The Persians and Vestalls fire at Rome reverenced as well by the one as by the other as very holy was very carefully entertained Touching the Persian Strabo in his 15. Book writeth that the Magi had a custome to conserve it under ashes before which they went every day to make their prayers and devotions which is not without some mystery The ashes denoting the sensible world and the body of man which it represents being nothing else but ashes and the fire therein inclosed and covered the sparkle of life wherewith it is animated and vivified These ashes furthermore must be of some gummy trees Coals kept in Junipeâ— for tâ—â— space of a yea to make it of longer durance namely of Juniper wherein I heretofore have kept living coals more than a year heaping up bed upon bed within the ashes being all lock't fast within a little barrell that no air may enter and this is that which is meant in the 120. Psalm 4. ver with Juniper coals according to the Hebrew in place of uncomfortable With these burning coals the Persians came to light the luminaries of their Temples when they came to be extinguished But the Vestals in case their fire should extinguish as it sometimes happened it was not lawfull for them to light it again but must draw it from the Sun beams And did not only attend that it should quench of it selfe or by some casuall accident but they renewed it yearly the first day of March from that of heaven as Ovidius observes tertio Fastorum Adde that new fire was made in the secret house and the renewed fire took force Which Macrobius also toucheth in his second of Saturnals 12. chap. The first day of March the Vestals lighted a new fire on the Altar of the Goddesse that by the renewing of the year they should renew in themselves their care of keeping it from going out Saint Augustine in his third Book of the City of God 18 ch In what reputation saith he this sacred fire was at Rome men may know by this that when the City was a fire the grand Pontifex Metellus for fear that this strange fire should not mingle with the other put himselfe in danger to be consumed by the flames to make it retire So that there is nothing more conformable to the tenth of Leviticus That if these poor blind people which took the Symbols and Mysteries of Religion but superficially and from the bark as do also the Jewes from whom they borrowed all their important Traditions had known that which was covered and prefigured thereunder what accompt is there to beleeve that they made thereof Some do alledge that this sacred fire of the Vestals was illuminated by means of fusil bruising two pieces of wood one against another or in piercing them with a borrier as Festus would have it and Simplicius upon the third Book of Heaven according to Aristotle Plinie in the 16. Book 4. chap. Men rub two woods one against another from whence fire is forced which is received in by a bait made of dryed leaves and put in powder or in the match of the touchwood of a tree But there is nothing which doth better conduce thereunto then Ivy beaten or bruised with Laurell the same is of late more practised by the Savages of the West Indies as Gonzale d'Ovidiedo in his natural History of those quarters lib. 6. cap. 5. binding saith he two dry sticks hard one against another and putting betwixt their juncture the point of a rod well rounded which they rub thick and thin betwixt the hands so long till the fire by rubbing and the rarefaction of the air that followes them may lighten them Of this new relightning to shew us that we must renew and be borne again to a better and more praisable life not farre different from the Ceremonies of the Christian Church when on the Eves of Easter and Whitsontide at the Benediction of Springs and Fountains they make a new great wax Taper wherewith all the other luminaries are set on fire Touching Moses fire it was first sent from Heaven and lasâ—ed to the construction of Solomons Temple which was again renewed from Heaven and maintained to King Mamasses his time when the Jewes were carryed captives into Babylon which the Levites kept in the bottome of a Well where it was found again at their return 70 years after in the form of a gluish and white water as hath been said heretofore Pausanias to the Corinthians sets down that in the dayes of Antigonus son of Dâ—metrius there appeared a fountain of warm water near to the City of Mathana but from the beginning it appeared not in water but in great flames of Fire which were resolved into hot and salt water Saint Ambrose yet discoursing upon this water of the Levites in the third of his offices sets down that this doth sufficiently demonstrate that this was a perpetual fire which could not be taken from another place to shew that they must not acknowledge any other God or other religion and ceremonies then those that were established by the inspiration of the holy Spirit designed by fire for we may see what the children of Aaron Nadab and Abihu found in the 10 of Leviticus being willing to take upon them to offer strange fire unto God Then all false doctrine idolatry heresie and impiety may be called strange fire that devours the soul as a feaver doth the body with the life that maintains it there where this true fire sent from Heaven is that of the holy Spirit which salteth our hearts and consciences that is to say preserves them from corruption according whereunto the Prophet Jeremie spake in his 20. chapter when he had received it Then it was made as a burning fire in my heart and shut up in my bones and I was weary in forbearing and could not stay That the Holy Spirit should not be only light but very fire Esay doth manifest chap. 10.17 And the light of Israel shall be for a fire and his holy one for a flame For even so as the burnings which are a potentiall fire composed of igneal and burning saâ—ts work not upon a dead part insensible and deprived of Natures heat so the holy Spirit doth not exercise its actions upon cold languishing hearts that make no account of its ticklings and invitations but shew themselves contumacious and refractary just so as the heat of the Sun and of the fire but more and more hardens earth and clay in stead of softning it and melts it as they do wax butter and grease For the acts of Actives are in the disposition of the Patient where we see fire does divers effects in disagreeable subjects but not wholly contrary and directly opposite as when it blacks a coal and white chalk where its vertue is imprinted but all to the contrary for fire by custome is extinguished by water it is it that in this respect inflames and renewes that which was imprinted and hidden
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
I and he will Bâ—ptize you with the holy Spirit and with fire Of which fire we may see in the 16. of Wisdome 17. for it is woâ—derfull that in the water that quencheth all things fire should be most powerfull That which made St. Auguistine himself say that in the Sacrament of Baptism which they exercise and Catechise they first came to fire and after to the Baptism of water where the same comes to the temptations of this age where in the anguish which oppresseth us the fire first presents it self but when the fear therein is out it is to bee feared that a wind of vain glory proceeding from temporall felicity dissolve it not into rain which will come to quench the fire of heat and Charity which affliction hath taken within our Souls To this purpose from fire to baptismall water designed by the aforesaid passage wee have passed through water and fire this bâ—ats upon the 31. of Numb of clensing by fire and bâ— water according as the things may suffer for visible baptism is made by visible water and wherein the water consists in parts which is nothing else but congealed water by the acuity of fire thrust thereinto with which salt every Sacrifice must bee salted that is to say the externall man and the invisible baptism of the internall spirituall man is wrought by the Grace of the holy Spirit represented by fire which of it self is invisible and unperceivable except it bee attached to some matter as the soul is in the body This fire there burneth in us mortall sins and the water washeth away Veniall and Originall But some wil demand What is that fire from whence comes it that so purifies our souls and warms them in the Love of God and illightens them with his knowledge for wee love nothing but what wee know and wee cannot know God nor see his light but by his light In thy light wee shall see light that is to say by his word and parol who hath vouchsafed to revest us with our flesh Thy word is a fiery word and thy servant loveth it It this fire then which our Saviour saith hee was come to send into the earth and what will I if it bee already kindled For as Prometheus brought fire here below which hee had lighted in one of the wheels of the Suns Chariot The word hath rendred lightened in the Mercavah Chariot or throne of God which is all of fire as also in the 17. of Dan. vers 9. Origen in his 13. Homil. upon the 25. of Exodus Jacinth Purple double Scarlet and Silk sets down that these four represented the four Elements Silk or Linnen the Earth from whence it came Purple Water because extracted from bloud with the shell or cockle of the sea Jacinth in Hebrew Techeleh the Air for it is without heavenly blew and Scarlet fire by reason of its red enflamed colour But wherefore is it there said that Moses redoubled the fire and not one of the rest Because that fire hath a double propriety the one to shine and to bee bright and the other to burn wee must understand corruptible things for upon the incorruptible wee must look upon for this regard to refine them and amend more and more Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked with us by the way and while hee opened to us the Scriptures Luke 24.32 said the Pilgrims of Emaus And this is it wherefore it is commanded in the Law to offer double Scarlet to adorn the Tabernacle But how can this bee Aske Origen a Doctor instructing people in the Church of God designed by the Tabernacle if hee did but cry after the vices blasphem and reprove them without bringing instruction and consolation to the people explaining to them the Scriptures and the obscure sense therein concealed wherein consisteth the internall Doctrin and the mysticall understanding hee well offers Scarlet but simple and not double because that this fire doth not but burn and not lighten But on the other side if they doe but clear and interpret Scripture without reprehension of vice and sin and to shew requisite severity to a declarer of the Word of God wee offer as it were simple Scarlet for this fire there doth not but illuminate doth not enflame persons to repentance of their misdoings correction and amendment of life whereunto cooperates the Grace of the Holy Spirit which is domestique fire with which wee must salt our souls to preserve them from corruption for there is nothing that doth more symbolize to the nature of the soul then fire because it is that of al things sensible which approacheth more to spirituality as well for its continuall and light motion which soars alwayes upwards as for its light which Plotin saith must properly be attributed to the intelligible world heat to the Celestiall and burning to the Elementary And for as much as it participates more of light then any of the other Elements that likewise acquires unto it a precellency above the rest for the Earth being a body wholly without motion dark and duskish is by consequent lesse in dignity as the settlement and lees of all others Water because it is clearer is more worthy and the Air yet more But fire is that which surpasseth all therefore it is lodged in a higher place and nearer to the Region of the air It is that which Vincent no despicable Author was pleased to say in his Philosophicall Mirror 2. Book 33. chap. Every thing for as much as it participates more of light so much the more it approacheth nearer to the Divine Essence which is perfect light by which God began the Creation of the Universe or the first thing that hee ordained to bee made was light and to shew us that wee must alwayes walk in light and not in darknesse And on the contrary how much more the Elements are distant from light by so much they approach to their dissemblance and deformity which is a token of corruption For as much as the parties of the composed Elements are homogeneall and homomaternall or like one to another so much lesse are they corruptible and separable as wee may see in gold the most proportionate substance of all and which approacheth nearest to fire that which moved Pindarus from the beginning of his first Olympian to join these three water fire and gold together water is best gold and shining fire c. Doe wee not see that at every end of a field almost that the Earth doth change nature and quality and that there are infinite sorts of them Not so many of Water Air is most like unto it self but if there bee any changes or alteration therein it is by accident as if some maladies should fall thereupon which doe more readily adhere thereunto because of its rarity of substance then to any others Fire is altogether exempt therefrom being alwayes one and in its al like to his parts which are like to themselves except the matter
banished from thence he placed at its entrance a brandishing sword of fire to keep the passage to the tree of life With this fire then we must all be salted that are in the way of salvation following that which Origen sets downe in his 3. Homil. upon the 36. Psalme Wee must all goe to the fire of Purgatory and Peter and Paul but all shall not passe thereby after the same sort as they did whereof it is said in the 43. of Esay 2. When thou shalt passe through the waters the waves shall not cover thee for I will be with thee when thou shalt march through the fire thou shalt not bee burnt The Israelites passed through the red Sea dry-shod and the Aegyptians were drowned therein The three children in Nebuchadnezzars furnace had no detriment and those that heated the fire without were therewith consumed And in the 19. Hom. upon the 16. of Leviticus All are not purged by this fire that parts from the Altar it is the fire of the Lord for hee that is from the Altar is not of God but a strange fire dedicated for the cruciating of sinners which shall never be quenched nor the worm that gnaweth shall never dye for after that the soul by a multitude of its wicked comportments hath heaped up within him abundance of sinnes this congregation of evils in succession of times comes to boil and enflame us with a paine and punishment internall as the body doth of a feaver proceeding from the excesse of the mouth or other superfluities when she shall come to thinke and relate a history of its delinquencies which will bee a perpetuall prickle wherewith it will bee tormented so that shee will make her selfe as an accuser and witnesse against her selfe aâ—cording as the Apostle said Rom. 2.15 Their conscience also bearing witnesse and their thoughts either accusing or excusing one another in the day when God shall judge the secrets of all men But Jeremie on the other side speaking of a drinke of the wrath of God which shall be poured out upon all manner of Nations whereof whosoever will not drinke shall not be purified and from that we learne that the fury of Gods vengeance profiteth for the purgation of souls as well in generall as in particular and there is nothing more purgative then fire of which the Prophet Malachy should say in his 3. chap. 3. The Lord will sanctifie them in a burning fire and such is the fire of tribulations and adversity with which we must be salted and purged for salt is purgative above any other thing as wee may sufficiently perceive in those that drink Sea water who all dye of a flux Of the other fire which is exterminative and strange of which it is also in the 10. of Leviticus 2. And a fire went out from the Lord and devoured Nadab and Abihu God said in the 32. of Deut. v. 22. They shall burne unto the lowest hell and shall consume the earth with her encrease and set on fire the foundations of the Mountaines For the justice of the Almighty said one of the good Fathers foreseeing that which must come from the beginning of the world created this fire of eternall hell that whereof Esay intends to speak whose fire is not quenched to beginne to be the punishment of the wicked without that burning and heat should cease now for that it is neither wood nor charcoale nor other matter to maintain it but shall be eternally tâ—rmented therewith in body and soul because they have offended with the one and the other for sins are the bait and nourishment of this fire which by a gathering together of misdeeds and superabundance of iniquity heaped one upon another enflame the soul to a perdurable punishment even as a burning feaver the repleat body and render it a joice of ill digestion by a superfluity of viands and other disorders and excesse from whence there was drawne a wicked habitude for the soul then comming to remember her delights agitated with the living and most rigorous pricks which gall it she comes to be her owne accuser by certaine remorse of conscience that can profit them no more because in hell there is no redemption and to be his witnesse and judge as the Apostle sets it downe in the 2. of the Romanes Their conscience bearing witnesse and their thoughts accusing them in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men But there is also a fire in this world by which we must be salted and purified for as much deduction of it as we must endure from thence namely tribulations which are to us as a Minorative in Physick of the compleat purgation that wee must receive thereby The two foresaid fires furthermore that of the Altar and the strange may be very properly compared that there to aqua vitae the other to aqua fortis which ends and destroyes all where aqua vitae serves for nourishment for all that wee eat or drinke participates thereof and is that which passeth and converts into nutriment It is true that it is revealed more nearly in some subjects then in other Wine is that where it manifests it self soonest and with lesse preparation and paâ—ne afterwards wheat and so of the rest for there is nothing wherein nâ—ture doth so soone make his profit as of these two Aqua vitae is also called burning because it conceives so easily the flame and burneth for that it is necessary that whatsoever doth nourish must suffer under the fires action Otherwise how is it that naturall heat could work thereupon which is much weaker then that of fire wee know by experience that we could not draw any nourishment from stones metals earth and other substances whereupon fire cannot bite and if wolves doe sometimes eat clay wild-ducks and other birds small flints and gravell it is either to avoid vacuity or for some medicament to them knowne by a secret instinct of nature but not that this doth digest or serve them for maintenance no more then Iron doth Ostriches which yet they corrupt by a strong and great heat of their stomach But you will say that this assimilation contraries the text of the 10. of Leviticus where Aarons sonnes are so burned for offering strange fire That which Rabbi Simeon to Zohar relates in part that they served at the Altar being drunk and overcome with wine for that which followes after demonstrates it that God said unto Aaron Thou nor thy sonnes shall not drink wine when you enter into the Tabernacle whereto may be answered that similitudes cannot in all or through all agree otherwise it would be the same thing they represent Aqua vitae doth not make drunke if men take not so much at a time that it may alienate people from their spirit And yet being separate from wine the remainder should be nothing but phlegme and residences which cannot in any sort make drunke nor being therewith mingled and adjoined by nature as to stoppe again the acuity
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
with the azure flame doe signifie the soul and the Jod is the white unchangeable and permanent flame of the intellect where all at length comes to terminate which whitenesse is the seat of the true spirituall hidden light which is not seen nor known but by it self for indeed our nature to take it in it self is but a dark substance right resembling the Moon which hath no light but what it receives from the Sun which she is apt to receive as our soul is that of the intellectuall light And there is not a creature whatsoever which is of it self a substantiall light but only a participation of the only true light which shineth in all and through all plainly and sensibly It is the Chasmall of Ezechiel according to Zohar whence proceeds fire or light assembled of two which are yet but one thing the white light namely which mounteth and cleareth that which no mortall eye could suffer that of which is written in 46. Psal Light is risen to the just and gladnesse to the upright in heart which corresponds to the intelligible world and the inward man The other is a twinckling and flaming light of a red fiery colour joined and united to a coal or a weik signifying the sensible world and the outward corporall man The soul is placed in the middle namely the blew light part whereof is fastened to the weik and part to the white flame quickly adhering to one and quickly to another whence according as shee applies it self it comes to bee either burned or illuminated following that which Origen sets down upon the 14. of Jer. That God is a red burning fire consuming and destroying as concerning sinners and to holy and just persons a white rejoycing and vivifying light Jamblicus that doth not soar so high as Zohar being not assisted but by the light and instinct of nature said very well but afterwards the Phaenician Theologie that al which we can perceive of goodnesse and contentment in this sensible world comes from the light which is imparted to us from the Sun and Stars illustrated with it And as the Sun imparts his light to the Moon to the Stars and to the Heavens so God communicates his to the intelligible world the lively Fountain of all others to his blessed Intelligences So that all what our souls can have of good of joy of beatitude be it whilest they are annexed to the bodies or separated therefrom comes from this primordiall light which shineth in them by reflexion as the Sun beams in a basin a concave looking glasse or in water or twhart a looking glass according as St. Denys sets it down in his 4. chapter of divine names which proceeding from the Soveraign good carries therewith the same appellation And Rabbi Eliezer in his chapters sets down that the heavens were created with the light of the Creators vestment grounding himself upon the Psalmist 204.2 Clad with light as with a vestment and the Earth with snow which was under the throne of his glory All Rabinique Allegories may men say but where doe the great mysteries consist from which St. Denys doth not straddle far in the place alledged for even as this fair great and clear shining Sun that hath in it self such a manifest representation and image of Soveraign good extends it light throughout the Univers and doth communicate it to all that are capable to receive it So that there is nothing which doth not participate of his light and vivifying heat there is nothing that can hide it self from the heat thereof In the same manner this Eternall supercelestiall light illustrates vivifies and perfects all that which hath being and banisheth darknesses and all softning hoarinesse that may bee brought thereinto lightning our souls with a desire alwayes to participate more and more of this light for when she comes to prove it by little and little and by degrees that helps it and conducts to the joy and fruition of a Soveraign good which is the light of the Soul namely the Intellect that clears it to be able to apprehend the living spring from whence it came for light is not seen but by her self the most worthy and excellent property of fire with which it hath this in particular and proper that shee makes her self to see as it doth and by her means manifesteth all that which our sight may apprehend Yet there is nothing harder to comprehend then that which is either of the one or of the other for in shewing us and revealing us all it is then when shee hides her self most from us even to blinde us and to reduce our brightnesse into darknesse As is his darknesse so is his light Wee must then not speak of God without light because he is the crue light because O Lord thou art my Lantern which doth enlighten us by thy word Thy word is a Lantern to my feet the splendor of the Father and the living fountain of life as holy St. Augustine after St. John In him was life and the life was the light of men and light shined in darknesse and the darknesse comprehended it not So that from this light wee have double commodity the one that life by which wee live the other the light by which wee see that which enlightens us The spirituall man the true man enjoyes the one and the other the Carnall man life onely for touching the rest hee is in darknesse because they have been rebells to light saith Job because they have not her wayes Even as if one should inclose a toâ—ch within a Lantern of cut-stone or the like obscure and dark matter where its light would remain as quenched and buried without ability to extend it self abroad for the obstacle that hinders it And if we want light saith St. Ambrose there would bee no more comelinesse beâ—uty or pleasure in our house for it is it which makes all seem agreeable which he borrowed from Homer according to what was attributed in Suidas who through an unseasonable time of cold and rain having been received into an Inne where they made him a fire hee sodainly made verses containing in substance that children were the ornament and Crown of the Father Towers of walls horses of the fields ships of the Sea Magistrates of the places of the Assembly where they administred justice to the people and a fair burning and lighted fire the comelinesse and rejoicing of an house which renders it so much the more honorable To see a burning fire in an old hâ—use Some attribute them to Hesiod Trismegistus amongst the rest cals light the father of all who hath procreated man like unto iâ— participant of light and of life depending thereon and life was the light of men The Father is as the Sun in his Essence from whence comes splendor and heat which three are not separated one from another but remain united together â—lthough they are distinct in this fire then our souls are warmed in the Love and fear of God and lightened
in his knowledge Whereupon Pope Innâ—cent the 3. in a Sermon upon the Holy Spirit sets down that hee was sent to the Disciples in shape of fire to mâ—ke them shine by wisdome and to warm them by charity that which regulates and forms life and wisdom forms doctrine and as this fire hath life and heat by which it purifieth and cleanseth so the Holy Ghost by its light illuminates the spirit of man by wisdome and repurgeth it by its ardent charity This is the fire with which the inner man should be salted for to salt bake and burn doe communicate their appellations and significations by their consemblable proprieties and effects because that Salt boils in the tastes by reason of its acrimony and fire the sense when it burnes and a thing salted is half boiled as is before said as well to make it of more easie digestion as to conserve it longer which are the proprieties and effects of fire But to mount from fire here below to the Celestiall which is the Sunne the eye and heart of the sensible world and the visible Image of the invisible God Saint Denis cals it an all-apparent and cleare Statue of God and Iamblichus the Image of Divine intelligence the father of life the Image and portraict of the Prince and Soveraigne Dominator of all the universe the light of the one and the other world the Celestiall and Elementary But may we not here alledge at once this brave authority of Plutarch on the interpretation of the word El where after he had turned it and returned it about a pot by many discourses which at last concluding nothing vanished away in smoak he concludes that this word as indeed it is would say nothing else but thou art which hath been drawn from the two first letters of the holy four lettered word JEHOVAH transposed the one before the other in the Greek E.L. which sheweth that they have all drunke of this Caballine or Mosaicall fountaine And at last come to say We worship God in his essence by our thoughts and reverence the Sun which is its Image for the vertue which it hath given it to produce things here below only representing by its splendor which he communicates to all I know not what appearance or rather shadow of beatitude and mercy so much as it is possible for a visible Nature to represent an Intelligible and a moving to that which is immoveable and stable We see the Sunne as wel as fire but not so neare to be able so exactly to marke it we shall very well conjecture in our spirit of that which we may well apprehend by sight that this must be the most admirable peece of worke of all visible Creatures For although it appears unto us little bigger then a dish or platter in regard of the great distance betwixt us and it so that I tremble to conceive it after the very demonstrations Mathematicall which are certaine and infallible yet it is many times greater then the Globe of the Earth and Water joined together which containeth more then 6000 miles about an apparent witnesse of the wisdome and greatnesse of its Architect Of which Ecclesiasticus in the 43. chapter makes this fine Epiphonema Who is he that can ever satisfie himself to contemplate the glory of the Creator the Firmament in its height which comprehends all things under it so pure and cleare and the forme of this vast and immense hollow of Heaven so faire and admirable to the sight Is not this an apparent vision of his glorious and triumphant Majesty The Sunne at his rising shewing the light of the day an admirable vessell arrived in the middle of his dayly Carreer it burns and rosteth the earth and who is it that can subsist before its extreame heat It burneth thrice double the mountains more then the fiery furnaces the pottery which they put to scum off exhaling from it selfe flaming vapors and a splendor which darkens the most strong assured sight Surely the Lord which hath made and formed it of nothing so fair so great and admirable may well say it to be greater then his owne worke and which hasteth it so speedily as to measure this incomprehensible space in 24 hours With the surplus of this discourse which refers it selfe and is as a Paraphrase upon the 19. Psal where in few termes there are touched three principall points of the Sunne Its beauty compared to a spouse comming out of his bed chamber and he as a Bâ—idegroome comming out of his chamber his force and impetuosity as a Giant to runne his course nor is there any thing that can hide himselfe from the heat thereof And its extream celerity his going forth is from the end of the Heaven and his circuit to the ends of it So that as Saint Augustine in his third Sermon upon Advent there are three things in the Sunne its course its splendor and its heat the heat dries the splendor illuminates and its course runs through the universe And as in man which is the little world the heart is the chiefe seat of life first living and last dying So the Sunne in the great man which is the World is the spring the light and heat which vivifieth all things which imparteth to the Starres and to the Moone the light by which they shine even as Christ which is the Sunne of Righteousnesse and the light of our Souls which without it would remaine buryed in a blinde obscurity He that followes me shall not walke in darknesse but shall have the light of life which conserves it self for the good and extinguisheth it selfe against the wicked witnesse Job 18. The light of the wicked shall be put out Where light is such that sometimes the evill Angels transform themselves to deceive us for in as little as we can blow it backe behinde us it growes dead and dissipates But the true and right light doth illighten us without variation as well in the knowledge of God in this which dependeth on our Salvation as of things sensible and naturall whereunto the clearnesse of the Sunne and of Fire and their effects do guide us more then any other thing to apprehend some sparkle of this soveraigne Wisdome wherewith God built this great All by his Word For every science to which we may attaine by our ratiocination and discourse proceeds from the knowledge of sensible things for there is nothing in the intellect but was first in the sense but incertaine and variable to be in continuall variation and vicissitude So that the knowledge that comes from the light of Nature is very weake and full of doubts and incertitudes if it bee not illustrated by Divine Revelation which makes us see all as it is in its true and reall essence as the light of the Sunne doth all things corporall So that the most part of heathen Philosophers after they have alembeck't their spirit to the perquisition of naturall causes they finde themselves so confounded that they are