incense in thy sight by prayers are understood not only prayers but all our desires thoughts and comportmens and thereupon Rabbi Eliezer sonne of Rabbi Simeon the author of Zohar making his prayer doth thus paraphrase This is well knowne and manifest before thee O Lord my God God of our prayers that I have offered unto thee my fat and my blood I have offered them in an odor of Suavity with firme faith and beleefe macerating chastising the sensuality of my flesh That it will please thee then Lord that the odor of my prayer proceeding from my mouth may be presently addressed before thy face as an odor of a burnt offering which they burne unto thee upon the altar of propitiation and that thou wilt accept it as agreeable He said that because that after the comming of our Saviour the destruction of the second Temple by the Romans the Jewish sacrifices were converted into prayers the bloudy sacrifices signified by the red roses and colour of bloud and those without bloud as the minchad other the like of meal by the white lillies following that which was said Cant. Chap. 5. 6. My beloved is white and ruddy he feedeth among the lillies Under these four colours furthermore which signifie the four Elements Black the Earth White the Water Blew the Air and Red the fire are comprised the greatest secrets mysteries Otherwise reading in ch 10. of 35 book Plinie that Apelles had painted Alexander holding lightning in his hand fingers seemed to hang out and lightning to be without the Table but reading they remembred that all those consisted of four colours I cannot well specifie what those four colours were which must be principall in nature till I had learned out of Zohar to consider them in the light where that is to be noted that there are two fastned to the week namely black noting the Earth and red proceeding there from fire and two to the flame Blew in the root over against the black and white on the top opposite to red But let us see how this doth well suit with Chymicall Theorie which constitutes of these four Elements two solid and fix'd which prepare themselves together the earth and the fire which adhere to the week and the other two liquid volatills and flitting water and air white and blew as is the flame which is liquid and in perpetuall motion And we must not think it strange that the air the blew should be lower then the water or the white flame which is aloft because the aereall party which is the oil and fat separate more hardly and more difficultly from the composed then doth the water more opposite to fire But let us look more mystically thereinto which the Zohar hath more abundantly run through The red light as well in earth as in heaven is that which destroyes all dissipates all for it is the bark of the tree of death as we may see in a lamp candle and other light whose root is in the earth namely this corruptible and corrupting blacknesse which watereth the week the branches and the boughes are the flames blew and white The week with its blacknesse and rednesse is the Elementary world and the flame the Celestiall The red colour commands all that is under it and devoureth it And if you say that it domineers also in heaven not as in the inferiour world wee may answer And although there be vertues and powers above that are destructive and dissipate all base subjacent things All these superiors are anchored in this red light and not the inferiors for they are thick grosse and obscure and this red light which is contiguous to that above gnawes and devours them and there ia nothing in the low world which shall not be destroyed It penetrates and enters into stones it pierceth them and hollowes them that waters may passe over them and drowns all in the depths and hollowes of the earth where they divide themselves of the one side and on the other till they come to resemble anew in their Abyssus passing crosse the darknesses that are confounded with them which is the cause that waters rise and fall they mount when they come from the sea under earth to their sources to glide anew above the earth downwards returning to the place from which they parted So that the waters darknesse and light mingling themselves pellmell there is made within another Chaos which nature comes to unmingle the heat namely which is therein inclosed by Ordinance of the Soveraign Dispensator that commands it And there make lights which men cannot see because they are dark Every channell to be brief mounts upwards with his voices whence Abyssus are shaken and cry to their companion One depth calleth to another in the voice of their Catarracts And who is it that cries Open thee with thy waters and I will enter into thee
of their contracted Amity And the great Duke of Muscovie as Sigismund puts it down in his Treatise of the affairs of Muscovie he could not do greater honour to those that he favoured then to send them of his salt Archilocus as Origen alledgeth against Celsus among other things reproacheth Lycambas to have violated a very holy and sacred Mystery of the amity conceived betwixt them by the salt the common table And upon Saint Matthew speaking of Judas he had not saith he any respect either to the remembrance of their common table or to salt or bread which we did at together And Lycophron in a poem of Alexander called salt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 purifying and cleansing alluding to that of Euripides that the sea washeth away all faults from men for that the sea which the Pythagoreans because of its bitternesse and saltnesse call it Saturnes tears and a fift Element and is nothing but salt dissolved in water And certes it is a thing very admirable the great quantity that there is of salt sith that we hold it for an infallible maxime that God Nature made nothing in vain For besides that there is found thereof in the earth part in liquor which they scum off part in yee as at Halle in Saxony and at Borre in Provence part in hard rocks as in Teplaga a land of Negroes where they carry it more then two hundred miles off upon their heads and transport from hand to hand by relayes even to the Kingdome of Tombur serving for money that passeth for currant in all those quarters as it doth also in the Province of Caindu in East Tartarie According to Marc. Pole in his 2 book 38 chap. and also that if they have it not for all purposes in their mouths their gums rot because of the extream heats that raign there accompanied with corrupting Moorish moistures for which reason they must hold thereof continually moistening it with a thing that doth hinder putrefaction I have many times made triall very exactly that of sea-Sea-water men make or draw more then halfe of salt causing the fresh water that is therein sweetly to evaporate away what an enormous quantity then would there remaine of salt if the fresh substance of the Sea were there from extracted There are no sands or deserts of what long extenditure soever that can compare therewith not by the 2. thousand part for many men would equall yea preferre the Sea in quantity and greatnesse unto the earth We must not here dwell long on particularities that concerne salt Plinie in his 35. Book Chap. 7. The greatest part depending upon nothing but hearesay for all tend to no other thing but in the first place to shew that there are two sorts of salt as t is true Naturall and Artificiall The Naturall growes in flakes or in a rock by it selfe within the earth as is aforesaid the Artificiall is made with sea-water or with liquor as a pickle drawne out of salt pits as they doe in Lorrain and the French County of Burgundie which they boyle and congeale upon the fire He there sheweth many examples and indeed those which are more difficult to beleeve let the faith be on the sayers part and among others of a certaine lake of Tarentin in Poville not deeper then the height of knees where water in summer time by the Suns heat is all converted into salt And in the Province of Babylon there growes a liquid Bitumem a little thick which they use in Lamps in stead of oile This inflamable substance being stripped therefrom there remaines salt there under hidden as indeed wee see it by experience that out of every thing that burns there may be salt extracted but there doth not appear any thing therein but waterishnesse and inflamable unctuosity which must be taken away by fire this done salt remains in the ashes And this salt saith Geber in his testament retaines alwayes the nature and property of the thing from which it is extracted if this be done in a close vessell that the spirits may not vapor away for there would remaine that which the Gospell cals sal infatuatum as we shall say hereafter The best salt then that may be and the wholesomest is that which is made with sea-sea-water in Bronage And after the example thereof that the trough throughout where the salt water is made of clay or glue as potters earth and that whereof tiles is made furthermore you must courry this trough by Artifice that it drink not nor suck up the water which men draw therefrom which is done by beating it with a great number of Horses Asses and Mullets tied one to another that they may trample thereon so long that it be firme and solid as a certain barns flore to thresh wheate This done and having hollowed the channels to put in the water then we must have a care that the salt-pans be something lower then the Sea Plinie in his 2. Book Chap. 106. sets downe that salt cannot be made without fresh water they set in the first place a great receptacle where they draw the water which is called the (a) The first receptacle or bond of salt water whereof salt is made Jard and at the end thereof a sluce by which having applyed thereunto below a hanch with a stopple called the (b) A trunck or pipe of wood through which sea-sea-water passes one of the last receptacles whereof salt is made Amezau they make the water run from the Jard into Parquets which they cal Couches of these Couches giving thereto a requisite hanging by other stopples 2. in number called the gate of the Poelles which are therein enchased within other Parquets called soldering or planching with boord windings and means to make the water turne by divers windings and channels almost after the manner of a Labyrinth which it is doth for a great way before it come to render it self at last within the Parquets and hollowes where the salt must be congealed alwayes diminishing the quantity of water that the Sun-beames have therein more action and that it be better warmed before it enter the floores where it makes its finall congelation But to come thereunto by certaine degrees and proportionate measures there are throughout the Palles which they lift up and downe as those of a mill All the earth that remaineth which men draw by the Parquets and the flores they Arrange about them as a Trench or rampart High grounds or little hils raised by mens hands which is called Bassis of the convenient breadth to passe two horses a front which serves as well to retaine the water as to put upon the heaps of salt made and congealed called Vaches and to come and goe as upon a dike or causway from one marish to another to lade and carry upon the beasts of carriage of the vessels which attend there neer to the shore In the winter they content themselves with bulrushes which they sell afterwards very
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
nor sweetnesse But what shall we say of the Dolphin that saved Arion and of many others alledged by Plutarch in his treaty What animalls are the wisest those on land or those in the water of fishes likewise wherewith the Indians are served as with a chained Grayhound But it is very smal to take fish never letting go what he hath once fastned on Truely a Brach nor couching spaniell cannot bee more spirituall or docible then this fish at least if it be true what is related to have often times been seen by the eye in the thirteenth booke of Gonzalo d'Ovidiedo of his naturall history of the Indies Chap 10. And of Peter Martyr of another sort of fish called Manati which being taken at Sea very little and from thence put into a standing lake became tame and privately would come and take bread from mens hands and would not faile to come a good way off when hee was called leaving himselfe to be handled at their pleasure and carried them upon his back as on a bridge crosse the lake from one side to the other But fresh water fishes are they more docile then those of the Sea The Aegyptian Preists above all others abhorred the Sea calling it the finall end the death and destruction of all things because the water thereof killeth all Animalls that drink thereof and is as the sepulcher of all rivers that goe lose themselves and die therein and the earth is the same for all bodies from whence none are spewed out To this purpose Chiia in the Zohar deploring the death of Rabbi Simeon author thereof after he had cast himselfe on the earth and embraced him used such a language O earth earth dust dust how hard and unpitifull art thou For whatsoever is most desireable to the sight thou makest old and deformed thou breakest in peices the shining Columnes of the world How doest thou quench the cleare resplendent lights which received theirs from the eternall living spring wherewith the whole world was illustrated The Princes and Potentates given to the people to governe them and to administer Justice unto them by which they are maintained and subsist waxe old and end in thee and thou remainest alwayes persistent in thy selfe not being able to satisfie or satiate thy selfe with so many bodyes that returne thither so that the world is therein confounded and lost and afterwards renewes it self of a suddaine But for the regard of the Sea the Aegyptian Priests had it in such detestation that they could not endure to see the very Mariners nor the Islanders as people which on all parts were cut off from humane commerce And the Britains separated from the world by an element which they say is the fifth so austere outrageous and unpittiable and for that cause they abstained from salt because that among other things it provoked to lasciviousnesse The occasion also for which they so much rejected the Sea was something mysticall and allegoricall because it doth not wash spots or uncleannesse So that Homer made and not without reason that Nausicaa Alcinous daughter washed her linnen and clothes in a fountaine of fresh water on the Sea shore for the truth is that Sea-water doth not wash That which Aristotle as Plutarch puts it in the first of the Symposiaques 9. question referre to the pickle wherewith the sea-Sea-water is alwayes filled so that there being nothing empty therein it could receive no filthinesse And lee is it not the same yea more full of salt yea more unctuous and fat then that of the sea so that according to Aristotles testimony men put sea-water in their lamps to make them shine clearer and cast upon the flame it becomes lighted in which there may be also mystery contained concerning fire and salt and their affinity together Join hereunto that wee may see that salt is an enemy to all filthinesse and uncleannesse and will not thereto adjoin or associate no more then fire which will nothing but pure things said good Raimund Lullius Yet to the aforesaid purpose Plutarch in his naturall causes sets down that the sea-water doth neither nourish nor feed trees or plants because being grosse and heavy it cannot mount into their stalks which thicknesse and grosnesse is seen for that carryeth greater burthens then the fresh water and this comes from the salt therein dissolved and it is earthly and consequently more uneasy to sinke Moreover trees being according to the opinion of Plato Democritus Anaxagoras and others a terrestriall Animall it cannot give it nourishment for bitter doth not nourish but sweet only But what shall wee say of so many fishes that are procreated and nourished in the sea of herbs also and of trees Francisco de Oviedo lib. 2. ch 5. sets down that in the first discoverie of Christopher Columbus they found as of great green and yellow medowes in the main sea more then two hundred leagues from land of certain herbes called Salgazzi which go floting on the top of the waters as the winds carry them from one side to another In the relation of Francis Vlloa he sets down that the root of the herbs whereof he gives the description and figure do not sink more then 12 or 15 fadome in the water yellow yet as wax But wee sufficiently see trees and bushes growing along the sea-shore and even in the very sea yet Plutarch insisteth that those that grow along the shore of the Red-sea are there procreated nourished with the slime which the flouds carry thither and fall therein which he might have spoken more properly of the greater sea otherwise called Pontus Euxinus And Plinie lib. 18. cha 22. that the herbs which grow within the water are nourished with rains but it would follow that if so they should procreate in all other places where it rains indifferently Aristotle with better reason refers it to the grosse and unctuous saltnesse which is therewith mingled Salt being fat and unctuous which is the cause that salt water doth not so easily quench fire as fresh water But this saltnesse is equall throughout all the sea Plinie himself lib. 19. ch 11. specifies Certain herbes which salt waters do much profit These are secrets of Nature to which mans discourse can hardly arrive For herbs by a providence thereof may well suck and draw from salt water a fresh or sweet substance wherewith they are procreated and nourished as the fishes But this is not our principall drift we have here endeavoured to shew that Salt is not unfruitfull but the cause of fertility provoking venereall appetite whence Venus is said to be begotten of the sea if men give salt unto animalls to heat them the more and make them eat salt as Plutarch puts it in his 3. queston of Naturall causes And wee see by experience that in ships laden with salt rats and mice are sooner engendred then in others this which must so much the more cry down salt in regard of holy things from whence all mutability and lubricity must be bannished but salt is in the number of things that are applyed to the good and to the bad part Of the good we have heretofore alledged many places Of the bad for the sterility Gen. 14.5 All shall assemble themselves in the wild valley which is now the sea of salt And in the 19. chap. 26. as also in the 10. of Wisdome v. 7. of Lots wife who for her incredulity and disobeying the Angels voice she was turned into a pillar of salt And Judges 9.45 the habitations of Rebells and Traitors were razed and sowed with salt And in the 2 of Zephaniah v. 9. Moab shall be as Sodome a desolation of nettles and thistles and heaps of salt But we see upon the ebbing and flowing of the salt pits in the Marshes of Zaiâ—tonge where they empty the durt which are as salt as the sea itself where it produceth the best wheat that possibly can be and in great quantity and very excellent wines also But there is another consideration in that as in Marle and in the dry places of Ardonne where they burne the cuttings of trees of 7 or 8 years as also quick chalk which supplies the place of dung in their grounds for those ashes would produce nothing of themselves no more then Marle or salt but they are the cause of production because they warm and fatten the land There is yet another reason that Plutarch alledgeth That throughout where there is Salt nothing can grow thick or be close together which constipation would hinder herbs to thrust out Moreover many medicaments and remedies do come from salt whereupon I will not here lose time on that which Plinie Dioscorides and others have set down and treated of cursorily and in hast with closed eyes one after another not having made proof thereof add to this it is so triviall and beaten as nothing more but will touch here in passing the Countrey an experiment whereof I have seen very admirable effects in burning feavers and unquietnesse where they could not take rest It is a frontall made in this manner Take the yolk of a fresh Eg and as much grosse salt beat them together in shape of an ointment which you shall apply to your forehead between two folded linnen clothes It doth not coole the brain nor cause such accidents as conserve of Roses do Oxyrhodinon likewise and brings much more comfort FINIS
A DISCOVRSE OF FIRE and SALT DISCOVERING Many secret Mysteries AS WELL PHILOSOPHICALL AS THEOLOGICALL London Printed by Richard Cotes 1649. To his worthy friend Captaine Thomas Falconbridge SIR J Have been informed of your zeal and forwardnesse in advancing Learning and Truth two commendable vertues for a man of your merit and profession And meeting with a subject composed by a French Authour I present the Translation to your favourable acceptance It is of forraign birth though swadled up in an English habit It hath done much good abroad and I am confident it will do the like here if supported with your approbation It had not seen the Presse here had I not been assured of the candor and integrity of the Authour I repose confidence of acceptation because the Translator hath been of your long acquaintance and was lately sensible of your propensity and assistance when he came in your way If this may find grace with you you will engage him to make further inquisition into this most sacred and secret mystery and to rest SIR Your most affectionate friend EDVVARD STEPHENS AN EXCELLENT TREATISE OF FIRE and SALT Composed by the Lord Blaise of VIGENERE The first part PYTHAGORAS who of all Pagans was undoubtedly by common consent and approbation held to have made more profound search and with less incertainty penetrated into the secrets as well of Divinity as of Nature having quaffed full draughts from the living source of Mosaicall Traditions amid'st his darke sentences where accordlng to the Letter he touched one thing and mystically understood and comprised another wherein he imitates the Aegyptians and Chaldaeans or rather the Hebrewes from whence all theirs proceeded he here sets downe these two Not to speake of God without Light and to apply Salt in all his Sacrifices and Offerings which he borrowed word for word from Moses as we shall hereafter declare For our intention is here to Treat of Fire and of Salt And that upon the 9. of Saint Marke ver 49. Every man shall be salted with Fire and every Sacrifice shall be salted with Salt Wherein foure things come to be specified Man and Sacrifice Fire and Salt which yet are reduced to two comprehending under them the other two Man and Sacrifice Fire and Salt in respect of the conformitie they beare each to other In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth this said Moses on the entrance upon Genesis Whereupon the Jew Aristobulus and some Ethniques willing to shew that Pythagoras and Plato had read Moses bookes and from thence drawne the greatest part of their most secret Philosophy alledged that which Moses should have said that the heaven and the earth were first created Plato in his Timaeus after Timaeus Locrien said that God first assembled Fire and Earth to build an universe thereof we will shew it more sensibly of Zohar in the Weik of a Candle lighted for all consists of light being the first of all Creatures These Philosophers presupposing that the World consisted as indeed it doth of the foure Elements which are as well in heaven and yet higher as in the earth and lower but in a diverse manner The two highest Aire and Fire being comprised under the name of Heaven and of the Aethereall Region for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes from the verbe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shine and to enflame the two proprieties of these Elements And under the word Earth the two lower Earth and Water incorporated into one Globe But although Moses set Heaven before Earth and observe here that in all Genesis he toucheth at nothing but things sensible but not of intelligible things which is a point apart for concerning this there is no good agreement between Jewes and Christians Saint Chrysostome in his first Homily Observe a little with what dignity the Divine Nature comes to shine in his manner of proceeding to the creation of things For God contrary to Artists in building his Edifice stretched out first the heavens round about afterwards planted the earth below Hee wrought first at the head and afterwards came to the foundation But it is the Hebrewes custome that when they speake most of a thing they ordinarily put the last in order which they pretend to touch first And the same is here practised where Heaven is alledged before Earth which he comes to discry immediately after In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth and the Earth was without Forme and void Saint Matthew useth the same upon the entrance to his Gospell The Booke of the Generation of Jesus Christ the son of David the son of Abraham Abraham begat Isaac c. For it is well knowne that Abraham was a long time before David Otherwise it seemes that Moses would particularly demonstrate that the Earth was made before the Heaven by the Creation of man that is the Image and pourtrait of the great World for that in the second of Genesis God formed man of the slime of the earth that is to say his body which it represents and afterwards breathed in his face the spirit or breath of life that carrieth him backe to heaven whereunto suits that which is written in the 1 to the Cor. 15. The first man from the earth is earthly and the second man from heaven is heavenly the first man Adam was made a living soule and the last Adam a quickning spirit Whereto the Generation of the Creature relates who six weeks after the Conception is nothing but a masse of informed flesh till the soule that is infused from above doth vivifie it Moreover the foure Elements whereof all is made consists of foure qualities Hot and Drie Cold and Moist two of them are bound up in each of them Earth that is to say Cold and Dry the Water Cold and Moist the Aire Moist and Hot the Fire Hot and Dry whence it comes to joine with the earth for the Elements are circular as Hermes would have it each being engirded with two others with whom it agreeth in one of their qualities which is thereunto appropriate as Earth betwixt Fire and Water participates with the Fire in drynesse and with Water in coldnesse and so of the rest Man then which is the Image of the great World and therefrom is called the Microcosme or little World as the World which is made after the resemblance of his Archetype is called the great man being composed of foure Elements shall have also its heaven and its earth The soule and understanding are its heaven the body and sensuality its earth So that to know the heaven and earth of man is to have true and entire knowledge of all the Universe and of the Nature of things From the knowledge of the sensible World we come to that of the Creator and the Intelligible world by the Creature the Creator is understood saith Saint Augustine Fire then gives motion to the body Aire feeling Water nourishment and Earth subsistence Moreover heaven designes the intelligible world the
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
yet more mystically shadowed as Zâ—har sheweth it by the admirable construction of his Tabernacle then which there is nothing more spirituall Gold Silver and pretious Stones representing the Sensible world and Bezaleel that was the Conductor of the worke the Intelligible and the Workman filled with a Divine Spirit with Sapience Intelligence Knowledge and all the most accomplisht learning as almost every word carries it woven with Bezel the shadow and El God The prophane Poets have divided the Sensible World into 3 for they never tooke much paines to penetrate into the Intelligible And assigned the superiour part thereof from the circle of the Moone upward to Jupiter the low Terrestriall to Pluto and the middlemost which is from the Earth to the Moone to Neptune which the Platonists call the Generative Vertue because of the humidity impregned with Salt which provoketh much to generation according as the word Salacitas designes it as Plutarch puts it in the 4 Question of Naturall Causes and in his Treaty of Osiris wherefore the said Poets attribute more fecundity to the said Neptune then to all the other Gods Each of these 3 worlds furthermore hath particularly its science which is double the one common and triviall the other mysticall and secret The Intelligible world to our Theologie and the Caballe the Celestial to Astrologie and Magie and the elementary to the Physiologie and Alchymie which revealeth by the resolutions and separations of Fire all the more hidden and darke secrets of natures in three kindes of the composed for no man can know the composition of a thing that is ignorant of its destruction saith Geber But these three divine sciences have beene by the depravation of ignorant and evill spirits turned aside to a crying downe that men durst scarcely speak thereof but must presently incurre the bruite of being an Atheist Witch or a false money-coyner We say then after Empedocles and Anaxagoras All this our reason disputes by a Journey of composition and resolution going this way and that way up and downe That all the Elementary science consisteth in the mixtion and separation of the Elements which is perfected by fire to which Alchymy turnes all As Avicen declareth very openly in his Treaty of l'Almahad or Division of Sciences And Hermes in that of his 7 chapters Understand yee sonnes of the wise the Science of the four Elements whose secret apparition is no where signified except they bee divided and compounded because out of the Elements nothing is made profitable without such a Regiment for where Nature ends her operations there Art begins Take such a composed Elementary what you will herbe wood or other the like upon which fire may exercise its action and put it in an Alembic or Cornue Cornue first let them separate the water and afterwards the oyle if the fire bee moderate if more pressed and reinforced both together but the oyle will swimme above the water which may easily bee separated by a fonnel of Glasse This water is called Mercury which of it selfe is pure and cleane and oyle the sulphur adustible and infect that corrupts every compounded thing In the bottome of the vessel will rest the Ashes of which by a forme of lee with water the Salt will bee extracted and after you have withdrawn the water with Balneum Mariae as men call it for the oily unctuosities do not mount by this degree of fire no more doth the Salt but much lesse and the indissoluble Earths stript of all their humidities proper to vitrifie for saith Geber every private thing by its owne humidity doth performe none but a vitrificatory fusion So there are two volatill Elements namely the liquid Water and Aire which is Oyle for all liquid substances naturally shunne the fire which elevates the one and burnes the other But not those two which are dry and solid which are Salt wherein is contained Fire and pure Earth which is Glasse over whom the fire hath no power but to melt and refine them See there the four Elements redoubled as Hermes cals them and Raymund Lullius the great Elements for as every Element consists of two qualities these great Elements redoubled Mercury Sulphur Salt and Glasse participate of the two simple Elements to say better of all four according to the more or the lesse of the one or of the other Mercury holding more of the Aire to which it is attributed Oyle or Sulphur of the Aire Salt of Fire and Glasse of the Earth who findes it selfe pure and cleane in the Center of all the composed Elementaries and is the last to reveale it selfe exempt from others Of this sort by the Artifice and operation of Fire and of its effects we depure all infections and filth even to reduce them to a purity of incorruptible substance from this time forward by the separation of their inflamable and terrestriall impurities for saith Geber the whole intention of the Operator is versed in this that the grosser parts being cast away the worke may bee perfected with the lighter which is to mount from the corruptions here below to a purity of the Celestial world where the Elements are more pure and essential fire there predominating which is the chief of all others Hitherto touching Alchymie and wherein shee is versed Magick for the Celestial world was in times past a holy and venerable Science which Plato in his Charmis cals the true Medicine of the soule and in the first Alcibiades puts it that it was wont to shew the Elders of the great Kings of Persia to teach them to reverence God to forme their temporall domination according to the patterne of the order and policy of the Universe But it is nothing else properly as Orpheus saith but a forme of marriage of the starry heaven with the earth whither hee darts his influences by which shee impregnes comming from the Intelligences who assist therein and an application of agent vertues upon the passive and that without the cooperation of Daemons the most part evill false and deceptive yet some more then others with which it is thought that the three wise Kings Magi that came so farre to adore Jesus Christ were willing to have some acquaintance and commerce The third is that which men call Caballe or reception because men left it there verbally and by mouth from hand to hand from one to another It is divided into two the one of Berâ—sith that is to say of the Creation that consisteth in the Sensible world where Moses staid without speaking of the Intelligible or of separated substances The other is of Mercavah or of the Throne of God which Ezekiel principally treats of whose vision is almost all of fire So much is this Element throughout the whole holy Scripture appropriated to Divinity as one of the most perfect and neare symboles and markes in things sensible by meanes whereof wee are so elevated that by Jacobs Ladder or Homers golden Chaine we come to the knowledge of things
in the hand threatning to quench it in the water if they did not grant his request but after hee had obtained it hee was not left unpunished for his offence but for the impiety that hee had forethought to commit And from thence it became a common proverbe mentioned in Suidas I am a Persian borne of Persian parents what a strange Persian yea Sir for us to pollute fire it is sharper then cruel death But all this which may bee said of fire and by the meanes thereof hath not yet been revealed nor knowne by men Is there any thing more admirable then Gunpowder so easy to make and consisting of so few ingredients and so common Sulphur Saltpeter and coale which seeme to have been mystically designed by the Aegyptians by the three Celestial powers whence they alledge Thunder Lightning Tempests to be conducted and governed Jupiter Vesta and Vulcan By Vulcan Sulphur by Jupiter Saltpeter full of aire and winde as Raymund Lullius puts it who well knew it and its nature and its effects if he would have discovered them and by Vesta Coale as well for the Terrestreity that is in it as for that it is incorruptible being able to keepe it many thousands of yeares within the ground without alteration or spoiling which was the cause that they made a place and stage for it in the foundation of the Temple of Diana at Ephesiu Saltpeter is appropriated to the Aire because it is as of a meane disposition of nature betwixt Sea water and the Fire or Sulphur whereof it participates for that it is so inflamable and saltish on the other side resolving it selfe into moisture and water as the Salts do from whence it hath bitternesse and acuity and as the inclosed and retained aire within the clouds doth breake and lighten by the impetuosity of Thunder the same doth Saltpeter But this will come to better purpose hereafter in Salts Moreover hee that can make powder composed of certaine proportions of Sulphur and Saltpeter and in stead of Coale with the Terrestrial scurf of Antimony which must be separated by frequent and reiterated ablutions of lukewarme water may come to an artificiall fire not to bee disdained of a powder that will give a small report 't is true that it is not so impetuous and full of force as the common In regard of the invention of Gunpowder the relations of China do cary that by their ancient Chronicles it is found out that they have had the use of it more then 1500 yeares as also of printing Roger Bacon 1500 years the famous English Philosopher who writ above 300 yeares agoe in his booke of the admirable power of Nature and Art sets downe that with a certaine composition imitating lightning and thunder Gideon was wont to feare his Enemies with And yet that it is not formally as it is written in the 7 of Judges yet it is said neverthelesse more then sixscore yeares before the divulgation of Gun-powder see his word furthermore there may bee made perpetuall lights and bathes burning without end for we have knowne many things that are not burned but purified but besides these there are other stupendious things of Nature and Art for sounds may be made in the aire like thunders and of greater horror then such as are made by nature And a little matter adapted to the quantity of a thumb makes a horrible sound and shewes a vehement coruscation and this may bee done many wayes by which every City and Army may bee destroyed after the manner of Gideons Artifice who with broken pitchers and lamps fire breaking out with ineffable fragor destroyed the Midianitish Army with only 300 men These may be Granadoes and fire pots And to be short nothing could better agree on all points to Gun-powder but these good men foreseeing the ruine that such things might bring made too great conscience to reveale it To the purpose of perpetuall fires by meanes of most long durance Hermolaus Barbarus in his notes upon Pliny relates that in his time there was an old Sepulchre opened in the Territory of Padoua and therein found a little Coffer where there was a Lampe yet burning although that according to the inscription it must have beene more then 500 yeares since it was lighted 500 So that by this reckoning it should not bee altogether impossible to make fires that will not be put out for wee see the same in many sorts of that which men call Grec whereof Aristotle as it is reported heretofore composed a Treatise which could not bee quenched with water chiefly Sea water by reason of the fatty and unctuous Salt mingled therewith but they grow worser and waxe more fiery But what hurt were there to stay thereon a little since likewise it is a question of Fire Of Acornes steeped in wine afterward dryed and put in a mill so long till the liquor come forth which afterwards accompanied with other oyles besmeared upon quicke chalâ— Pumice stone spectacle glasse and Alum calcined together with Soap and other the like things that hold their adustible impurities in the bottome of a vessel whilest that the oile by distillation mounts cleare neat and purified and lesse inflamable but this requireth a sufficient good fire for the matches corresponding thereto make them of cotten yearne besmeared within the Lee then bath them in the oile or liquor of Tartar Saltpetring them over Alum plumed intermingled with pitch rozin finely bruised and beaten or of Colophon These fires of so long duration would seeme to us a thing fabulous if wee were not ascertained by authentique Authors of that so famous a Lampe hung in a certaine Temple of Venus where there burned without ceasing the Stone called Asbestus which being once set on fire never goes out But some will say that that is also a fable I will leave others to decide it and I will tell you what befell mee seeking nothing lesse then that to meet with a substance conducted thereunto by graduall artifices of fire which being bound fast within a Viall of glasse and sealed with Hermes his Seale that no aire could any way enter in might be kept 1000 yeares after the manner of speech in the bottome of the Sea and opening it at the termination of so long a season or when you shall please you shall therein finde a suddaine fire which when it sents the aire will light matches We reade in the second booke of the Maccabees chap. 1. vers 20. that at the transmigration of Babylon the Levites having hid their sacred fire in the bottome of a well or pit 70 yeares after they found there a thicke water and whitish who assoone as ever the Sunbeames gave thereon tooke fire These two Deities aforesaid Pallas and Vesta one and the other chaste Virgins as is also Fire represent unto us the two fires of the Sensible world that is to say Pallas the Celestiall and Vesta the Elementary here below the which notwithstanding it bee more
meanes their Globe from this time forward would remaine darke as a Lampe whereby light which before gave it light should bee quenched for lacke of nourishment or other accident This light or luminous fire is in the Starres as the bloud is in animals or juice in vegetables whereto Homer seemes willing to grant in the 5. of his Iliads where he puts that for as much as the Gods do not live by bread and wine as mortalls but by Ambrosia and Nectar so they have no bloud but in lieu thereof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a substance which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is as it were a subtill saltish waterishnesse hindering corruption in animals and all other composed Elements but wee must here a little better cleare this for the great affinity that the Sunne and Fire have together Wee must then understand that the Sunne arising by its attraction elevates the spirits of the earth which are of two natures a moist vapour including and a dry vapour included are together exalted saith the Philosopher in the 5. of his Meteors the one hot and moist as is the Aire and Water potentially this which is properly called Vapour the other hot and dry of the nature and power of fire called Exhalation The first resolves into water as raines snowes hailes mists fogges and other such moist impressions as are formed of this vapour in the middle Region of the Aire for being grosse and heavy they cannot mount higher but afterwards being thickned and congealed by the cold that resides there they fall backe here below more materiall then those which were not mounted from thence and at last all do resolve into water The second called Exhalation is subdivided into three kindes the first more viscous grosse and heavy is that whereof your fires are formed which are called Castor and Pollux otherwise Saint Herme the foole fires and the like which cannot mount higher then the low Region of the Aire the second is a little lighter more subtill and depured penetrating even to the middle Region where thunders and lightnings are formed the wandring starres barres of fire cheurons and other such inflamations P. 75. The third is yet more dry and light and more free from unctâ—osity almost of the nature of that Quintessence which we observe in Aqua vitae soveraignly depured therefore it may mount not onely to the highest Region of the Aire and that of Fire contiguous but escape yet whole and safe higher then the Heaven with which for its greatest subtilty and depuration which it hath gotten in this long way it hath a great conformity For being come to the Globe of the Sun it is there perfected to concoct and to digest into a pure and cleare light for the nourishment as well of it selfe as of other starres the same that Pliny toucheth in the 8 and 9 chapters of his second booke So that the Starres receive all their light and nourishment from the Sunne after that it hath been there concocted and fitted and not by the forme of reflexion as from its raies which would lessen themselves either in water or in a looking Glassse for all that which participates of fire hath need of nourishment This is done as in the Animall where the most pure bloud comes from the Liver to empty it selfe through the Arteries into the heart which conducts it to its last perfection for the nourishment of Spirits But this must be understood if these Exhalations and vapours finde issue atwhart the pores and spongiosities of the Earth Tuffe p. 76. a kind of white Sand or soft and brittle Stone to evaporate upwards But if peradventure it meet with Tuffe or Sand or the like lets and hindrances which do contradict them or let them they stay there and wax thicke for procreation of minerals that is to say a hot and a dry exhalation in the nature of Brimstone and a moist vapour in the nature of Quicksilver not vulgar but a substance yet spirituall and full of fume from the assembling of which two in a subtill vapour they come to procreate in themselves afterwards by a long continuance of time metals and meane minerals according to the purity or impurity of their coagulated substances and the temperature defect or excesse of the heat that recocts them in the entrails of the earth Without going from my intention of the foresaid exhalations I thought fit to touch a little upon an experiment whereunto I arrived by my industry which I thinke will not be disagreeable Take good old Wine and put therein a certaine quantity of Salnitre and Camphire in a Platter upon a fire pan within a Closet well firmed that aire cannot enter and make it evaporate therein and that there be no more covering then the thicknesse of the backe of a knife to give it so much aire as it must have to make it burne This being done shut well your little window that nothing may vapour out after you have withdrawne the dish or platter from thence to 10. 20. or 30. yeares provided that the aire do not enter and that the winde blow not in bringing in thither a lighted waxe candle you shall see infinite little fires capring as lightnings in the great heate of Summer which are not accompanied with thunders and lightnings nor with stormes windes and raines having nothing but an inflamation of Aire by reason of Saltpeter and Sulphur which are elevated from the Earth Before wee passe from our intention of vapours and exhalations that no man doubts but do proceed from heat introduced within the earth by the continuall motion of the heaven round about and of the Celestial bodies whence light is accompanied with some heat that it darts thereinto Let us come to the experiments next approaching to our sensible knowledge wee see that the fire leaves two sorts of excrements the one grossers namely Ashes remaining in the bottome of its adustion that containeth Salt and Glasse and the two fixed and solid Elements Fire and Earth The other more light and subtill which the fume carries upwards that is the Soote wherein are contained the two volatill and liquid Elements called by the Chymists Mercury and Sulphur and by the Naturalists Vapour and Exhalation By Mercury is designed Water or Vapour and by Sulphur Oile and Exhalation Of Salt and of Earths therein there are found a very small quantity yet sufficient thereby to perceive how the four Elements are found out in the resolution of all the composed Elementaries Take then the Soote of Chimney but of that which shall mount highest in a very long Chimney pipe and in the very top where it must bee most subtill thereof fill a great Cornue or an Alembic two parts of three then apply thereunto a great recipient which you wrap about with linnen wet with fresh water Give fire by small quantities the water and the oil will distill together although the water ought in order to issue out first After that
all these two liquors shall passe through the Recipient and when nothing else shall arise increase your fire with faggot stickes well dryed or other like continuing it for 8 or 10 houres so long that the earths which shall rest in the bottome bee well calcined but for that they are in small quantity put to more Soote and continue it as aforesaid untill you have earth enough which you shall take out of the Alembic which you shall put into a little earthen pot of Parris not smoothed or in a little hollow pot The water and oile which you shall have distilled may be easily separated by a glasse fonnell where the water will swimme above the oile This done you shall rectify your water by Balneum Mariae by redistilling of it two or three times for oile doth not mount by this degree of fire but by Sand keepe them asunder upon the earths that shall be calcined within the said pot or cruset put their water thereon a little warme stirring it with a spit so long till the Salt which shall therein bee revealed by the fires action do totally dissolve it selfe into this Water withdraw it by distillation and the Salt shall bee left you in the bottome of the nature of Salarmoniac so that by pressing it it will elevate it selfe But of this more plainely hereafter in its owne place when we shall speake of Salt Of Earthes wee need not take much care for wee must seeke for the best in the Ashes as also fixed Salt So by the meanes of Water extracted out of ashes we will here a little passe from Soote a little better to declare the subject of Earthes In this Element the more grosse and materiall of all which wee call Earth we must consider three substances the Hebrewes also have better distinguished them then we by giving them 3 names Erehs Adamah and Jabassah Erehs is properly durt or mud Jabassah sand and Adamah clay wash of the common earth with water and powre it suddainly into another vessell with the slime that it hath gathered reiterate it so long that there remaine no more in the bottome but Sand in the Scripture called Arida And his hands laid the foundation of the earth Psal 94. where he properly useth the word of laying a foundation because that Sand is the subsistence and retention of the earth where it is mingled with slime by a certaine providence of nature to strengthen it against the moisture of water as wee see in Morter where wee adjoine sand with chalke for feare lest it melt and dissolve into moisture It serves also to give it counterpoise for that Sand is very heavy A stone is heavy and sand burdensome or weighty Prov. 27. But the slime is lighter wherein minerals vegetables animals are procreated as wee see by experience by putting pure slime to the Erthree for in lesse then three weekes you will finde therein small stones herbs wormes and snailes and other little beasts producted therefrom Of the nourishment remaining that these individuals shall bee as that of Sand deprived of all humidity accordng to what wee see in Earths which having beene too much cultivated and sowed without bettering of them are reduced from being fertill as formerly they were and become sandy and sterill for Sand produceth nothing as wee see in Deserts and Sea coasts whence comes this proverbe You plough the Sands for a vaine and unprofitable labour for of the two qualities whereof each Element participates there is one that is more proper to it and the other appropriated Drynesse is the proper quality of the Earth for that cold is more proper to Water wherefore is it that the Earth as aforesaid is called in Hebrew Jabassah and in Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dry land and God called the earth dry land Slime is more waterish for of the grosseness of the water earth was made saith Hermes as wee may see in snow in hail in raine or with water so condensed there is much slime mingled of which as aforesaid every thing here in the earth below is produced Man himselfe according to his body was formed of this slime and from thence it followeth that all the fertility of the earth comes from Water God created all the buddes of the earth before they grew and all the herbes of the field before they brought forth seed for the Lord God had not yet made it to raine upon the earth but a mist went up therefrom that watered the whole face thereof Or as the Chaldaick Paraphrast turneth it Onkelos in stead of source and fountaine vapour and clouds which are engendred from the vapours that the Sunne elevates here below to the height in the middle Region of the Aire from thence to water the earth But neither the slime nor the sand nor the clay on the other side are not each by it selfe nor reduced together are this virgin and pure earth that is shut up in the Center of all the composed Elements that is to say in the bottome of them for that produceth nothing because it is incorruptible and that which cannot corrupt cannot produce any thing that should be subject to corruption as we see in Fire Salt and Sand which are of the nature of Glasse all substances not onely incorruptible for their respect but which preserves from corruption that wherewith they are mingled witnesse herbs fruits flesh fish and other the like which being salted or buried in Sand are thereby kept the longer And in Mummies of those that remaine choked and buried in the Sands passing the Deserts which are preserved whole many suits of yeares even as well nay better then if they had been enbalmed So that this earth is formed of two incorruptible substances Salt and Sand by meanes of the water whch is thereupon congealed as wee see in this faire Crystalline Glasse made of Salt of glasse wort amongst which they mingle sand to retaine it otherwise in the great sharpnesse of fire that it must indure to worke therewith it would all vanish into smoake wee depure and refine it afterwards in cleare Crystalline joining thereunto perigort or sinople made of Lead Their are some that carry their Sand with them as Foulgere Charme or Foutean firebrakes charme or beech and some others But this comes better to our discourse of Gold and Glasse and some others upon the 28. of Iob where speaking of Sapience hee saith that nothing can compare with it nor Gold it self nor Glasse This Earth then so excellent and incorruptible is not this vile and grosse Element that we trample on and cultivate to draw there hence our nutritune and sustentation but that whereof it is spoken in the 21. of the Revel clâ—ar and transparent I saw a new Heavnn and a new Earth and the holy City was of pure Gold like unto pure Glasse and the streets thereof were of shining and resplendent Gold See how hee doth liken more then once Gold and Glasse which is produced by the
the Separator Salt-peter Vitriol or Allum Ice and this dissolves Silver Copper Quicksilver and Iron in part La Regalle which is no other thing then the prec ding rectified upon Salarmoniac or common Salt dissolved partly with Iron Lead Tinne and intameable Gold with all sorts of fire It is true that strong waters doe not destroy metals that they returne not to their first forme and nature but drawes them to water and a melting liquor This was certainly a good Artificiall industry in mans spirit to excogitate so short a way to separate Gold and Silver melted together and so uniformedly mixed that an ounce of Gold melted with an hundred markes of Silver each part thereof will equally attract his portion as wee may see by the refiners practise which to prove that which it holds of Gold of Silver a confused masse of divers metals will take but 30. grains to make their essay in the Coupelle and from thence will judge that the same proportion that you shall finde in this small volume shall bee also in the whole masse all that which may bee therein of impure imperfect metall goes away partly in smoake and is partly consumed by fire and partly sticks like Birdlime within the Coupelle nothing remaining above it but what is fine namely Silver and Gold which is there inclosed with which they separate strong waters called on the occasion the divider which dissolves Silver into water and Gold falls to the bottome as sand the water afterwards evaporated the Silver retires it selfe But here it would be too much to speake of the effects of strong waters one of the principall and short instruments of Alchymie and the Art of fire and Salt infinite fine allegories which thereby may be appropriated upon Holy Writ Yet these two fires may be compared namely the strange fire to Leaven to the Sea water which is salt and to Vinegar a corrupted Wine and other sorts of Leavens Fires against nature And the Celestiall to the Altar to pure and unleavened Past to sweet water fit to drinke to Aqua vitae without Vinegar representing the state of innocence in our first fathers before their transgression and the simplicitie of their knowledge infused into them by the Creator But when they were once tempted afterwards with ambition to know more then they should they would by humane discourse become more subtill and sage in tasting the fruit of knowledge of good and evill their Past without Leaven began to swell to bee proud with the Leaven themselves introduced which perverted and spoyled it appropriating it to corporall and sensible things for the bread which wee eate is leavened but that which wee use in the Church must not be so and not without cause for unleavened bread will bee kept six moneths without molding or corrupting that leavened bread will not keep so many weekes It is therefore that the Apostle said a little Leaven corrupts the whole Masse Because that one propriety of the Leaven is to convert into their corruption all that is adjoyning of their nature as Vinegar doth Wine and Leaven pure Past also Rennet which is in the number of Leavens And when they have no Leaven they make some corrupting the Past with Vinegar Lees of Beere Egges and like substances who by their corruption acquire to themselves the propertie of strange fire which is able to convert into its nature that where it can bite as wee may see in a Feaver against naturall heate so that hee turnes it selfe into all things and all into it selfe according to Heraclitus who set it downe for the Principall yet after Zoroastres who thought all things were begotten of Fire after it was extinguished for being living it begets nothing no more doth Salt nor the Sea which Homer calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unfruitfull which doth nothing but consume and destroy An immense and wicked portion of things saith Pliny and wherein it is doubtfull whether it consume or bring forth more things Leaven then is a strange fire and is indeed caustique or burning for applyed to naked flesh it engenders therein little cloches which shewes its fierynesse also it doth not so without Salt called for this reason in Latine fermentum Leaven which increaseth by being warme and in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Leaven from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to boile The Chymicks call it the interior fire fire within the vessell for wee see by experience that bread if the Past be not leavened what boyling soever you give it shall never be but of a hard and uneasy digestion greatly oppressing the stomach if the Leaven which they joyne thereunto make it boyle within whence then it comes that Moses so knowing a man and so illustrated with the Divine Spirit so rejecteth a thing so profitable and necessary and banisheth so expresly the Leaven of the Sacrifices which is so great an aide and succour in our principall aliment Bread You shall burne no Leaven nor Honey in the Lords Sacrifice Levit. 2.11 And Exod. 12.15 hee condemneth to death those who in the dayes of unleavened bread should eate leavened bread or should have ever so little in his house Is it not because Idolaters use Leaven but hee doth not forbid it in all and throughout all for in the 23. of Levit. 17. he commands them to offer two leaven loaves Moreover Idolaters imploy also in their Sacrifices Salt and Incense and many other things that are not forbidden It must then bee that some mystery lies hidden hereunder Origen in his 5. Homil. upon Levit. interpreteth Leaven for arrogance that wee conceive of a vaine worldly doctrine which blowes us up as leaven doth Past and makes us proud thinking that wee know more then wee doe So that wee quit the expresse and direct Word of God to retaine our selves within our phantastique traditions as our Saviour reproacheth it to the Pharisees Mark 7. Truely Esay prophecied very well of you Hypocrites when hee saith This people honoreth me with their lips but their heart is farre from me howbeit in vaine doe they worship me teaching for Doctrines the Commandements of men Mark 7.6 7. And therefore admonisheth us to beware of this Leaven And upon Numbers it is not to beleeve said the said Origen that God would punish with death those who during the solennitie of unleavened bread had eaten leavened bread or that had leaven found in their houses but by leaven is understood malignitie envie rancor concupiscence and the like vices that inflame our soules and make them boile with wicked and pernicious desires corrupting altering and perverting all that which might bee good following what the Apostle said a little Leaven corrupts the whole masse Therefore we may not undervalue any little sinne for after the manner of Leaven it will very soone produce others undervalue not saith St. Augustine the machinations and ambushes of a few men for as a sparkle of fire is a small thing and which can hardly bee discerned if
raze Traiters-houses and sow them with salt as reputed unworthy to produce any more Salt indeed produceth nothing as it is where its sweet substance is so drowned with the salt that it cannot expresse it selfe in action so as it is except it be freed out of prison for the saltnesse predominates over it and covers it But for replication thereunto which was said before that fresh water alone doth neither nourish nor produce any thing which we see to the contrary by experience in many waterish herbs that grow in the midst of waters and in flints that it engenders shells and fishes and wormes to be short that its procreation doth extend to the three composed kinds of Minerals Vegetables Animals And indeed put little pebbles in a phial and water thereon every day renewing it daily at the end of certaine time you will find them so great and so bigge that they cannot come out at the neck by which they were put in But indeed all this proceeds from the slime which is mingled with the water as frogs and other things which are procreated in the middle Region of the aire of the slime which the Sun beams hath thence raised with the water for al rains snowes and other such impressions participate much of the slime from thence it comes that the snow doth smoak and fatten the earth and the water of raine is more connaturall to trees herbes and seeds chiefly those which fall by stormes and thunders then those of wels and rivers whereof Plutarch forceth himselfe to bring forth many reasons in naturall causes which have no great apparence There is yet more to say for that they are better baked and accompanied with more subtle and hot slime and are of lighter concoction and nourishment then plants as of meate in the stomach of Animals some more then others where the waters here below are more raw and indigested we insist a little in water because salt is nothing else but water mingled and setled with dry and burned earth of the nature of fire which makes it bitter and salt So that before we passe from this subject of fresh water we will here touch upon an experiment of more rare things from whence come many fair scret considerations Sweet water is a body so homogeneal that it would seem to the sight so cleare transparent and liquid in all its parts resembling to it selfe that there is in it but one only substance since that by d stillations shee passeth all But yet there is another found substance solid and compact in the forme of earth mingled with its liquid homogeneity which it separates by Artifice and it is that which Aristotle saith in the swarme of Philosophers The earth is concreat by the grossenesse of the water And this may be seene with water agitated and beaten and after redistilled many times alwayes separating the fift or sixth part which shall passe the first You must then take a good quantity of wel water or the same of fountaine river or rain water and let it settle twenty or thirty houres untill there be some ordure or slime it separates it selfe Take of this water as you may say forty pintes and cause the halfe to vapour away by very easie fire that it boile not put these twenty pintes apart and take new water as above of which you shall evaporate the moity and so long continue it that you may have well a hundred pintes halfe evaporated from this one hundred make to evaporate thirty pintes and of sixty ten twenty of fifty that shall remain twenty of thirty ten and of twenty ten and cast away all these slimes that shall reside for they are nothing worth and are but immundicity and ordure unto the seaventh or eighth evaporation or distillation after which there will appeare in your water infinite little atomes and little bodies which at last by little and little will be congealed into one solid substance of a grisly colour soft as dough Of which I have seen such admirable effects that men would hardly beleeve it Abundance of fluxes of blood in Cankers Gangrenes Hemorrhagies bloody flux Women newly laid in bed and at nose diseases in the stomach and infinite other such accidents that no terra sigillata nor Bolarmoniac could compare with You may make your round pills impasting them with the last waters that were extracted which are also of great vertue to wash wounds inveterate Maladies of the stomach and other the like wherefore you must keepe them well You may also calcine it for six or seven houres in a small pot well luted and casting thereon vinegar distilled boiling dissolving one part nourishing the rest calcine it againe and dissolve it till you have all the salt which will be white and of sweet tast make it dissolve to oile you may draw from thence great effects even upon Gold But sea-sea-water is yet of more efficacy then that of wels and rivers sweet water I say which shall be separated from salt by distillation which would be easie to do near the Sea having to that end foure or five alembies of leaden earth and yet more of sweet water which is drawne by distillation of salt resolved in liquor to humidity But there is yet another manner of proceeding in the separation of the substances of common water and more spirituall then the precedent Take very clean water out of a well river or fountain let it settle twenty foure houres and take the pure and the cleare which you shall put in vessels of Beauvois earth well stopped to putrifie in hot dung fourty dayes renewing it two or three times every week filter the water and give only five or six boylings scumming off the scurfes that arise thereon with a feather then put it in Cornues of glasse not putting therein but the third part or the moity at most of that which they may containe and distill of two parts three then change the Recipient and accomplish to distill all the water but with an easie fire Then strengthen the fire by little and little till you see small fumes ascend continue this degree of fire with increasing untill it mount no more Let the fire quench of it selfe and recoole the vessell then gather the salt which shall be so elevated towards the beck of the Cornue and within the recipient and keep it in a vessel of earth very close and sealed in a warm and dry place that it melt not nor dissolve Put the Cornue to againe with that which remains in the bottome and strengthen the fire untill you see a reddish oile end your distillation after cease the fire Take the black feces that remain in the bottome stampe them and put them in a sublimatory of good earth of an inch thick and no more for sâ—x houres first a little fire then reinforce it for twelve others till the sublimatory be red the fire being alwaies in the same degree let it coole and gather the salt which
the matter administring wherewith to flame and shine to the other but they come upon the point to joine and unite together the one burning the other burned till they bee converted into that which predominates and playes the master namely the white alwayes the same without variation and change as the other doth which now growes blacke after becomes red yellow peach colour sky colour azure reinforced above and below above with a white flame below with the blacknesse of the matter which furnisheth it where withall to burne and at the last is therewith consumed For this azure red and yellow flame the more grosse and materiall it is endeavours alwayes to exterminate and destroy that which nourished and maintained it as sinnes do the conscience which harbours them to the end to make them the perdition and ruine of all that which adheres to it here below so long till at the last it remaines extinct there where the light annexed thereunto is not eternally extinguished but goes freely upward and returnes to its proper place of abode or residence having accomplished its action below without changing its brightnesse into any other colour then white In the like case is it of a tree whose roots are fastned within the earth from whence it takes it nourishment as the weik takes his from the tallow waxe or oyle which makes it burne The branch that drawes its juice or sap by the root is the same as the weik where the fire is maintained by the liquor which it drawes unto it and the white flame are the branches and boughes clad with leaves the flowers and fruits whereunto tends the finall end of a tree are the white flame when all comes to bee reduced wherefore Moses said that thy God is a consuming fire as it is true for the fire consumes and devoures all that which is under it and upon which it exerciseth its action And therefore very proper in the Hebrew text Elohenu thy God and not Anonenu thy Lord because the Prophet wâ—s in this superiour white light which neither devoureth nor can be devoured And the Israelites were the blew lights who endeavour to lift up themselves and unite to him under the law for the ordinary of this blew light inclining rather to blacknesse then to whitenesse it is true that is constituted as in the midst and to ruine and destroy all that it layes hold on and whereunto it adheres But if sinners submit thereunto then the white light shall bee called Admenu our Lord and not Elohenu our God for that it domineers and devours it And it is this blew flame designed by the little and last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He of the sacred venerable foure lettered Jehovah which assembles and unites with the three first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jehu the white light which shineth in a most cleare simplicity Trin-one having under it the blackish ruddy azure colour of the little 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He which is the humane nature consisting of the four Elements for that it is sometimes represented by 4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fourth letter of the Alphabet and which marketh the number of 4. You will say I have brought you here a prolixe place of Zohar I do avow it but it must have a more ample explication for there are great mysteries covered thereunder This Rabbi superlative to all others endeavouring in his profound and abstracted meditations which transcend all to elevate our spirits by the similitude of a light to the knowledge of spirituall things which differs not from our principall purpose which is fire and its effects Of this white light and of its collaterals other Rabbins speake as Kamban Gerundensis That by the Caballe it appears unto us that the Scripture was an obscure and darke fire upon the backe of white fire and marvailously resplendent It is the fire say they of the holy Spirit consuming our iniquities denoted by the red inflamed ardor and the blew and azure flame which is the strange fire as Saint Ambrose very well expounds it in his fourth Epistle to Simplician Strange fire is all the ardor of slippery concupiscence of avarice hatred rancour and envy And of this fire no man is purged nor expiated but well burned which if men offer in the presence of the Lord celestiall fire will devour as it did Nadab and Abibu and therefore he that will purge his sinne he must cast off from him this strange fire and let him expiate therefrom whereof it is said in the 6 of Esay 6. One of the Seraphims flew to me hauing a live coale in his hand which he had taken with the Tongs from off the Altar and touched my lips saying Lo this hath touched thy lips and thine iniquity is saken away and thy sinne purged Having said a little before that all the house was filled with smoake which is as an excrement and vapour of fire bee it before it be lighted or inflamed or after it be mortified and extinct from whence it comes to procreate soot then which there is nothing more troublesome and hurtfull to the eies having carryed away with it a parcell of a dustible corruption which administred to the fire its nourishment and food This may bee seen in the distillation of soote where there appeares a notable quantity of inflamable oyle which causeth it yet to burne and of this burning there will arise a smoake which will againe be concreted into a burning smoake as a foresaid but not so much These are the remnants of sinne whereof remained some staines printed in the soule untill at the last by a successive repurgation of fire it be reduced to a point of compleat purity whereof it is spoken in the 4. of the Canticles Thou art faire my welbeloved there is no blemish in thee which the white flame notifies which is the highest degree of burning Those also well know it that maintaine a fire for when a Fornace begins to bee hot it waxeth blacke then enforcing the fire it becomes red and at last it waxeth white when it is in the supreame and high degree of heat where it persisteth in whitenesse more and more Such are the actions of fire but there are great mysteries thereunder ever to declare further the advantage and praecellency that the white colour hath above the red as to the Christian faith designed by white water Apoc. 4 6. 15.2 In the middle of the Throne there was a Sea of Glasse like unto Crystall far above the Judaicall faith red heat with rigour and severity designed by a pillar of fire that in the night season conducted the Israelites through the Wildernesse and the white cloud by day Exod. 13.21 In the secret Hebrew Theology the red alwayes notes Gheburah Austerity and the white Ghedulah or Mercy Eliah was transported and by force carried into heaven in a fiery Chariot drawne with the like horses But in the transfiguration of our Saviour Mat. 17.2 His vestments became
white as snâ—w and Apoc. 3.6 The Elect are ever clothed in white and in the 6.11 speaking of the martyred Saints for the faith of their Redeemer there was given unto every one of them white robes Having set down a little before that the Angell which had gotten the victory and the Crowne was mounted on a white horse as in the 19 and 20. the Throne of God is dressed with white and hee that was mounted on the red horse had a great bloudy sword in his hand that one might massacre another But yet more expresly in the first of Isaiah Although your sins were as red as fine Scarlet they should be as white as Snow And further though they were as red as crimson they will become as white as wooll But some may say here are many things which by little and little do turne us from our principall aime and are as it were extravagant dresses But not altogether yet as to mount some sharpe precipice wee must turne about to goe at more ease to shunne cliffes and precipices So are wee sometimes to make some small by-courses and digressions to facilitate our Theame Rivers that goe turning are more commodious for Navigation then those that runne impetuously one way downe There shall bee nothing at last God willing unprofitable nor from the purpose Then all this red and white is but Fire and Water the pillar of fire by night and the white cloud by day into which as the Apostle saith the people of the Jewes were baptized and in this cloud the divine Wisdome established his Throne that of the Law of Moses this of grace Fire and Salt Zohar speaking of Moses his two first Tables broken for the Idolatry of the Golden Calfe with two pillars the one of fire representing naturall heate by which all things are vivified the other is water that is radical moisture which maintaineth life from which that is not much different in the 15. of the Apoc. where it is said that he saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire which radicall moisture was perverted and changed in the deluge by the universall inundation so that it was not since so vigorous as before but shall at last bee brought to extermination on all sides at the end of time by a finall conflagration The first mutation shall meet with some mercy the race of mankinde being at that time not wholly extinct but the remainder was saved with Noah and his in the Arke but the second shall have none but all shall perish by the extreame rigour of fire To the purpose of these two substances the Assyrians and other people of the East adored Fire as that which represented to them naturall heat and the Aegyptians with all those on the South of Nilus which is radicall moisture which goes to render it selfe into a Sea impregned with salt to preserve it in the end from corruption Now for this effect all humours of animall bodies bloud spittle urine and the rest are salted without which all would corrupt each other in an instant Behold the difference that there is in holy writ that apply the meditations of things sensible to Sacramentall mysteries and of ratiocinations of blinde Paganisme who not turning it but above the barke penetrate no further then that which the uncertain and doubtful sense may make them comprehend without passing further to the relation of divine things where at last al must refer to spiritualty resembling therein properly to the Ostrich who beates sufficiently with the wing as if shee would mount to heaven but yet her feet for all that do not forsake the earth The Phaenician Theologie admitted but of one Element Fire which is the principall and chief of all the productor and destroyer of all things which doth not much disagree from that in the 118. Psal is the fiery word by which times were formed Heraclitus also puts fire for the first substance that informed all and from whence they drew all things from power into action as well superiour as inferiour celestiall and terrestriall For hot and cold moist and dry are not substances but qualities and accidents from whence naturall Philosophers forged four Elements whereas according to verity there is but one which according to the vestments that it receives from the accidentall qualitie takes divers appellations If from the heat it is from the Aire from moisture Water from drynesse Earth which three are but one fire but reclothed with divers and different habits Even as Fire extending it selfe in all and through all so all things come to render unto it as to the center So that it may be rightly called an infinite and indetermined vigour of nature or rather the vivification thereof for without it nothing could be comprehended seen or obtained above or below that which illightens is celestiall that which concocts and digests Aereall and that which burnes is terrestriall which cannot subsist without some grosse matter coming from the Earth which he reduceth in the end to it selfe as we may see in things burned converted to ashes from whence after the extraction of Salt rests nothing but pure earth Salt being a potentiall fire and waterish that is to say terrestriall water impregned with fire from whence all sorts of mineralls come to production for they are of the nature of Water The experiment may bee seene in strong Waters all composed of minerall Salts Alums Saltpeters which burne as Fire which produceth hot and dry exhalations agitated with winds easie to take flame also of flints of Iron and of Wood and of scraped bones especially those of a Lion as saith Pliny whence we may gather that there is potentiall fire in all Not without cause then did Pythagoras after Moses ordaine not to speake of God or divine things without fire for of all things sensible there is nothing that symbolizeth or more corresponds with Divinity then Fire Aristotle writing to Alexander related unto him that hee had learned of the Brachmans that there was a fift Element or Essence which is fire wherein the Divinity resides because it is the noblest and purest of all the Elements and that which purgeth all things according to Zoroastes Plutarch alledgeth that this Divinity is a spirit of a certaine intellectuall fire that hath no forme but transformes to it selfe all that it toucheth and transmutes it selfe into all as Proteus the Genius of Aegypt was wont to say Omnia transformat sese in miraecula rerum And according to Zoroastes all things were engendred of this fire It is the light which dwelleth this saith Porphyrius in an Aethereal fire for the elementary dissipates all But more authentically Saint Denis in the 15. of the Celestiall Hierarchy Fire forasmuch as its essence is void of all forme as well in colour as in figure hath beene found the most proper to represent Divinity to our senses forasmuch as they can conceive and apprehend of the nature and divine Essence The very Scripture in many places call
to our sight and feeling But men may say the same that neither Aristotle nor other Grecians of his time knew so well the fire and its effects at least wise not so exactly as did so long while after the Arabians by Alchymie on which all the knowledge of fire dependeth The Aegyptians said that it was a ravishing and insatiable Animal that devoures that which taketh birth and increase and at last it selfe after it is therewith well fedde and gorged when there is no more to feed or nourish it for that having heat and motion he cannot passe from food and aire to breath therein if for want hereof it remaines at last extinct with that wherewith it was fed All things proper to animate substances and which have life for life is ever accompanied with heat and motion which prâ—c eds from heate rather then heate from motion although they be reciprocalls for one cannot be without the other But Suidas thereupon formed such a contradiction that not onely animals but all that which take nourishment and encrease tend to a certaine butt whither being come it stayes without passing any further where neither nourishment nor increase of fire are limited nor determined for the more is administred so much the more it would have and grow every day greater for neither the one nor the other can be limited as do these animals Then by consequent it must not be put in their ranke So that the motion of fire should rather be called generation then nourishment or growth for there is but that one element that nourisheth and increaseth it In the others that which superabounds therein is by apposition as if you would joine water to water or earth to earth you shall never do the same to fire to thinke to make it greater by joining thereunto other fire but by the apposition of matter upon which it may bite and exercise its action as wood and other like things which perforce must turne into its nature and so it augments it selfe The Poeticall fictions relate that Prometheus went into Heaven to steale it to accommodate mortals for which he was so grievously punished by the Gods as to remaine 30. yeares bound to a Rocke in Mount Cancasus where a Vulter dayly eate up his entrails which did grow againe in course Autor de roolle p 61. in course in order one after aâ—othâ—r But it is to bee beleeved that the Gods that are so watchfull and so affectionate towards mankinde would not deny this so necessary a portion of Nature without which the condition of their life were worse then that of beasts as well for the boyling of their meats as to warme them and dry them and infinite other necessary commodities Besides of that which soares alwayes upwards being of one celestial original whither he aspires to returne it seemes that this belongs properly to man Sith other thingt lookes downe unto the earth It gave man a face to looke up and see the heavens To erect his countenance unto the Stars Almost all other animals do shun the fire whence Lactantius to shew that man was a divine Animal alledgeth for one of his most pregnant reasons that hee onely amongst others used fire And Vitruvius in his second booke sets downe that the first acquaintances of men were contracted by comming to meete to warme themselves at common fires So that the cause why God sent fire downe to men must bee that by the meanes thereof they are come to penetrate into the profound and hidden secrets of Nature whereof they could not well discover know the manner of proceeding for that shee workes so rarely but by his counterfoote 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the resolution and separation of the Elementary parts which are made by fire whereof proceeds the execution almost of all Artifices that the spirit of man hath invented So that if the first had no other instrument and toole then the fire as we may lately see by the discoveries of the West Indies Homer in the Song of Vulcan sets downe that hee assisted with Minerva taught men their Arts and brave Workmanship having formerly beene accustomed to dwel in Caves and hollow Rockes after the fashion of wilde beasts willing to inferre by Minerva the Goddesse of Arts and Sciences the understanding and industry and by the fire Vulcan that puts them in execution wherefore the Aegyptians were accustomed to marry these two Deities together willing thereby to declare nothing else but that from the understanding proceeds the invention of all Arts and Sciences which fire afterwards effected and brought from power to action for the Agent in all this world is nothing else but fire and heat saith Johannicius and Homer Whom Vulcan and Minerva knew Which was the cause as may bee seen in Philostratus by the birth of Minerva that shee forsooke the Rhodians for that they sacrificed unto her without fire to goe to the Athenians Moreover Vulcan according to Diadorus was a man who from an accident by a clap of Lightning whereby a Tree was set on fire first revealed to the Aegyptians the commodâ—ty and use of Fire for being therewithall overcome all joyfull of his light and heate he thereunto added other matter to keepe it whilest hee went to seeke the people who afterward for this deified him Whereto Lucretius agrees Do not in these tbings tacitely and by chance require Lightning brought fire on earth to mortalls First thence all heate of flame was given The Greekes attribute it to Phoroneus and put it that it was neare to Argos That fire being fallen from heaven there-about it was afterward there kept within the Temple of Apollo which if by chance it came to extinguish they lighted it againe anew by the Sunnebeames as also they did at Rome that of the Vestals And in Persia their sacred fire which they carried ordinarily where the King marcht in person singularly reverencing it for their respect to the Sunne which they adored above all other Deities for they esteemed it here below their Image They caryed it I say in great pompe and solemnity on a magnificent Chariot drawne by four great Coursers and followed by 365 young Ministers for as much as there are so many dayes in the yeare which describe the Sunne by its course clad with yellow guilded the colour conformable to the Sunne and fire singing hymnes to their praise And there was amongst them no crime more capitall and irremissible then to cast any dead carkasse or other uncleannesse therein or to blow it with your breath for feare to infect it but they did it to give it aire for in all this they hazzarded no lesse then life as to quench it otherwise in water So that if any one had perpetrated any grievous forfeit to obtaine grace and pardon therein the best expedient then was as Plutarch puts in his first Treatise of the first cold to put himselfe in running water with fire
remain a yellow Tincture of a good sent likewise which hath great proprieties and vertues The black oil is a soveraign balm against all hurts and of the remaining earths a Salt of great efficacy Thus you have of Benzoin five or six substances a white Gomme with its yellow Tincture the two oils and Salt Aqua vitae which is its principall manifestation and without which nothing would bee done therein there is also Storax Calamint Ladanum Myrrh and the like Gums out of which oil is extracted by the means of the carriage of Aqua vitae and therein you must proceed as in Benzoin But therâ— are not so many things to mingle together Out of Myrrh there is likewise extracted a liquor very proper to take away all spots and marks remaining of scabs or pox and other like accidents Take hard Egs and cleave them in the middle take away the yellow then fill the hollows with grains of Myrrh and cover them again with the other half Leave them three or four dayes in the clear and in the air where the Sun comes not and they will resolve themselves into a liquor like unto hony or thick dew frankincense likewise doth the same Out of Sulphure also there may bee drawn an adustible oil by opening it with Aqua vitae and also by other wayes For Sulphur hath in it two substances the one inflammative the other not but aluminous and vitriolique whence proceeds this liquor which is called oil of Sulphur which hath yet greater properties and vertues then the oil of vitriol which is more caustick and burning as well against evill inward affections as in Cankers and ulcers of the mouth tooth ach cankers and other the like where it works more moderately Take then first a match of Cotten yarn of the bignesse of your little finger and two els long which you shall besmear with molten wax and with Turpentine as to make waxe Lights Take on the other side a pot of Paris earth leaded wherein you shall put a bed of sulphur enough grossely beaten and thereupon lay a round of your foresaid matches untill the pot be full on the top whereof you shall leave a little end of your Maâ—ch to light it fine musket match is very good also Put your pot under a chimney and hang thereupon an Alembic Cap whose mouth should relate â—o that of the pot But you must first besmear and crust over the clay to the thicknesse of a thumb you must not join it just to the pot but that there may be an inch opening betwixt them Light the Match and make the Sulphur burn which will cast from it a small white fume which will adhere within the Cap and from thence it will resolve into a liquor of peach color that will fall into the Recipient when you have to such an end applyed it to the beak of the Cap But this will do better in soft weather with south winds and d'aval and not in dry weather Wee have long insisted on these oils as well for that they are produced for the most part out of the action of fire of which there is here a question as for that nothing is nearer of kin to fire then fatty oils unctuosities pitch rozin and black Turpentines Gums and other like Inflammative substances that are the true food and nourishment thereof And for that we are so far enbarked therein there will be no hurt here in one train to prosecute something of the Artifices which are commonly called Grecian fires whereof there are many sorts that cannot bee quenched with water The foundation of them are Sulphur and Bitumen black pitch and rosin Turpentine Colophone Sarcocoll oils of Lin petroll and Laurell Salt-Peter Camphere Tallow Grease and other unctuosities facil to conceive flame Of these Greek fires Plutarch speâ—keth in his Treatise of not lending upon usury more lately by Zonaras in his 3. Tome in the life of Constantine the Pâ—gonate where it is said that in the year of our Lord 678. the Saracens being come to besige Constantinople an Ingenier by name Calliniâ—us brought an Artifice of certain fire by means whereof the Saracens Fleet was dâ—feated But Gunpowder and the artifices that may bee made thereby hath slubbered them all whence consisteth the most part of our artificiall fires pots and fire pikes circles granadoes saucigâ—s petards fuses and infinite other the like which we pretend not here to specifie in particular Take then a pound of Salt-Peter 8. ounces of Sulphur 6. ounces of Gunpowder incorporate them together for Granadoes and fire-pots which make great noise in the breaking But to tye fire to wood and other inflammative matters mingle a pound of pitch rosin a quartern of black pitch 3. ounces of Colophon and 5. of Sulphur bruise the Gums and cast into the melted Sulphurs when it is cold beat them again and moisten them with oil of Bayes or linnen There is another composition much more violent but more dangerous Melt a pound of Sulphur within a leaded earthen pot and put therein by little and little but discreetly a quartern of powder grosse grained with as much salt Peter stirring them often with a rod of Iron Take them off the fire and let them dry This mingled with the aforesaid Artifices wil work wondrous effects Some mingle also a little beaten glasse which coming to be warmed rewarms consequently the matter when it comes to flame whose heat makes it stronger and of longer durance Camphere serves to make it burn in the water as likewise all other greases do and above all oil of brimstone drawn by a bath then which there is nothing more subtible or inflameable But it would bee too tedious to penetrate into the ruins of mankind of which there would bee no end if a man should â—unne through them all Therefore let us return to our left purpose of two fires That above designed by Pallas and Minerva and that below by Vesta Which although they be so far distant yet fail not to have such an affinity together that they easily transmute one into the other for the Sun beams are illightned by fire by reason of a violl filled with water as Plutarch relate in the life of Numa Where from a burning looking glasse of which I remember that I saw one so puissant in the States of Orleans that in lesse then nothing and yet in the moneth of Ianuary â—t set a fire the staffe of a torch and the fire contrariwise by many conveyances and contrivings from the top to the bottom and through the sides in many circular revolutions as in those of a Labyrinth and in furnaces which they call a Tower its heat comes to be so moderated that it passeth into a naturall heat vivifying and nourishing in stead of burning baking or consuming And with such a fire I can say that there were hatched at Rome at one time more then 100. or 120. Chickens the Egs being therein couved and setled as under a Hen.
of the resurrection whereunto it seems this would seem to strike wherein bodyes shall be glorified and reduced as into a spirituall Nature against which no spirituall obstacle can contradict nor hinder its actions from this the Apostle in the 15. of the 1. to the Corinthians doth not much vary It is sown a naturall body it is raised a spirituall body There is a naturall body and there is a spirituall body howbeit that was not first which is spirituall but that which is naturall and afterwards that which is spirituall I know moreover an Artifice whereunto I have obtained in divers subjects that burning an herb the salt extracted from these ashes and sowed in the earth a like herb will grow therefrom But this burning must be made in a very close vessel wherein we shall say more hereafter about Salt and yet we will yet bring further another of our experiments which ought not bee disregarded Of three liquors swimming one above another without either mingling or confounding together what mingling soever they be that they may not return into their residence and separated to represent the four Elements in a little vessel of glass or a little black enammill grossily beaten will hold place of earth in the bottom water will do thus Take calcined Tartar or gravelled ashes which is almost the very same thing and let them go to the moist air taking the dissolution that shall be made thereof the clearest that you can and mingle therewith a little blew stone to give it the colour of Sea water Note here a maxim and let this be said by the by for those that exercise themselves in the Spagirique that in one of these resolutions into moisture which are made by themselves all salts and alums do depure and subtiliate more then 12 or 15 dissolutions made with vineger and other like dissolvants Every thing that dissolveth it selfe is of the nature of Salt and Alum as Geber saith For air take fine aqua vitae which you shall turn into a Celestiall blew with a little turnsol and for fire the oil of Been but for that it is more rare take of Turpentine oil which is made thus Distill common Turpentine in Balneo Marie there will mount up together both water and oil so white and transparent the one as the other but the oil will swim above the water separate them by a glasse fonnell and dye this oil into a fire colour with Orchanet and with Saffern The three liquors will never mingle what ever trouble you use to them but will separate themselves distinctly into lesse then nothing by swimming one above another Of the Turpentine that remains in the Alembique you shall extract it by Sand in a Cornue with a stronger fire then by the bath a thick red oil which is most excellent balm water and oil extracted by the bath are very serviceable also in many accidents of Medicine and Chirurgery only the white oil will make scars quickly fall away without pain or evill impression But if with the water of the said Turpentine you dissolve salt of lead you shall have yet a more Soveraign balm But we must a little better clear this for sith we treat here of fire and of its effects what hinders but that we may extend our selves at length upon many things which our long labour and experience have acquired This oil of lead was one of Raymond Lullius his great secrets of many other excellent personages who have as it were made conscience to remember it for this hath been to them an entry of more admirable works Some as Riply others have taken the minium of lead but it is too easie of an uneasie resolution as also ceruse calcined lead For my part I have found litharge which is nothing else but lead for a pound of litharge you shall extract 14. or 15. ounces of lead put them into powder and poure thereon distilled boiling vinegar stirring it strongly with a staffe and sodainly the vinegar will charge it self with the dissolution of litharge Evacuate the clear and reiterate with new vinegar so long till all the litharge be dissolved Evaporate the vinegar which shall be unsavory as the water untill the salt shall remain congealed in the bottom Take thereof a good quantity and put thereof within your Cornue as much as it will hold half full and put it on the furnace with an open breech in the beginning with an easie fire chasing away that which therein may appear a remainder of strange humidity And when the white fumes shall begin to appear apply thereunto a Recipient big enough and lute it well in the Jointures after reinforcing your fire by little and little untill it become a very great one and the Cornue buried in the ashes you shal see issue as a little continued torrent after the fashion of a filet of oil but white as milk and could as ice which will come within the Recipient to resolve into an oil of the colour of an Hyacinth and odoriferous as that of Aspio Continue the fire till there comes no more out of the Cornue and leave it there to settle al the night long So now this secret oil whereof that which Raimond Lullius never more expresly said was towards the end of his short Epistle in these very terms Out of black lead is extracted the Philosophers oil of a golden color or as it were and know that there is nothing in the world more secret then it That which remains in the Cornue put burning charcoals upon it and that will take fire as the match of a fusee whence you may draw a fair secret for as long as it feels not the air it will not flame and it may dissolve againe with vinegar to doe as before But salt of lead dissolved in water and yet better then Turpentine oil will resolve to a greater quantity of oil and thereof may see more ample marvailes Take this oil which Raimond Lullius calleth his wine and put it into a small Alembic of glasse in Balneo Mariae and distill tkerein aqua vitae which will come in vains even as that of wine Draw all out so long till the drops and tears come to appear in the Chap which is a signe that there is no more flegm which being out in the bottome there will remain a pretious oil that dissolves gold and is admirable against wounds and great accidents from within for it holds the same place with potable gold Lead having great affinity with gold as Geber saith with which it agrees in Surdity in weight and in that it cannot rust And George Riplay the most learned English Philosopher in his book of the 12. portes There is extracted oil of golden colour Or like it out of our subtill red lead When Raimond said when he was old Was much more pretious then gold For when through age he was near death He thereof made his potable Gold Which revived him as may bee
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
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
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
correspondent Star that assists it and from which it receives its maintenance and conservation But how can that agree will some say to the contrary because it seems to derogate and contradict that which in expresse terms is set down in the 1. of Gen. where it is written that in the third day the Earth of her self brought forth herbs and trees containing in them their seeds according to their kinds neverthelesse the Sun nor the Moon nor the Stars were created till the day after the fourth by which is designed its effect and function Let there bee lights made in the firmament of the heaven namely the Sun the Moon and the Stars to separate the night from the day and let them bee for signes and seasons for dayes and years without attributing any thing of their assistance upon trees and plants and other elementary things But to return to the particulars of Aqua vitae there will be no hurt here to touch upon this experiment thereof made very gentile and rare leaving others that are more common Aqua vitae hath this particular that it dissolves not sugar nor joines not with it as doth its flegm and common water vinegar and other liquors but by artifice it self of two it makes a thrice sweet liquor very proper against the fluxes of Catarrhs and salt rheumes that molest the stomach and throat and is thereunto very good and comfortable Lay in steep a day or two Cinnamon grossely beaten and take off the infusion very neat take fine sugar within a pottage dish that hath ears brought into fine small powder and so perfume it mingle it with a small portion of Sugar roset Poure thereon this Aqua vitae and make them a litâ—le warm upon ashes then put fire thereto with a lighted paper stirring all well with a little spit of clean wood so long untill the Aqua vitae burn no more there will remain a liquor most agreeable to the taste and mervailously comfortable you may add theâ—eto liquor of pearls Coral and other the like which dissolve easily in the juice of Citron or distilled vinegar which makes it sweet to stream out upon it a quantity of common water or the phlegm of Aqua vitae and not by calcining it as Paracelsus and his followers do with Salt-Peter which is manifest poyson so that things are done in vain by more that may be done by fewer so that it bee justly done Further every one sufficiently knowes how to draw Aqua vitae filling two parts of the Alimbeck with Glasse or Beuvois Earth with good old wine and distilling it with an easie fire through a Bath in a Caldron full of water with chaffe Continue the distillation untill you see long veines and sprouts appear in the Chappe and in the Recipient For it is Aqua vitae which mounts first and the phlegm comes after in grosse drops as tears which is a token that there is no more Aqua vitae Men may refine it passing again another time But I should not bee of an opinion that to take it into the body it should bee more then once And it is a strange thing that by its own subtilty for it will mount through five or six doubles of paper brovillas without wetting it I have seen them cast a full glasse thereof in the air and not one drop to fall to the earth It is of soveraign force against all burnings and chiefly that of small shot with which shee hinders as was said before the Estiomenes and Gangreenes An inflamation arising from purecholer in the skin exulcerating it with pain which sheweth sufficiently the purity of its fire which may by good right be called Celestiall See here that which Raimund Lullius sets down of his proprieties and vertues Wee must not understand saith he that neither quintessence nor any other thing here below can render us immortall It is ordained for all men once to die nor can we prolong our dayes beyond and above the prefixed time for that is reserved to God Mans daies are short and the numher of his moneths are with thâ—â—â— thou hast appointed his limits which hee cannot passe there where on the contrary they may well bee accidentally shortned Aqua vitae then nor all other sorts of quintessences and restoratives cannot prolong our life for one minute of an hower yet they may conserve and maintain it to the last but preserving it from putrefaction which is it that shortens it most But to defend putrefaction by corruptible things that cannot bee we must therefore find out some incorruptible substance proper and familiar to our nature which conserves and maintains the radicall heat as oil doth the light of a Lampe Such is the aqua vitae drawn from wine the most comfortable and connaturall substance of all others provided it be not abused with excesse Plutarch in the 3. Book the 8. question of his Symposiaques compares wine to fire and our body to clay If you give fire he sets it down there which is of a mediocrity to the clay and earth to the Potter he will consolidate it in the pots bricks tiles and other the like works but if it be excessive hee resolves it and makes it melt and run Moreover Aqua vitae preserves strongly from their corruption as wee may see by things vegetable and Animall which men put there to mingle which by this means conserves them in their entire length It comforts and maintains a man in vigor of youth which it restoreth from day to day it rejoyceth and strengtheneth the vitall spirits it digests crudities taken fasting and reduceth the equality the excessive superfluities and the defaults which may bee in our bodies causing divers effects according to the disposition of the subject where shee applies her selfe as doth the Sunnes heat which melts wax and hardens durt and fire doth the same And there is that celestiall spirit residing in Aqua vitae so susceptible of all qualities proprieties and vertues that she can make her hot empregning it with hot things cold with cold things and so of the rest being shee is naturall conformably to our soule inclinable to good and evill for although it consists of the foure Elements they are therein so proportioned that the one doth not domineer over the other Wherefore they call it Heaven whereto wee apply such starres as wee will namely of the simple Elements of which she conceives the proprieties and the effects herein we may compare celestiall fire to the Altar But strong waters which dissipate and ruine all are this strange fire and so Alchymists call them and fire against nature externall fire and other the like exterminatives Certes if the effects of Cannon Powder be so admirable consisting of so few species and ingredients which may be well called the true infernall fire the devourer of mankind The action of strong waters is no lesse which burne all being compounded onely of two or three substances that which wee commonly call
subtilties by a rule of Ghematrie called Ghilcal which consisteth in equivalencies of Numbers which the Hebrewes assigne unto Letters Those of this word Malach which signifieth salt mounts in their supputation to 78. for Mem valued 40. Lamed 30. and heth 8. or divided in any sort that you will alwaies there will result a certain number representing a mystery of Divine names the half which makes 39. mount to as much as the letters of Chuzu the scabbard or covering of this great Name for caph val 20. vau 6. Z. 7. and the other vau 6 if in 3 parts each wil mount to 26. which is the number tetragrammaton Jehovah vau making 10. he 5. vau 6. he 5. In six parts this will be 13. for each which are equipollent to the number of Piety In 13. there are 6. which vau is valued at a letter representing eternall life besides that six is the first perfect number because his parts do constitute it his sixt namely 1. his third 2. and its halfe 3. which perfection hath not any one of the other numbers and in six dayes the structure of the Universe was perfected There are other mysteries in the Scripture in 26. will be the number of the most holy sacred Trinitie for three times 26. makes 78. In 39. twice which Beth stands for a symbole of a word where the second person and the house of Idea's of the Archetype which Plato hath well acknowledged Aristotle not And finally 87. denotes as many unities whereof each represents the unity of the essence of one God alone The same is in the Lechem bread which is an anagram of the former and consisteth of the same letters It was therefore some cause of the Proverb To eat salt with thy bread Rabbi Solomon upon the places aforesaid of Gods alliance with his people designed by salt by which is understood the Eternall paction of the great Priesthood of the Messiah brings us a form of an Allegory very strange and phantastick That the waters here below do mutiny that they are separated from the supercelestiall having the firmament set betwixt them by means whereof God to appease them promised that they should be perpetually in his service in all offerings sacrifices as he did afterwards in the Law which hee gave to the Jewes Whatsoever thou shalt offer to the Lord thou shalt season it with salt Yet there are divers sorts of salt that have different properties and vertues according to the things from which they are extracted for salt retaine a propriety of the thing from whence it came saith Geber in his Testament yea as many odors and sapors as there are they all do depend upon salt for where there is no salt there is no smell nor tast and yet of all the tasts which Plutarch in his Naturall causes doth limit to eight Plinie lib. 15. cap. 27. extends them to 13. there is not one that is not salt because tast as Plato will have it comes from water which creep athwart the stalk of every plant and keeps the saltness that it cannot passe as it is more grosse and terrestriall as wee see in sea-water when it is distilled where when they passe it through sand where it leaves its saltnesse But it may be said to Plato that the tast doth not only ly in plants but also in Animalls and mineralls and all other compounded Elements It is that which he and Aristotle and other rationall Philosophers are only satisfied with that which their arguments and discourse do imprint in their phantasies esteeming that it cannot be otherwise then that which their reasons do demonstrate unto them for the most part false and erroneous there were if they would penetrate empirickly by the experiments they might have been shewed by the finger of the eye the truth of the thing they might have been better ascertained therein as the Arabians have since done and the Chymicall Philosophers who will assure themselves of nothing but what they have oftentimes tried without variation to the sense It is a maxime of all Naturalists received for Infallible that the transparence comes from this when the water in the composition and mixtion superabounds over the earth and darkenesse on the contrary when Terrestreity predominates the water and it would be accounted an irremissible crime Laesa Maâ—estatis to doubt thereof for who is there that doubteth it will they say that it is not so I will reply that it is I to whom experience shewes the contrary at least for that the cause of transparence and opacity doth not proceed from that which they alledge Take Crystall and passe it never so little through hot ashes so long as one would rost a chestnut you wil find it all dark without any more transparence within or without in the superficies and that without any losse of its substance or diminution of its weight And on the contrary in a strong expression of fire blowing upon the lead then which nothing can be darker it will convert into a forme of a hyacinth so transparent that one may read a small letter through it though it were an inch thick and this hyacinth by the same fire returne into lead and lead into an hyacinth If then these profound Contemplators of nature and her effects had been willing to accompany their Imaginary discourses with experience that reveales infinite secrets by fire they could never have fallen into such absurdities and had manifestly seen without any vail or obstacle all full of things whereof they remaine in irresolution and doubt not having spoken therein but as blind men and by guesse for we cannot discover the secrets of things to proceed therein directly nor come to it by entring on it after manner of speech by the foregate for nature goeth in her workes rarely and in secret as by the posterne gate or by setting ladders against the windowes The Greeks call that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 solution No man can know the composition of a thing said Geber very well that was ignorant of its destruction And this is done by fire which separates the parts as hath been said before There are then two divers substances of salt therefore it causeth divers effects the one is sweet glutinous and inflamable of the nature of aire nourishing binding The other sharp mordicant and separative that begets nothing The Poets in their mythologies have called this the Ocean and the sweet wherewith the pickle of the Sea is moistened made liquid Teâ—bys as Plutarch hath it in his Osiris which giveth milk to and nourisheth all things But simple water of it selfe alone would not be sufficient to nourish if it were not assisted with things fastened to the earth the salt therein inclosed and therewith mingled having a sweet and glutinous unctuosity for as in the Sea-water there are two substances sweet and salt there are subalternately two in salt But we cannot say that they doe nourish or produce any thing Therefore is it that they use to