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
their destruction wherefore of necessity that which is pure and incorruptible must be separated from its contrary the corruptible and impure which cannot be done but by fire the separator and purificator But the three liquid Elements Water Aire and Fire are as inseparable one from the other for if the Aire were distracted from the fire the fire which hath therefrom one of its principall maintainments and food would suddenly extinguish and if the water were separated from the Aire all would bee in a flame That if the Aire should be quite drawne from the water for as much as by its legerity it holds it somewhat suspended all would be drowned Likewise if Fire should be separated from the Water all would bee reduced into a deluge For three Elements neverthelesse may well bee disjoined from the Earth but not wholly there must remaine some part to give consistence to the Body and render it tangible by the meanes of a most subtill and thinne portion thereof which they will elevate with them out of this gross thickness that remaines below as wee may sensibly see in glass which by an industrious Artifice of fire is depured of the darknesse that was in the ashes to passe from thence to a transparent clearnesse which is of the nature of Fire and indissoluble Salt accompanied with a firme and solid thicknesse having neither transpiration nor pores But wherefore should wee not hereto file all in one traine those so excellent Meditations of Zohar sith all depends on the same purpose God formed Adam of the slime of the earth or according to the Hebrew God formed man dust of the earth which word of forming belongeth properly to Potters who fashion of earth all that they thinke good And touching the dust this is but to abate our pride with which wee may bee swolne when wee consider the vile and corruptible matter whereof wee are made in respect of our bodies which is nothing else but mire and dirt Consider then three things saith Zohar and thou shalt not fall into transgression Remember from whence thou art come of such filthy and foule stuffe and whither thou must at last returne to dust wormes and rottennesse and before whom thou art to render an account and reason of all thy actions and comportments who is the soveraigne Judge the King of all who leaves no transgression unpunished nor good worke irrecompensed Adam then and all his posterity were formed of the dust of the earth which had before beene moistned with the fountaine or vapour which was highly elevated by the Sunnebeams to water and to soften the earth For the Earth being of it selfe cold and dry is altogether sterill and fruitlesse if it be not impregned with moisture and heat whence proceed fecundity So that Adam was composed of Earth and Water mingled together These two elements betoken a double faculty in him and double formation the one of the body in regard of this age the other of the soule in another world Water shewes the celestiall Meditation whereto our spirit may exalt it selfe and the earth of it selfe immoveable and that can never budge from below nor willingly mingle with the other three volatil elements by reason of its extreame drynesse so that it doth but grow hard by the action of fire and makes it selfe more contrary and untractable by the spirit of contradiction hard and refractory from the flesh against the spirit so that shee should reject the water which men thought to put therein if it were not by meanes of the subtill Aire interposing and mingling therewith and penetrating into the smallest parts which being suckt within the water forces the earth to feed on it to inclose it in her selfe as if shee would detaine it prisoner and by that meanes remaines great as the female by a male for every superiour thing in order and degree holds the place of male to that which is inferiour and subject thereunto Now if the Aire absent it selfe which associates and unites them together as being suppeditated and banished which is moist and hot from the extreame drynesse and coldnesse of the earth it will force it with all its power to reject the water and so reduce it selfe to its first drynesse which we may perceive in Sand which will never receive water except it be quickly separated Even so the earth is alwaies rebellious and contumacious of it selfe to bee mollified be it by water by aire by fire and after this manner there was a spirit of contradiction and disobedience introduced into Adam by reason of the earth whereof he was formed as his Companion and himselfe do shew when by the suggestion of the Serpent the most terrestriall animall of all others they so easily contradicted that extreame prohibition which was given them of not tasting the fruit of the knowledge of good and evill for the punishment whereof it was said to the Serpent thou shallt eat earth all the dayes of thy life which Isaiah resumes in 65. chap. Dust is thy bread And to Adam that the earth should produce nothing but thornes briars and thistles by means whereof if he would live he must cultivate it with the sweat of his browes till he returne to that from whence he was drawne for being dust hee must returne to dust But water which notifies Divine speculations disirous to mingle and unite with all things to whom it gave beginning and made them grow and multiply is as the carriage or vestment of the spirit following that which was said in the beginning of the Creation that the Spirit of God was stretched over the waters or as the Hebrew word Marachephet caries it hovering over them fomenting and vivifying them as a Henne doth her Chickens with a connaturall heat for this word Elobim imports I know not what of heate and fire By Water then the docill spirit obedient to the invitations of the intellect insinuated it selfe into Adam and by Earth the refractory and opiniaster that spurneth against the pricke for as the earth was the most ignoble Element of all others water rejecteth it and disdaineth it and could agree with it but as to a lee and excrement but if the pure and neat spirit remaines within the water where it made choice of its residence for from the three natures of earth water at least never joines with the two that is to say sand for its extreame drynesse that causeth a discontinuation of parts and the dirt to be fatty and unctuous there is not any thing else Argilla but slime only with which some food and mingling which may bee thereof made the water at last lets it reside below and it swimmes over as being of a contrary nature the one altogether immoveable solid and compact the other fluent removing and gliding as bloud through the veines wherein the spirits reside who can easily bee elevated to bee of a fiery quality alwayes soring upward So that the water which notifies the interiour spirit endeavours to
devest it selfe of this externall coagulation for all coagulation is a kinde of death and waterishnesse of life and would never more associate therewith nor revest it selfe by reason of its contumacy were it not that the soveraigne Master and Lord Adonai by his providence for the propagation of things as long as hee shall please to maintaine in beeing this faire worke of his hands constraine these two Earth and Water to agree in a sort together by its Angell or Minister that rules in the Aire Man moreover hath towards himselfe frank and free will in his full power and disposition The appetite of sinne shall be under thee and thou shalt have domination over it Gen. 4. But if hee be adheering to the earth Gen. 4.7 that is to say to carnall desires and concupiscences whereunto he is most inclinable he shall do nothing but evill And if to the spirit designed by water all that hee doth shall goe well The River of God is filled with waters And in the 44. of Isaiah I will powre out water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground I will powre out my Spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon thine off-spring So that as long as the water doth suffer and remaine united with the earth the good Spirit resteth with man by which wee are admonished by the wise man Prov. 5.15 to drinke waters out of our Cisterne rivers out of our own Wel. But when the earth by its rebellious and repugnant drought rejecteth water there resteth nothing therein but its hard and refractary obstination till that by meanes of the aire the spirit that joines and unites them together which are holy inspirations it bee newly remoistned and watered By meanes whereof when wee have this good spirit of salutary water whereof it is written in the 15 of Ecclesiasticus Thou shalt give him the water of wisdome to drinke wee must take heed of casting it away and to make our selves all dry earth and sandy which is not satisfied with water and therefore produceth nothing But all this is more clearly expressed in the Gospell where by the meanes of this fructifying water our Saviour which is a Fountaine that is never dry the holy Spirit commeth to put into our hearts that which moistneth the hardnesse of the earth watereth it and dresseth it to produce the ripe fruits of good and charitable works The water which I will give you saith he Joh. 4.14 shall be a Fountaine of living water springing up into eternall life Of this water the Prophets have clearely spoken as David in the 36. Psal For with thee there is a Fountaine of life and in thy light wee shall see light Psal 36.6 See how he joines water with light which is fire so that this digression seemes to bee lesse impertinent and in the 12. of Esay 3. You shall draw water with joy out of the wels of salvation More Jerem. 2. They have forsaken me that am the Fountaine of living water and have digged to themselves Cisternes broken Cisternes that will hold no water In this of Zohar as above are comprised the principall secrets and actions of Fire and of its contrary the Patient which is Water for the acts of Actives are in the disposition of the Patient said the Philosopher for the effects cannot better be discerned then where they act Fire then hath three proprieties but in this respect wee must argue the thing more deeply As then all that which is are divided into 3 called Worlds or Heavens it must not be thought strange if wee repeate the same more then once for from thence proceed all the secret sciences that is to say the elementary here below subject to perpetuall alteration and vicissitude of life and of death the Celestiall aloft above the Circle of the Moone incorruptible in respect of it selfe as well for its purity and uniformity of substance as for its continuall and equall motion nothing therein praedominating the one or the other which two constitute the Sensible world There is afterward the Intelligible abstracted from all corporeity and matter which the Apostle cals the third World where hee was ravished this said hee whether in the body or out of the body God knowes 2 Cor. 12.3 for not onely the World and the Heaven are put one for the other but yet the Heaven for Man The heavens declare the glory of God according to which most part of the Fathers interpret it and Man reciprocally for Heaven As Origen sets it forth upon the 25 Treatise of Saint Matthew Mans heart is properly called Heaven and the Throne not already of the Glory of God as is the Temple but of God properly For the Temple of the glory of God is that wherein as in a Glasse wee see our selves by Aenigma But Heaven that is above the Temple of God where his Throne is is to see him wholly as it were face to face which hee hath almost transcribed word for word out of the booke Abahir to Zohar and other ancient Caballists whereof he consisteth for the most part Moreover some say that the Heavens are sometimes put for God himselfe as in the 32 of Deut. Heare O Heaven the words I speak and in the 8 chapter of the 1 of Kings according to the Hebrew verity in the prayer of King Solomon at the dedicâ—tion of the Temple Heare O Heaven In this third Heaven or World whereof the Apostle spake although God bee every where yet the seate of his Divinity is there more especially established then elsewhere with his separated Intelligences that assist him to execute his commands Blesse the Lord yee Angels mighty in power doing that which he ordaineth hearing the voice of his words wherefore Theologians called it the Angelicall world without all place and time which Plato in his Phaed. said that no mortall men ever yet had sufficiently celebrated it according to its excellency and dignity being all of light who from thence stretched out her selfe and derives it so as out of an in exhaustible Fountaine to all sorts of Creatures even according as the ancient Phaenician Theologie carryed which the Emperour Julian Parabates alledged in his prayer to the Sunne That Corporeal Light proceeded from an Incorporeal Nature The Celestial world participates of darkenesse and of light whence proceed all the faculties and powers that it brings it And the elementary all of darknesse designed for the reason of its instability by water The Intelligible by Fire because of its purity and light and the Celestial by the Aire where fire and water come to joine the Earth by this reckoning should remaine for Hell as in truth this earthly habitation is nothing but a true Hel But by Heaven Moses understood the Intelligible World and by earth the Sensible attributing the two higher elevated Elements Aire and Fire to Heaven because they alwayes tend upwards and Water and Earth which for their gravity tend downward but all that by him was
in the chalk whence a fair meditation is presented that as fire is the symboll of life water that is its contrary and extinguisheth it must be of consequence the symboll of death water naturally tending downwards and fire upwards wherein consisteth life Strabo to this purpose in his 15. Book speaking of the Brachmans sets down that which we call death to be renewing of life and that this temporall is but a conception as it were and a carriage which comes about the end of its term to bring forth to death to passe from thence to eternall life Which Seneca imitates in the 103 Epistle The day that we fear so much as the last of our life is a renascence of an eternall day let us then chearfully leave behind that which serves for nothing but a tedious charge Why do we so much turn our backs as if we had not been before this first frail body in which we remain included and hid we struggle and temporize therein to the best of our power and not without cause for we have been forced out by a endeavour of our mother in bearing us and we weep and lament when we arrive to this which we think to be the last day but to complaine cry and weep are they not marks and tokens of one that is to be borne And a little more Christian-like although a little before I will lay down this body where I have found it and clothed it and will render my self above to the immortall Gods although I am not without them at this present but whilest I am detained here within this grievous masse of earth in the low abode of mortality my sensuality will fight and combat against this other better and longer life Now as we have been for nine or ten months shut up within our mothers belly not to prepare therein for it selfe but at last to come to this place whither we ought to be sent when we should be perfectly accomplished and made fit to breath and remain openly out of this closet where we were formed In like manner during the space that we have run through from our infancy to old age we dye to go whither another originall attends us and a new state of things All this doth in nothing derogate from the Traditions of our Church who celebrated for the nativity of Martyrs the day of their death and martyrdom To conclude then that which was heretofore said of fire and of the four worlds that of the Intâ—lligible is all luminâ—us of the Celestiall shining and hot by reason of its motion of the Elementary here below shining hot and burning and of Hell nothing but burning So these three proprieties of fire to light to warm and to burn though the effects be divers and strange and the operations almost infinite only of the elementary to begin with that which is nearest to our senses Rabbi Elchana greatly honoured amongst the Hebrewes sets forth that out of the 10. fingers of the hand being addressed and conducted by the understanding may proceed more different sorts of works then there are stars in Heaven the most part whereof come from the action of fire on which almost all labouring instruments do depend Fire principally served the first men who had nothing but it for all working instruments In regard of its motion we may sufficiently see that there is nothing more glistring and moving then the fire which is the very cause of all motion Take away heat there will be no motion saith the Chymicall Philosopher Alphidius and this motion is accompaâ—ied with depuâ—ation for fire will have none but pure things according to Raymond Lullius For it is not only the pure substance of all others but it purgeth mundifieth and cleanseth all that upon which it can have Action of that which therein may be corruptible The Lord will wash away the filth of the children of Israel by the spirit of burning Esay 4.4 wherefore the Greeks call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Purging So that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 purifying was not made but by fire as the solemn annuall feast of Candlemasse witnesseth And in all the Eastern Churches when they would say the Evangel they burn great Tapers as we do upon the day of Purification and that for token of joy and rejoicing whereof fire is a symbole and according to that we make two fires upon the feast of Saint John Baptist conformable to that in the first of Luk. 14. Many shall rejoyce at his birth and fires of joy in some happy successes of victories at the birth of Kings children and the like occasions of alacrity We have alledged heretofore out of the 31. of Numbers 23 that which is said of fire and water the two purifying Elements whereby in our baptisms we are accustomed to put a little piece of wax light or match which they make the Creature to hold when they hold it over the font the Church being thereby regulated by the pillar of fire which garded the Israelites and the cloud baptismall water by day whereunto sutes that of Saint John in the 3. of Matthew That in respect of himselfe he baptized with Water unto repentance but he that commeth after shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with Fire to the remission of sinnes for fire is a mark of the Holy Spirit by which grace is conferred and descended upon the Apostles on the day of Pentecost in the form of fiery tongues Act. 2.3 The Stoicks although too superstitious therein made great account of this Element which they said was I know not what living thing the most wise Fabricator of the whole universe and of all that which is contained therein to which purpose as I alledged before out of the 7. of Wisdome 24. that Wisdome the Artist of all things taught me that it is more moving then motion for she passeth through all things by her purenesse Wherein two properties of fire are attributed to Wisdome Motion and Purity And in summe esteemed it to be a God according to which Saint Augustine in his 8. Book of the City of God 5. chapter sets down Zohar according to his high elevated contemplations alledging upon Exodus this passage of the 7. of Daniel 9. The Throne of the ancient of dayes was flames of fire and a River of fire running lightly issued from his face his vestment white as snow saith that within this shining river of fire were washed the vestments of the souls that mounted on high and repurged themselves there from the old scum of the Serpent without consuming it selfe which did but clear it self from the old filth that it had theâ—e gathered And this is very properly said because we see by experience that greases are not cleansed but by other grease which carries one the other as doth Soap and Lees which consists all of grosse and unctuous salts for if those were not they would not bite upon unctuosity and fatnesse witnesse simple water
earth the sensible Each of them is subdivided into two in every case I speake not but after Zohar and the ancient Rabbins The intelligible into Paradise and Hell and the sensible to the Celestiall and Elementary world Upon this passage Origen makes a faire discourse at the entry on Genesis that God first made the heaven or the intelligible world following that which is spoken in the 66. of Esay Heaven is my seat and Earth my footstoole Or rather it is God in whom the world dwelleth and not the world which is Gods habitation For in him we live Act. 17.28 move and have our being for the true seat and habitation of God is his proper essence and before the Creation of the World as Rabbi Eliezer sets downe in his Chapteâ—s there was nothing but the essence of God and his name which are but one thing Then after the heaven or the intelligible world Origen pursues God made the Firmament that is to say this sensible world for every body hath I know not what firmnesse and solidity and all solidity is corporal and as that which God proposed to make consisteth of Body and of Spirit for this cause it is written that God first made the Heaven that is to say all spirituall substance upon which as upon a certaine throne hee reposeth himselfe The Firmament for our regard is the body which Zohar calleth the Temple and the Apostle also Yee are Gods Temple 1 Cor. 3.17 And the Heaven which is spirituall is our soule and the inner man the Firmament is the externall that neither seeth nor knoweth God but sensibly So that man is double an animall and spirituall body the one Internall Spirituall Invisible that which Saint Marke in this place designeth for man the other Externall Corporall Animal which he denotes by the Sacrifice which comprehendeth not the things that are of the Spirit of God but the Spirituall discerneth all So that the exteriour man is an animal compared to brute beasts whereout they tooke their offerings for Sacrifices He is compared to foolish Beasts and is made like them for a man hath no more then a Beast we must understand the Carnall and Animall that consists of this visible body that dyeth as well as Beasts are corrupt and returne to Earth Whence Plato said very well that which is seene of man is not man properly And in the first of Alcibiades yet more distinctly that Man is I know not what else then his body namely his soule as it followes afterwards That which Cicero borrowed out of Scipio's dreame But understand it thus that thou art not mortall but this body thou art not that which this forme declares but every mans minde is himselfe not that figure which may be demonstrated by the finger And the Philosopher Anaxarchus while the Tyrant Nicocreon of Cyprus caused him to be brayed in a great Marble Morter cried out with a loud voice Stampe hard bruise the barke of Anaxarchus for it is not him that thou stampest But will it be permitted for me here to bring something of Metubales All that is is either Invisible or Visible Intellectuall or Sensible Agent and Patient Forme and Matter Spirit and Body the Interiour and the Exteriour man Fire and Water that which seeth and that which is seen But that which seeth is much more excellent and more worthy then that which is seen and there is nothing that seeth but the invisible where that which is seene is as a blind thing therefore Water is a proper and serviceable subject over whom the Fire or Spirit may out-stretch his action Also he hath elevated it for his habitation and residence for by introducing it he elevates it on high in the nature of Aire contiguous unto it which invisible Spirit of the Lord was carryed on the waters or rather did sit over tâ—e waters did see the visible moved the immoveable for water hath no motion of it selfe there is none but Aire and Fire that have and speake by the Organs of one that is dumb for as when by our winde and breath filling a pipe or flute we make it sound though never so mute This Body and Spirit water and fire are designed unto us by Cain and Abel the first Creatures of all others engendred of the seed of man and woman and by their Sacrifices whence those of Cain issuing from the fruits of the earth were by consequent corporall dead and inanimate and together destitute of faith which dependeth of the Spirit and are by Fire dissolved into a waterish vapour Pour le nouveau so that to go to finde it in its sphere and habitation for the newes we are to suffer thereunder But those of Abel were spirituall animate full of life that resides in the bloud full of piety and devotion This also Aben Ezra and the author of the Handfull of Myrrh call a fire descending from one above to regather them which happened not to those of Cain which a strange fire devoured and from thence was declared the exteriour man sensuall animall that must bee salted with Salt But Abel the interiour spirituall salted with Fire which is double the materiall and essentiall the actuall and potentiall as it is in burnings All what is sensible and visible is purged by the actuall and the invisible and intelligible by the spiritual and potentiall Saint Ambrose on the Treatise of Isaac and of the Soule What is man the soule of him or the flesh or the assembly of those two for the clothing is one thing and the thing clothed another Indeed there are two men I leave the Messibe apart Adam was made and formed of God in respect of the body of ashes and of earth but afterwards inspired in him the Spirit of Life if he had kept himselfe from misprision he was like unto Angels made participant of eternall beatitude but his transgression dispossessed him The other man is he which comes successively to be borne of man and woman who by his originall offence is made subject to death to paines travails and diseases therefore must hee returne from whence he came But touching the soule that came from God it remains in its free will if it will adhere to God it is capable to bee admitted into the ranke of his children who are borne not of blood nor of the will of the flesh Joh. 1.13 nor of the will of man but of God Such was Adam before his first transgression The soule then which is the inner man spirit and the very true man which liveth properly for the body hath no life of it selfe nor motion and is nothing else but as it were the barke and clothing of the inner man according to Zohar alledging that out of the 10 of Job 11. Thou hast clothed me with skinne and flesh whereunto that in the 6. of S. Matthew seemeth to agree where to shew us how much the soule ought to bee in greater recommendation then the body as more worthy and
spirituall and intelligible for the invisible things of God from the Creation of the World are clearely seene being understood â—by the things that are made even his eternall power and Godhead For the world with the Creatures being there they are a portraict of God for the Creator is understood by the Creature saith Saint Augustine for God hath made two things to his image and resemblance according to Tresmegistus the world therein to rejoice and please our selves with the infinite brave pieces of worke and Man wherein hee set his most singular delight and pleasure which Moses hath tacitely expressed in Gen. 1. 2. where when there was question of creating the world Heaven Earth Vegetables Minerals Animals Sunne Moone Starres and all the rest hee did no more but command by his word for hee said and they were done hee commanded and they were created But in Mans formation hee insisted much further therein then in all the rest saith he Let us make man after our Image and Similitude hee created him male and female and formed him dust of the earth afterward breathed in his face the spirit of life and hee was made a living soule In which are touched 4 or 5 particularities So Cyrill observes it After the same manner then as the Image of God is the world so the image of the world is man therein there is such a relation of God with his creatures that they cannot bee well comprehended but reciprocally one by the other for all the Sensible nature as Zohar hath it in regard of the intelligible is as that of the Moone towards the Sunne who thereinto reverberates its light or as the light of a Lampe or torch which parteth the flame fastned to the weik which is therein nourished by a grosse matter viscous adustible without which this splendor and light could not communicate it selfe to our sight nor our sight comprehend it And likewise the glory and essence of God which the Hebrewes call Sequinah could not appeare but in the matter of this Sensible world which is an image or patterne thereof And it is that which God said to Moses Exod. 33. You shall not see my face you shall see my binder parts The face of God is his true Essence in the intelligible world which no man ever saw except the Messihe I did set the Lord alwayes before mee Psal 16.8 And his posteriour parts are his effects in the Sensible world The soule likewise cannot bee discerned and knowne but by the functions it exerciseth in the body whilst it is annexed thereunto By which Plato was moved to thinke that soules could not consist without bodies no more then fire without water So that after long revolutions of times they should come againe to incorporate themselves here below whereunto adheres that in the 6 of Virgils Aeneads All these when they have turned for many yeares God cals them to the floud of Lethe by great troopes Beiâ—g forgetfull that they must review the upper convexe And begin againe to bee willing to returne into bodies But this savours a little of new-birth and Pythagorean changings of soules into bodies in which Origen was likewise out of the way as may be seene in his booke of Princes and in Saint Jeromes Epistle to Avitus But more sincerely Porphyrius although in the rest an impious adversary a Calumniator of Christianisme that for the perfect beatitude of soules they must shunne and fly all bodies So that when the soule shall bee repurged from all corporal affections and when it shall returne to its Creator in its first simplicity it hath no great desire to fall againe into the hands and calamities of this age when the option should be left unto it free From the Intelligible world then it runnes downe into the Celestial and from thence to the Elementary all that which the spirit of man can attaine from the knowledge of the admirable effects of Nature which Art intimates in what shee can whence by the revelation of these rare secrets by the action of fire the most part is magnified the glory and magnificence of him who is the first motor and author thereof for mans understanding according to Hermes is as a Glasse where we come to shave off and to abate the cleare and luminous rayes of the Divinity represented to our senses by the Sunne above and the fire his correspondent here below which inflame the soule with an ardent desire of the knowledge and veneration of his Creatour and by consequent of his love for men love nothing but what they know So each of these three worlds which have their particular sciences hath also its fire and its salt apart both which do informe us namely of Moses his fire in the heaven And the Salt for its firme consistence and solidity to the earth What is this Salt aske one of your Chymicall Philosophers a scorched and burned earth and congealed water by the heat of fire potentially enclosed therein Moreover Fire is the operatour here below in the workes of Art as the Sunne and Celestiall Fire is in them of that nature and in the intelligible the holy Spirit by the Hebrewes called Binah or Intelligence which the Scripture designes ordinarily by fire and this spirituall fire or igneal spirit with the Chomah the verbe where the Sapience attributes to the Sonne Wisdome the Artist of all things taught mee are the fathers operators By the word of the Lord were the heavens firmed and all their beauty by the spirit of his mouth from whence that maxime of the Peripateticks differs not much Every worke of Nature is a worke of Intelligence Behold the three fires whereof we pretend to speake of which there is none more common amongst us then the elementary here below grosse composed and materiall that is to say alwayes fastned to matter nor on the the other part lesse known That which is of him from whence he came and whither hee goes reducing in an instant all to nothing assoone as his nourishment failes him without which he cannot consist a moment but goes as hee comes being all in the least of his parts So that he can in lesse then nothing multiply to infinity and in lesse then nothing empty it selfe for one little waxe light will at pleasure enkindle the greatest fires we can imagine without any losse or diminution of its substance Though they take a thousand yet nothing perisheth And in the third of Saint James Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth yea one onely small sparkle of fire would press in the twinckling of an eye all the immense hollow of the Universe if it were filled with Gun-powder or Napthe and presently after will vanish away So that of all bodies there is nothing that doth approach nearer to the soule then fire said Plotin And Aristotle in his fourth booke of Metaphysickes sets downe that â—ven to his time the most part of Philosophers had not well knowne fire nor yet Aire to bee perceivable
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
depurations of Fire for that is the last action thereof having therein no power but to refine and depure as he doth Gold Which the Sun produceth in long millions of years To the imitation of that the speculative understandings are forced by means of fire to extract out of the corruption of these inferior elements and their compounds and incorruptible substance which was to them a modell and pattern of that whereto the whole universe should at last bee reduced from hence we here draw from Soot a representation and image of the works of nature upon vapours and exhalations whence Meteors are formed and impressions from the middle Region of the Air Water holding place of the waterish and oil of the fiery and inflamable which oil is altogether impure to bee adustible and unprofitable to the procreation of this Virgin Earth called by some the Philosophers Stone which so many ignorant avaricious men have sought for but could not find because they sought it with blind eyes darkened with a sordid desire of unlawfull gain to make themselves on a sudain richer then another Midas who at last got nought but the ears of an Asse and did not cherish it to praise and admire God in his admirable workes following that which is said in the 37. of Job consider the wondrous works of God for we cannot doe a greater pleasure to a workman then to mark attentively to admire and magnifie his works nor a greater reproch then to scorn and slight them And of such the Apostle in the 4. to the Ephes speaketh thus They have their thoughts obscured with darknesse being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them in respect of the blindnesse of their heart Take then this Oil so extracted from Soot and repasse it three or four times upon Sand for it is one of those that lasteth very long And after the extraction of the Water and Oil and the Calcination of the earths that shall remain in the bottome of the vessell cast your water thereon and put the matter to putrifie ten or twelve dayes in dung then draw back the water by distillation calcining at the end thereof the Earths seven or eight houres by the fires flame Put again the water upon the Earths putrified distilled and calcined reiterating as abovesaid For by means of water and fire the Earths will be calcined untill they have drunk up and retained all their water or the greatest part which will be done at the six or seventh reiteration This done give it the fire of sublimation and it will elevate it self a pure earth clear and Crystalline fastened in the Center The water hath great proprieties and vertues but this Earth hath yet more whereof I will endeavour to speak more at large There may be also Salt extracted by the dissolutions of its water and glasse of the Earths that shall remain after the elevation of the said Virgin Earth For every private thing by its proper humidity doth perform nothing but vitrificatory fusion saith Geber And there are here three two volatiles water and oil and the third fix'd and permanent which is congealed namely Salt which beyond all other moistures expects the conflict of fire saith the said Geber For there is nothing more moist and more unctuous then Salt nor that better endures fire Also all metals are nought else but fusible salts whereunto they are easily resolved common Salt melteth also after it hath been recalcined and dissolved three or foure times whereof wee will speake more plainly in its place I have here a little extended my self upon Soot as upon a Subject where rare secâ—ets appear remarkable the same upon charcole made of stone and of that vitrification of sky colour that remains of Iron whereof wee see great heaps in furnaces and forges and being so dry yet there may be water and oil drawn therefrom wee will yet say the same concerning Soot Fire burning wood or other adustible matter chaseth away the waterish humidity therein contained and feeds it selfe with oil or aereall substance The terrestriall part which are the ashes remaining in the bottom calcined where the Salt resides which thereby being separated by the washings and dissolutions of the water the remainder is nought but slime which is drawn away by frequent ablutions and the Sand remains at the last proper to be vitrified observe in respect of one of the excrements of fire which is not contented therewith but by its impetuosity and heat tending naturally upwards carries on high with violence a part of the subtiliated substances Let us adapt this to the Coupelles â—oupelles pag. 6. â—he little â—hen pot â—herein goldâ—miths melt â—nd fine their â—etals Wee see that part of the lead from thence goes away in smoak as in the fire whence Soot is procreated a part thereof is burned namely its sulphurous part and part grows tough within the coupelles almost in the manner of Glasse or varnish Of the two first volatils there is no account to be made thereof for they goe and disperse themselves But bray the Coupelles where this vitrification is as it were baked wash them well with warm water to depure them from their grosnesse and uncleannesse then put them into a descensory with a strong expression of a bellows fire with the Salt of Tartar and Salnitre and there will fall down through a Metalline which being recoupled with new lead you will find more fine without comparison then at first and ever from that time forward more and more by reiteration as abovesaid So that hee that would take the patience to boil the lead on a regulated and continuall fire that should not exceed its fusion that is to say that the lead should therein remain alwayes melted and no more putting thereto a small portion of quicksilver or sublimate to keepe it from Calcination and to reduce it to powder at the end of a certain time you shall find that Lamwell hath not spoken frivolously to say that the six grain is contained in power with lead that is to say gold and silver would multiply and increase themselves as the fruit upon a tree doth But to return to these oils of long durance whereof he might make a large volume that would run through not all but a part Let him draw from the Tartar of wine of which the best comes from Mompellier even that which adheres unto the Tun. One which is very important Tartar is one of the subjects Coupta ruer pag. 87. where those who practise in the fire do find so many blows to cast Take of this Tartar beaten into small powder and put it in a leaded earthen pot with clear fountain water upon a Trevet or furnace making it boil easily and scum the villanies and filthinesse off with a feather the silver Crusts that shall afterwatds arise gather them with a head of Glasse where these grosse moules destang of mudd so long till they rise no more renewing
seen This is that oil and vegetable Menstruum c. In regard of the burning water therout extracted more inflameable then the most fine powder of a harguebuze it dissolves silver into subtill Crystalline flakes whieh melt at the fire of a lampe as easily as butter and are fix as silver in the same proofs of fire further see that which the said Riplay sets down in his marrow of Alchymâ—e The body being prepared put upon this water to the thickness of your thumb which wil straight boil above chalks of the body without other external fire by dissolving the body and by elevating it in the shape of ice with the drying of the said water and so let it bee reiterated by removing that which was elevated But to abbridge for this Aqua vitae is in very small quantity and very uneasy to make if you passe two parties of water of the the departure that dissolves the silver upon one party of the salt of lead this will do the same effect for the transmutation of matals but not within a mans body where it must not in any case bee applyed except after great sweetning that is to say a demi sextier of the dissolution of strong water to make evaporate three or four pails of water running down within by a filter to the measure that elevates the strong water with the spirits and malignity of this fire against Nature Think not that I would stay my self here so precisely nor restrain to the Text of Saint Mark nor upon that which dependeth upon the religion in this regard although our principall aim tends thitherward that wee would not enlarge by the same means to the works and progresse of nature whose principall key is Alchymie to mount from thence to the Architype the Creator by means of the Caballe But we would not likewise here so reveal occasions to abuse this divine Art to the ill turnings of perverse ignorants who to gain a piece of silver would make no difficulty to deceive the world one way or other as wee could do in revealing unto the means of blanching copper to the likenesse of silver with Iscicles accompanied with a Metalline of Orpiment the which as yellow gilded as it is and its red elevations as rubies being notwithstanding bruised in a copper morter and sublimed upon burned brasse passeth within the head of the Cornue white as silver But if it be well governed with the foresaid Isicles would make indeed great alterations upon the Copper which men may wel misuse wherefore we will forbear to speak thereof any further We may too well say that the preparation of this body that Riplay intends silver is to calcine and reduce it into salt which is done after this manner But if in the dissolving there be aqua fortis it sufficeth to calcine it Take then silver plates of the bignesse and thicknesse of a riall and put them in a Cruset or a little pot of Paris earth not leaded bed upon bed with prepared Salt that is to say dissolved in common water afterwards filtred congealed and decrepited and leave it 10. or 12. houres with burning coals it would be better in an oven of reverberation draw it from the fire and cast it yet all hot into an earthen vessell leaded full of water salt will dissolve it self therein and that of the silver which shall be calcined will goe to the bottome Let them reside well and separate them warily by inclination after put again the plates to bee recalcined with new salt and reiterated as before evaporate the water or the salt if it be dissolved and that which remains shall be as good as new to the third or fourth reiteration all your plates will find themselves reduced into chalk which you shall easily dissolve in distilled vinegar for silver lead and iron are not of â—ard resolution nor also Copper to take it in Roche of azur Tin much more and Gold more then all the rest for that its calcination is very uneasie Which Geber knew very well the compleat calcination of Sol is most difficult He rendâ—rs the causes thereof But it would be too long to dilaee upon all these things wee will content our selves to trace some shadows of that which our perquisition and labour hath enabled us to acquire by the space of 50. years of one side and another and proved more then once not to speake unadvisedly All which secrets are revealed as is said by the Fire And not by mervails since it analogically discovers the spirituall Thou hast tried me with fire and in mee there is found no iniquity said the Prophet Psal 16. There where you see how hee couples fire with iniquities as if it were it that revealed them as well as hee did the impurities of mettalls where it doth the same operation and effect as salt doth in corruptible things for although metalls bee the permanent substance of all others by reason of their most strong composition which doth not permit them easily to cast away out of their radicall form any alteration which men may make them indure in powder chalk salt water oil glasse Isicles and infinite others which happeneth not to one of the other elementaries Minerals Vegetables Animals the which being once changed from their primitive form they cannot again reintegrate or be put together By means whereof to speak of fire without metals which are its true subject it would bee as to propose to an Artist furnished with necessaries and instruments but had no stuffes proper to imploy them so that would remain to him unprofitable In metalls then there may be revealed and considered the fairest secrets of nature by the help of fires action Which if in some more particularly then in others she hath shewed a will to recreate yea to put in evidence her greater knowledge It seems this was in stones and and metals then which nothing could be presented more fair or agreeable to the sight nor more profitable and necessary at least in regard of Iron without which mans life would irksomely passe away shee receiving so many commoditâ—es thereby But pretious stones beyond the simple contentment and pleasure of the eye have nothing wherewith men may know to draw out profit or succours in any one of our businesses And if they be once deprived of their naturall shining form they never return thereto again as mettals doe so puissant and indissoluble is the assembling of their elementarie parties and their mixtion one with another Wherefore wee must not marvail if so many good spirits have travelled all their time to meditate upon this subject and their divers transmutations having been there unto drawn rather out of those fair considerations which they found therein for their spirits contentation then for any sordid and greedy desire of gain which hath made the ignorant so obstinatâ— who have so cried down this divine Art sister germane to the Caballe for that which the Caballe is divine and intelligible things into the profound
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
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
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
the Doctrine of the Hetrurians It is not beleeveable that Moses so deare and and welbeloved of God and so illustrated with his inspirations whence proceeded all the documents that he left and so hot a persecutor of Idolatries and Ethnique superstitions that hee would borrow any thing from them But more likely that the Devils instigations who makes himselfe alwayes as his Creators ape to make himselfe to idolize was willing to divert those sacred mysteries to their abusive impieties according to which Josephus against Appion and Saint Jerome against Vigilantius doe very well sute so that as in the Judaicall Law they used no Sacrifices and oblations in Paganisme but they used Salt as Pliny witnesseth in 31. Book 7. Chap. Especially in holy things the authoritie of Salt is understood when none were made without a Salt Mill. Plato to Timaeus when in the medly and commixtion of the elements the composed is destitute of much water and of the more subtill parts of the earth water resting therein comes to bee halfe congealed saltnesse is there brought in which hardens it the more and so there is procreated a body of Salt communicated to the use of our life for as much toucheth the body and senses accommodated by the same meanes according to the tenor of the Law on that which depends the service of God as being sacred and agreeable to God wherefrom hee called it a body beloved of God for which Homer called it Divine whereof Plutarque in his 5. Booke of his Symposiaques 10. question renders many reasons and among others for that it symbolizeth with the soule that is of Divine nature and as long as it resides in the body keepes it from putrefaction as Salt doth dead flesh where it is brought in in stead of a soule that keepeth it from corruption whence some of the Stoicks would say that Hogs flesh of it selfe was dead and that a soule which was sowed therein in a manner of salt to conserve it longer exempt from putrefaction to which a soule was given for Salt Our Theologians say that the ceremony of putting Salt into water when they hallow it came from that which Elisha did 2 Kings 2.22 23. to sweeten the waters of Jericho by casting Salt upon the Spring And that notes the people which is designed by water many waters are many Nations were sanctified must teach us by the Word of God what Salt signifies with the bitternesse and repentance that men should have for offending God as water also doth the confession as well of faith as of sinnes Of the commixtion of these two salt and water proceeds a double fruit to separate from ill doing and convert to good workes And for that repentance for sinne ought to precede auricular confession which repentance is denoted by the bitternesse of salt they blesse it also before water It is also taken for wisedome You are the salt of the earth and have salt in your selves And because that in all their ancient Sacrifices they used salt from thence it came that in Baptisme they put salt in the mouth of the Creature before it is baptized with water for that it cannot yet actually have the mystery of salt applyed for the present On fire then and on salt depend great and secret mysteries comprized under two principal colours red and white for as Zohar hath it all things are white and red but there is a great space betwixt the one and the other God dieth our sinnes which are red for concupiscence comes from the blood and from the sensualitie of the flesh besprinkled with blood and we doe die his whitenesse in red or rigour of Justice by the fire which inflameth our carnall desires and purchaseth their judgement which is throughout where there is fire if it bee not mortified with saving water And when the perverse doe prevaile in the world as ordinarily they doe rednesse and judgement extend themselves therein and all whitenesse covers it self which is rather changed into rednesse then rednesse into whitenesse which if it have domination all on the contrary growes resplendent therewith To these two colours also the ancient and the Evangelicall Law the rigour of justice and mercy the pillar of fire in the nights darkenesse and the white cloud by day wine and bread blood and fat which were not lawfull to eate You shall not eate flesh with the blood Gen. 9.4 And in Levit. 3.16 17. All the fat is the Lords it shall bee a perpetuall Statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings that yee eate neither fat nor blood where it is yet more particularly repeated in the 17. and 14. where the reason is rendred for that the soule that is to say the life of the flesh is in the blood which mystically represents that of Messiah wherein consisted eternall life so that it was not lawfull to use any other before his comming Of the same fat was reserved for God as well that which the Hebrewes call cheleb that covereth the inwards and is separated from the flesh as the other called schumen which is thereunto annexed but metaphorically the fat is taken for the most exquisite substance as in Numb 18. the tenths the best of the fruits are called the fat of them which manner of speech wee also life when wee say make the portion to be very fat of any thing that there is And in the 81. Psal 16. Hee fed them with the fat of Wheate It may bee also that Moses well knowing that these two substances blood and fat are of ill tast and nourishment and quickly corrupted out of their vessells hee forebad them the use thereof Or if wee would enter into a certaine mystery for that the vitall spirits consist in the blood which are of a fiery nature and that fat is very susceptible of flame and proper to make lights which are a representation of the soule But Oile is also for Lamps which was not forbidden to bee eaten and wee doe not see that in Divine service wee use Tallow Candles yet these two fire and salt doe signifie Wine and Milke I have drunke Wine with my Milke Cant. 5.1 By Wine is designed the tree of knowledge of good and evill namely vaine curiosities of worldly things and by Milke that of life whereof Adam was deprived being desirous to tast of that other which was humane prudence Before Adam had transgressed said Zohar hee was made participant of the sapience of superiour light being not yet separated from the tree of life but when hee would distract himselfe after the knowledge of base things this curiositie ceased not till hee had wholly cast off life to incorporate himselfe to death Jacob and Esau the two principall Potentates on earth which are descended therefrom Item the Rose and the Lilly whose water extracted mounts by the fires heat that elevates it and becomes white although the Roses bee red as is the fume exhaled from blood and fat which they burne to God to send it
2. Mine is the silver and mine is the gold The Onorocrites also hold that to dream of gold presageth some near affliction because it agreeth in colour with gall and the pain in the ears two subsistences extreamly bitter and bitternesse signifies trouble anguish and grief as Pearls doe tears for their resemblance But silver expresseth joy and merriment And therefore saith the same Zohar Gold is attributed to Gabriel and Silver to Michael which in order is his superior Brasse to Vriel because it represents him in colour of fire faith to Vr of the Caldees Gold saith he and fire march together and copper with them where was built the little Altar without where the bloud of the Sacrifices was spilt and that within was of gold Exod. 38. and 39. Silver is the primary light of the day and Jacob. And gold that of the night and Esau or Edom red Silver represents milk and gold wine alluding to craft and subtilty where it is said in the 2. Eccles I thought to draw my flesh with Wine to give myself unto Wisedome But to return to our principall purpose fire amongst other its properties and effects is very purging and also in flesh and other corruptible substances Salt consumes the greatest part of their corrupting humors fire also doth the same and analogically spiritual fire which is nothing but the charitable ardor of the Holy Spirit that inflames us with Faith Charity Hope Shakes off the impurities of our souls as it is Esa 1.25 I will purely purge away thy drosse and take away all thy tin for this place here in the 10. of the same Prophet vers 17. And the light of Israel shall be for a fire and his holy one for a flame sheweth sufficiently that the Holy Spirit is not only light but fire and flame which salteth and repurgeth our consciences from corruption vices and iniquities The Sun also which is a visible Image of the invisible Divinity as for light fo for its vivifying heat wherewith all sensible things are maintained as the intelligible by the super câ—lestial Sun works the same effect in case of purification as fire As we may see by experience as the places where the Sun-beams come not are ever musty and mouldy and to purifie them wee open windowes to admit light into them and there make great fires which is very proper in the time of the Plague for it chaseth away ill air as light doth darknesse Also evill spirits who have more reputation in the dark from plague walking in darknesse the Hebrews call this Divell ravaging by night Deber and from his violence and Meridian Divell that of the day Ketch the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is in the fire saith Pliny a certain faculty and medicinall vertue against the Plague Who for the absence and hiding of the Sun comes to form it self wherein wee find by lightning it here and there may bring great comfort and succour in many kinds As Empedocles and Hippocrates doe elsewhere sufficiently demonstrate There was also a Physitian at Athens that got much reputation by causing them to kindle many fires during the Plague time So that the true Plague of the soul being iniquities and offences which poison it its theriac or counter-poyson cannot bee better found then in the fire of contrition that the Holy Spirit kindles therein My heart was hot within mee while I was musing the fire burned Psal 39.3 There is also a fire of Tribulation which was spoken of before that consumes our vanities and unruly concupiscences and makes us retun to God whereupon one of the ancient Fathers said it was a happy tribulation that forceth to repentance And St. Gregory the evils that presse us here doe compell us the sooner to come to God And that for our greater good that God doth thus burn us by the fire of tribuation that which was said by the Psalmist 26.3 Prove me O Lord and examine mee try my reins and my heart And in the 13. of Zach. vers 9. I will bring the third part through the fire and I will refine them as silver is refined and I will try them as Gold is tried For fire hath a double property as hath been said the one to separate the pure from the impure and the other to perfect that which remains of the pure Take away rust from silver and it will go forth a most pure vessell But the propriety of these significations is better kept in the Hebrew then in any other tongue Where the verb Szaraph is joined and attributed unto silver which signifies to melt and to refine and to Gold Baban to prove The one denotes Gods in Elect an holy purity of conscience by silver the other by gold a perfection of constancy which wee cannot know better then by proof and from thence comes dignity and eternall glory the one and the other acquired by the fire of Examination and of probation for as saith St. Chrysostome that which fire is towards gold and silver the same is tribulation in our soules from which fire cleanseth the impurities and uncleannesse and makes them neat shining following that which is said in the 17. of Prov. As silver is tried by fire in the furnace so God proveth the hearts of his Creatures and in the 27. of Eccles ver 5. The furnace tryeth the Potters vessell and tentation of tribulation trieth good men There are many saith one of the Fathers who whilest they are red in the fire of adversity make themselves flexible and malleable but departing therefrom they harden themselves again as before making themselves unfit for conversion or amendment Origen in his 5. Homilie upon the 3. Chap. of Jesus Nave they that draw near unto me draw near unto fire If you bee saith hee there Gold or silver the nearer you come to the fire the more you will become resplendant but if you build with wood straw or chaffe upon the foundation of Faith and come near the fire you shall be consumed very happy then are those that drawing near the fire are therewith lightned and not burnt According as it is written in the 3. of Mal. The Lord will sanctifie thee in burning fire St. Augustine upon a verse of the 45. Psalm Wee have passed through water and fire Fire burneth saith hee and water corrupteth When adversity comes upon us it is as it were fire unto us and worldly prosperities on the contrary are as water The earthen vessell that is well hardened in the fire fears neither water nor fire Let us then study to amend our selves by the fire of tribulation by bearing it patiently for if the pottery be not firmly strengthened by fire the water of temporall vanity will soften it and mingle it as durt And therefore wee must passe through the fire to come to the water of Mercy and Grace whereof St. John speaketh in the 3. of S. Mat. I Baptize you with water unto repentance but hee that comes after mee is stronger then