A DISCOVRSE OF FIRE and SALT DISCOVERING Many secret Mysteries AS WELL PHILOSOPHICALL AS THEOLOGICALL London Printed by Richard Cotes 1649. To his worthy friend Captaine Thomas Falconbridge SIR J Have been informed of your zeal and forwardnesse in advancing Learning and Truth two commendable vertues for a man of your merit and profession And meeting with a subject composed by a French Authour I present the Translation to your favourable acceptance It is of forraign birth though swadled up in an English habit It hath done much good abroad and I am confident it will do the like here if supported with your approbation It had not seen the Presse here had I not been assured of the candor and integrity of the Authour I repose confidence of acceptation because the Translator hath been of your long acquaintance and was lately sensible of your propensity and assistance when he came in your way If this may find grace with you you will engage him to make further inquisition into this most sacred and secret mystery and to rest SIR Your most affectionate friend EDVVARD STEPHENS AN EXCELLENT TREATISE OF FIRE and SALT Composed by the Lord Blaise of VIGENERE The first part PYTHAGORAS who of all Pagans was undoubtedly by common consent and approbation held to have made more profound search and with less incertainty penetrated into the secrets as well of Divinity as of Nature having quaffed full draughts from the living source of Mosaicall Traditions amid'st his darke sentences where accordlng to the Letter he touched one thing and mystically understood and comprised another wherein he imitates the Aegyptians and Chaldaeans or rather the Hebrewes from whence all theirs proceeded he here sets downe these two Not to speake of God without Light and to apply Salt in all his Sacrifices and Offerings which he borrowed word for word from Moses as we shall hereafter declare For our intention is here to Treat of Fire and of Salt And that upon the 9. of Saint Marke ver 49. Every man shall be salted with Fire and every Sacrifice shall be salted with Salt Wherein foure things come to be specified Man and Sacrifice Fire and Salt which yet are reduced to two comprehending under them the other two Man and Sacrifice Fire and Salt in respect of the conformitie they beare each to other In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth this said Moses on the entrance upon Genesis Whereupon the Jew Aristobulus and some Ethniques willing to shew that Pythagoras and Plato had read Moses bookes and from thence drawne the greatest part of their most secret Philosophy alledged that which Moses should have said that the heaven and the earth were first created Plato in his Timaeus after Timaeus Locrien said that God first assembled Fire and Earth to build an universe thereof we will shew it more sensibly of Zohar in the Weik of a Candle lighted for all consists of light being the first of all Creatures These Philosophers presupposing that the World consisted as indeed it doth of the foure Elements which are as well in heaven and yet higher as in the earth and lower but in a diverse manner The two highest Aire and Fire being comprised under the name of Heaven and of the Aethereall Region for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes from the verbe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shine and to enflame the two proprieties of these Elements And under the word Earth the two lower Earth and Water incorporated into one Globe But although Moses set Heaven before Earth and observe here that in all Genesis he toucheth at nothing but things sensible but not of intelligible things which is a point apart for concerning this there is no good agreement between Jewes and Christians Saint Chrysostome in his first Homily Observe a little with what dignity the Divine Nature comes to shine in his manner of proceeding to the creation of things For God contrary to Artists in building his Edifice stretched out first the heavens round about afterwards planted the earth below Hee wrought first at the head and afterwards came to the foundation But it is the Hebrewes custome that when they speake most of a thing they ordinarily put the last in order which they pretend to touch first And the same is here practised where Heaven is alledged before Earth which he comes to discry immediately after In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth and the Earth was without Forme and void Saint Matthew useth the same upon the entrance to his Gospell The Booke of the Generation of Jesus Christ the son of David the son of Abraham Abraham begat Isaac c. For it is well knowne that Abraham was a long time before David Otherwise it seemes that Moses would particularly demonstrate that the Earth was made before the Heaven by the Creation of man that is the Image and pourtrait of the great World for that in the second of Genesis God formed man of the slime of the earth that is to say his body which it represents and afterwards breathed in his face the spirit or breath of life that carrieth him backe to heaven whereunto suits that which is written in the 1 to the Cor. 15. The first man from the earth is earthly and the second man from heaven is heavenly the first man Adam was made a living soule and the last Adam a quickning spirit Whereto the Generation of the Creature relates who six weeks after the Conception is nothing but a masse of informed flesh till the soule that is infused from above doth vivifie it Moreover the foure Elements whereof all is made consists of foure qualities Hot and Drie Cold and Moist two of them are bound up in each of them Earth that is to say Cold and Dry the Water Cold and Moist the Aire Moist and Hot the Fire Hot and Dry whence it comes to joine with the earth for the Elements are circular as Hermes would have it each being engirded with two others with whom it agreeth in one of their qualities which is thereunto appropriate as Earth betwixt Fire and Water participates with the Fire in drynesse and with Water in coldnesse and so of the rest Man then which is the Image of the great World and therefrom is called the Microcosme or little World as the World which is made after the resemblance of his Archetype is called the great man being composed of foure Elements shall have also its heaven and its earth The soule and understanding are its heaven the body and sensuality its earth So that to know the heaven and earth of man is to have true and entire knowledge of all the Universe and of the Nature of things From the knowledge of the sensible World we come to that of the Creator and the Intelligible world by the Creature the Creator is understood saith Saint Augustine Fire then gives motion to the body Aire feeling Water nourishment and Earth subsistence Moreover heaven designes the intelligible world the
meanes their Globe from this time forward would remaine darke as a Lampe whereby light which before gave it light should bee quenched for lacke of nourishment or other accident This light or luminous fire is in the Starres as the bloud is in animals or juice in vegetables whereto Homer seemes willing to grant in the 5. of his Iliads where he puts that for as much as the Gods do not live by bread and wine as mortalls but by Ambrosia and Nectar so they have no bloud but in lieu thereof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a substance which they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is as it were a subtill saltish waterishnesse hindering corruption in animals and all other composed Elements but wee must here a little better cleare this for the great affinity that the Sunne and Fire have together Wee must then understand that the Sunne arising by its attraction elevates the spirits of the earth which are of two natures a moist vapour including and a dry vapour included are together exalted saith the Philosopher in the 5. of his Meteors the one hot and moist as is the Aire and Water potentially this which is properly called Vapour the other hot and dry of the nature and power of fire called Exhalation The first resolves into water as raines snowes hailes mists fogges and other such moist impressions as are formed of this vapour in the middle Region of the Aire for being grosse and heavy they cannot mount higher but afterwards being thickned and congealed by the cold that resides there they fall backe here below more materiall then those which were not mounted from thence and at last all do resolve into water The second called Exhalation is subdivided into three kindes the first more viscous grosse and heavy is that whereof your fires are formed which are called Castor and Pollux otherwise Saint Herme the foole fires and the like which cannot mount higher then the low Region of the Aire the second is a little lighter more subtill and depured penetrating even to the middle Region where thunders and lightnings are formed the wandring starres barres of fire cheurons and other such inflamations P. 75. The third is yet more dry and light and more free from unctâ—osity almost of the nature of that Quintessence which we observe in Aqua vitae soveraignly depured therefore it may mount not onely to the highest Region of the Aire and that of Fire contiguous but escape yet whole and safe higher then the Heaven with which for its greatest subtilty and depuration which it hath gotten in this long way it hath a great conformity For being come to the Globe of the Sun it is there perfected to concoct and to digest into a pure and cleare light for the nourishment as well of it selfe as of other starres the same that Pliny toucheth in the 8 and 9 chapters of his second booke So that the Starres receive all their light and nourishment from the Sunne after that it hath been there concocted and fitted and not by the forme of reflexion as from its raies which would lessen themselves either in water or in a looking Glassse for all that which participates of fire hath need of nourishment This is done as in the Animall where the most pure bloud comes from the Liver to empty it selfe through the Arteries into the heart which conducts it to its last perfection for the nourishment of Spirits But this must be understood if these Exhalations and vapours finde issue atwhart the pores and spongiosities of the Earth Tuffe p. 76. a kind of white Sand or soft and brittle Stone to evaporate upwards But if peradventure it meet with Tuffe or Sand or the like lets and hindrances which do contradict them or let them they stay there and wax thicke for procreation of minerals that is to say a hot and a dry exhalation in the nature of Brimstone and a moist vapour in the nature of Quicksilver not vulgar but a substance yet spirituall and full of fume from the assembling of which two in a subtill vapour they come to procreate in themselves afterwards by a long continuance of time metals and meane minerals according to the purity or impurity of their coagulated substances and the temperature defect or excesse of the heat that recocts them in the entrails of the earth Without going from my intention of the foresaid exhalations I thought fit to touch a little upon an experiment whereunto I arrived by my industry which I thinke will not be disagreeable Take good old Wine and put therein a certaine quantity of Salnitre and Camphire in a Platter upon a fire pan within a Closet well firmed that aire cannot enter and make it evaporate therein and that there be no more covering then the thicknesse of the backe of a knife to give it so much aire as it must have to make it burne This being done shut well your little window that nothing may vapour out after you have withdrawne the dish or platter from thence to 10. 20. or 30. yeares provided that the aire do not enter and that the winde blow not in bringing in thither a lighted waxe candle you shall see infinite little fires capring as lightnings in the great heate of Summer which are not accompanied with thunders and lightnings nor with stormes windes and raines having nothing but an inflamation of Aire by reason of Saltpeter and Sulphur which are elevated from the Earth Before wee passe from our intention of vapours and exhalations that no man doubts but do proceed from heat introduced within the earth by the continuall motion of the heaven round about and of the Celestial bodies whence light is accompanied with some heat that it darts thereinto Let us come to the experiments next approaching to our sensible knowledge wee see that the fire leaves two sorts of excrements the one grossers namely Ashes remaining in the bottome of its adustion that containeth Salt and Glasse and the two fixed and solid Elements Fire and Earth The other more light and subtill which the fume carries upwards that is the Soote wherein are contained the two volatill and liquid Elements called by the Chymists Mercury and Sulphur and by the Naturalists Vapour and Exhalation By Mercury is designed Water or Vapour and by Sulphur Oile and Exhalation Of Salt and of Earths therein there are found a very small quantity yet sufficient thereby to perceive how the four Elements are found out in the resolution of all the composed Elementaries Take then the Soote of Chimney but of that which shall mount highest in a very long Chimney pipe and in the very top where it must bee most subtill thereof fill a great Cornue or an Alembic two parts of three then apply thereunto a great recipient which you wrap about with linnen wet with fresh water Give fire by small quantities the water and the oil will distill together although the water ought in order to issue out first After that
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
white as snâ—w and Apoc. 3.6 The Elect are ever clothed in white and in the 6.11 speaking of the martyred Saints for the faith of their Redeemer there was given unto every one of them white robes Having set down a little before that the Angell which had gotten the victory and the Crowne was mounted on a white horse as in the 19 and 20. the Throne of God is dressed with white and hee that was mounted on the red horse had a great bloudy sword in his hand that one might massacre another But yet more expresly in the first of Isaiah Although your sins were as red as fine Scarlet they should be as white as Snow And further though they were as red as crimson they will become as white as wooll But some may say here are many things which by little and little do turne us from our principall aime and are as it were extravagant dresses But not altogether yet as to mount some sharpe precipice wee must turne about to goe at more ease to shunne cliffes and precipices So are wee sometimes to make some small by-courses and digressions to facilitate our Theame Rivers that goe turning are more commodious for Navigation then those that runne impetuously one way downe There shall bee nothing at last God willing unprofitable nor from the purpose Then all this red and white is but Fire and Water the pillar of fire by night and the white cloud by day into which as the Apostle saith the people of the Jewes were baptized and in this cloud the divine Wisdome established his Throne that of the Law of Moses this of grace Fire and Salt Zohar speaking of Moses his two first Tables broken for the Idolatry of the Golden Calfe with two pillars the one of fire representing naturall heate by which all things are vivified the other is water that is radical moisture which maintaineth life from which that is not much different in the 15. of the Apoc. where it is said that he saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire which radicall moisture was perverted and changed in the deluge by the universall inundation so that it was not since so vigorous as before but shall at last bee brought to extermination on all sides at the end of time by a finall conflagration The first mutation shall meet with some mercy the race of mankinde being at that time not wholly extinct but the remainder was saved with Noah and his in the Arke but the second shall have none but all shall perish by the extreame rigour of fire To the purpose of these two substances the Assyrians and other people of the East adored Fire as that which represented to them naturall heat and the Aegyptians with all those on the South of Nilus which is radicall moisture which goes to render it selfe into a Sea impregned with salt to preserve it in the end from corruption Now for this effect all humours of animall bodies bloud spittle urine and the rest are salted without which all would corrupt each other in an instant Behold the difference that there is in holy writ that apply the meditations of things sensible to Sacramentall mysteries and of ratiocinations of blinde Paganisme who not turning it but above the barke penetrate no further then that which the uncertain and doubtful sense may make them comprehend without passing further to the relation of divine things where at last al must refer to spiritualty resembling therein properly to the Ostrich who beates sufficiently with the wing as if shee would mount to heaven but yet her feet for all that do not forsake the earth The Phaenician Theologie admitted but of one Element Fire which is the principall and chief of all the productor and destroyer of all things which doth not much disagree from that in the 118. Psal is the fiery word by which times were formed Heraclitus also puts fire for the first substance that informed all and from whence they drew all things from power into action as well superiour as inferiour celestiall and terrestriall For hot and cold moist and dry are not substances but qualities and accidents from whence naturall Philosophers forged four Elements whereas according to verity there is but one which according to the vestments that it receives from the accidentall qualitie takes divers appellations If from the heat it is from the Aire from moisture Water from drynesse Earth which three are but one fire but reclothed with divers and different habits Even as Fire extending it selfe in all and through all so all things come to render unto it as to the center So that it may be rightly called an infinite and indetermined vigour of nature or rather the vivification thereof for without it nothing could be comprehended seen or obtained above or below that which illightens is celestiall that which concocts and digests Aereall and that which burnes is terrestriall which cannot subsist without some grosse matter coming from the Earth which he reduceth in the end to it selfe as we may see in things burned converted to ashes from whence after the extraction of Salt rests nothing but pure earth Salt being a potentiall fire and waterish that is to say terrestriall water impregned with fire from whence all sorts of mineralls come to production for they are of the nature of Water The experiment may bee seene in strong Waters all composed of minerall Salts Alums Saltpeters which burne as Fire which produceth hot and dry exhalations agitated with winds easie to take flame also of flints of Iron and of Wood and of scraped bones especially those of a Lion as saith Pliny whence we may gather that there is potentiall fire in all Not without cause then did Pythagoras after Moses ordaine not to speake of God or divine things without fire for of all things sensible there is nothing that symbolizeth or more corresponds with Divinity then Fire Aristotle writing to Alexander related unto him that hee had learned of the Brachmans that there was a fift Element or Essence which is fire wherein the Divinity resides because it is the noblest and purest of all the Elements and that which purgeth all things according to Zoroastes Plutarch alledgeth that this Divinity is a spirit of a certaine intellectuall fire that hath no forme but transformes to it selfe all that it toucheth and transmutes it selfe into all as Proteus the Genius of Aegypt was wont to say Omnia transformat sese in miraecula rerum And according to Zoroastes all things were engendred of this fire It is the light which dwelleth this saith Porphyrius in an Aethereal fire for the elementary dissipates all But more authentically Saint Denis in the 15. of the Celestiall Hierarchy Fire forasmuch as its essence is void of all forme as well in colour as in figure hath beene found the most proper to represent Divinity to our senses forasmuch as they can conceive and apprehend of the nature and divine Essence The very Scripture in many places call
addressing himselfe to God there is no resemblance nor any image interiour or exteriour but further thou hast created heaven and earth and produced out of those the Sunne and the Moon the Starres and the Signes of the Zâ—diack and in earth Trees and Herbs delights in Gardens with Beasts Birds and Fishes and at last Men that from thence things above might bee knowne And of the suâ—eriours the inferiours together so that the one and the other may bee governed Plutarch alledgeth in his Treatise of Osiris that in the City of Sais in Aegypt there was such an inscription in the Temple of Minerva borne out of Jupiters braine which is nothing else but the sapience of the Father I am that which was which is and which shall bee and as yet there is none amongst mortall men that hath yet discovered my vaile for Divinity is so wrapped in darkness that you cannot see day through it I see him not for hee is darkened with an over dark cloud said Orpheus and in the 17 Psal which made darkenesse his hiding place Further in the 4 of Deut. You came to the foot of a mountaine that burned even to heaven and therein was darkness thick clouds and obscurity for in regard of God towards us light and darknesse are but one thing as is his darknesse such is his light And in the 16 of Isaiah Make thy shadow as the night in the midst of the noone day The very same as well the affirmative as the negative by which that which is aequippollent unto darknesse we may better apprehend something of the Divine Essence but not by the affirmative that relates unto light as Rabbi Moses doth excellently well dispute it in his 57. chapter of his first booke of More For the Divine light is insupportable above all to all his Creatures even to the most perfect following that which the Apostle sets downe in the 1 of Tim. 6. God dwels in light in accessible that no man can see So that it is to us in stead of darknesse as the brightnesse of the Sun is to Moulds Owles and other night birds which darknesses are the revestments and as the borders and cloisters of the light for represent to your selves some Lanthorne placed on the top of a mountaine all round about it as from the Center to the Circumference it shall spread its light equally as farre as it can extend it so that at the last darknesse will terminate it for darknesse is nothing else but the absence and privation of light Even the very same the exteriour man carnall animall is the coverture yea darknesse of the interiour spirituall after the manner or fashion of some Lanthorne of wood or stone and other darke matter which keeps that the light there shut in could not shew forth its light the Lanthorne symbolizing to the body and the light within to the soule But if the body bee subtiliated to an aethereall nature from thence it comes to passe as if the Lanthorne were of some cleare Crystall or of transparent horne for then the soule and its functions do shine there about openly without obstacle Sith then to the one of these two namely to the inner man is attributed fire that answers to the soule and salt to the outward man which is the body as the sacrifice or man animall is the revestment of the spirituall designed by the Man and by Fire The vestment of this Fire will bee Salt in which fire is potentially shut in for all Salts are of the nature of fire as being thereof begotten Geber saith that salt is made of every thing that is burned and by consequent participant of its proprieties which are to purge dry hinder corruption and unboile as wee may see in all salted things which are as it were halfe boiled and are kept longer uncorrupt then raw also in potentiall burning irons which burne and are nothing else but Salt Will it bee lawfull for us here to bring one entire passage of Rhases in a book of the Secret Triplicity for it is not common to all and wee will strongly insist on this number by reason of the three Fires and three Salts whereof wee pretend to Treat So that there is a Mystery in this number of 3 that must not bee forgotten for that it represents the operation whereof Fire is the Operator for 1 2 3 makes 6. the 6 dayes wherein God in the Creation of the world perfected all his workes and rested the seventh day There are saith Rhases three natures the first whereof cannot bee knowne nor apprehended but by a deepe elevated Meditation This is that all-good God Almighty Author and the first Cause of all things The other is neither visible nor tangible although men should bee all contrary that is to say heaven in its rarity The third is the Elementary World comprehending all that which is under the Aethereall Region is perceived and known by our senses Moreover God which was from all aeternity and with whom before the Creation of the world there was nothing but his proper name knowne to himselfe and his Sapience that which hee created on the first day was the water wherein hee mingled earth then came hee to procreate after that which had a beeing here below And in these two Elements thicke and grosse perceptible to our senses are comprehended the two other more subtill and rare Aire and Fire These four bodies being if we must call them bodies bound together with such a minglement that they could ot perfectly separate Two of them are fixed namely Earth nd Fire as being dry and solid the other two volatil Water and Aire which are moist and liquid so that each Element is agreeable to the other two wherewith is bounded and enclosed and by the same meanes containes two in it selfe the one corruptible the other not the which participates of the Divine nature and therefore there are two sorts of Waters the one pure simple and elementary and the other common which we use in Lakes Wels Springs and Rivers raines and other impressions of the Aire There is likewise a grosse Earth filthy and infected and a Virgin Earth crystalline cleare and shining contained and shut up in the Center of all the composed Elementaries where it remaines revested and covered with many foldings one upon another So that it is not easie to arrive there but by a cautelous and well graduated preparation by fire There is also a fire which is maintained almost of it selfe and as it were of nothing so small is the nourishment that it needeth whence it comes to bee more cleare and lucent and another obscure darke and burning and consuming all that to which it is fixed and it selfe at last And Aire on the other side pure and cleane with another corruptible full of legerity for of all the Elements there is none more easie to be corrupted then the aire all which substances so contrary and repugnant mingled with elementary bodies are the cause of
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
of the resurrection whereunto it seems this would seem to strike wherein bodyes shall be glorified and reduced as into a spirituall Nature against which no spirituall obstacle can contradict nor hinder its actions from this the Apostle in the 15. of the 1. to the Corinthians doth not much vary It is sown a naturall body it is raised a spirituall body There is a naturall body and there is a spirituall body howbeit that was not first which is spirituall but that which is naturall and afterwards that which is spirituall I know moreover an Artifice whereunto I have obtained in divers subjects that burning an herb the salt extracted from these ashes and sowed in the earth a like herb will grow therefrom But this burning must be made in a very close vessel wherein we shall say more hereafter about Salt and yet we will yet bring further another of our experiments which ought not bee disregarded Of three liquors swimming one above another without either mingling or confounding together what mingling soever they be that they may not return into their residence and separated to represent the four Elements in a little vessel of glass or a little black enammill grossily beaten will hold place of earth in the bottom water will do thus Take calcined Tartar or gravelled ashes which is almost the very same thing and let them go to the moist air taking the dissolution that shall be made thereof the clearest that you can and mingle therewith a little blew stone to give it the colour of Sea water Note here a maxim and let this be said by the by for those that exercise themselves in the Spagirique that in one of these resolutions into moisture which are made by themselves all salts and alums do depure and subtiliate more then 12 or 15 dissolutions made with vineger and other like dissolvants Every thing that dissolveth it selfe is of the nature of Salt and Alum as Geber saith For air take fine aqua vitae which you shall turn into a Celestiall blew with a little turnsol and for fire the oil of Been but for that it is more rare take of Turpentine oil which is made thus Distill common Turpentine in Balneo Marie there will mount up together both water and oil so white and transparent the one as the other but the oil will swim above the water separate them by a glasse fonnell and dye this oil into a fire colour with Orchanet and with Saffern The three liquors will never mingle what ever trouble you use to them but will separate themselves distinctly into lesse then nothing by swimming one above another Of the Turpentine that remains in the Alembique you shall extract it by Sand in a Cornue with a stronger fire then by the bath a thick red oil which is most excellent balm water and oil extracted by the bath are very serviceable also in many accidents of Medicine and Chirurgery only the white oil will make scars quickly fall away without pain or evill impression But if with the water of the said Turpentine you dissolve salt of lead you shall have yet a more Soveraign balm But we must a little better clear this for sith we treat here of fire and of its effects what hinders but that we may extend our selves at length upon many things which our long labour and experience have acquired This oil of lead was one of Raymond Lullius his great secrets of many other excellent personages who have as it were made conscience to remember it for this hath been to them an entry of more admirable works Some as Riply others have taken the minium of lead but it is too easie of an uneasie resolution as also ceruse calcined lead For my part I have found litharge which is nothing else but lead for a pound of litharge you shall extract 14. or 15. ounces of lead put them into powder and poure thereon distilled boiling vinegar stirring it strongly with a staffe and sodainly the vinegar will charge it self with the dissolution of litharge Evacuate the clear and reiterate with new vinegar so long till all the litharge be dissolved Evaporate the vinegar which shall be unsavory as the water untill the salt shall remain congealed in the bottom Take thereof a good quantity and put thereof within your Cornue as much as it will hold half full and put it on the furnace with an open breech in the beginning with an easie fire chasing away that which therein may appear a remainder of strange humidity And when the white fumes shall begin to appear apply thereunto a Recipient big enough and lute it well in the Jointures after reinforcing your fire by little and little untill it become a very great one and the Cornue buried in the ashes you shal see issue as a little continued torrent after the fashion of a filet of oil but white as milk and could as ice which will come within the Recipient to resolve into an oil of the colour of an Hyacinth and odoriferous as that of Aspio Continue the fire till there comes no more out of the Cornue and leave it there to settle al the night long So now this secret oil whereof that which Raimond Lullius never more expresly said was towards the end of his short Epistle in these very terms Out of black lead is extracted the Philosophers oil of a golden color or as it were and know that there is nothing in the world more secret then it That which remains in the Cornue put burning charcoals upon it and that will take fire as the match of a fusee whence you may draw a fair secret for as long as it feels not the air it will not flame and it may dissolve againe with vinegar to doe as before But salt of lead dissolved in water and yet better then Turpentine oil will resolve to a greater quantity of oil and thereof may see more ample marvailes Take this oil which Raimond Lullius calleth his wine and put it into a small Alembic of glasse in Balneo Mariae and distill tkerein aqua vitae which will come in vains even as that of wine Draw all out so long till the drops and tears come to appear in the Chap which is a signe that there is no more flegm which being out in the bottome there will remain a pretious oil that dissolves gold and is admirable against wounds and great accidents from within for it holds the same place with potable gold Lead having great affinity with gold as Geber saith with which it agrees in Surdity in weight and in that it cannot rust And George Riplay the most learned English Philosopher in his book of the 12. portes There is extracted oil of golden colour Or like it out of our subtill red lead When Raimond said when he was old Was much more pretious then gold For when through age he was near death He thereof made his potable Gold Which revived him as may bee
earth the sensible Each of them is subdivided into two in every case I speake not but after Zohar and the ancient Rabbins The intelligible into Paradise and Hell and the sensible to the Celestiall and Elementary world Upon this passage Origen makes a faire discourse at the entry on Genesis that God first made the heaven or the intelligible world following that which is spoken in the 66. of Esay Heaven is my seat and Earth my footstoole Or rather it is God in whom the world dwelleth and not the world which is Gods habitation For in him we live Act. 17.28 move and have our being for the true seat and habitation of God is his proper essence and before the Creation of the World as Rabbi Eliezer sets downe in his Chapteâ—s there was nothing but the essence of God and his name which are but one thing Then after the heaven or the intelligible world Origen pursues God made the Firmament that is to say this sensible world for every body hath I know not what firmnesse and solidity and all solidity is corporal and as that which God proposed to make consisteth of Body and of Spirit for this cause it is written that God first made the Heaven that is to say all spirituall substance upon which as upon a certaine throne hee reposeth himselfe The Firmament for our regard is the body which Zohar calleth the Temple and the Apostle also Yee are Gods Temple 1 Cor. 3.17 And the Heaven which is spirituall is our soule and the inner man the Firmament is the externall that neither seeth nor knoweth God but sensibly So that man is double an animall and spirituall body the one Internall Spirituall Invisible that which Saint Marke in this place designeth for man the other Externall Corporall Animal which he denotes by the Sacrifice which comprehendeth not the things that are of the Spirit of God but the Spirituall discerneth all So that the exteriour man is an animal compared to brute beasts whereout they tooke their offerings for Sacrifices He is compared to foolish Beasts and is made like them for a man hath no more then a Beast we must understand the Carnall and Animall that consists of this visible body that dyeth as well as Beasts are corrupt and returne to Earth Whence Plato said very well that which is seene of man is not man properly And in the first of Alcibiades yet more distinctly that Man is I know not what else then his body namely his soule as it followes afterwards That which Cicero borrowed out of Scipio's dreame But understand it thus that thou art not mortall but this body thou art not that which this forme declares but every mans minde is himselfe not that figure which may be demonstrated by the finger And the Philosopher Anaxarchus while the Tyrant Nicocreon of Cyprus caused him to be brayed in a great Marble Morter cried out with a loud voice Stampe hard bruise the barke of Anaxarchus for it is not him that thou stampest But will it be permitted for me here to bring something of Metubales All that is is either Invisible or Visible Intellectuall or Sensible Agent and Patient Forme and Matter Spirit and Body the Interiour and the Exteriour man Fire and Water that which seeth and that which is seen But that which seeth is much more excellent and more worthy then that which is seen and there is nothing that seeth but the invisible where that which is seene is as a blind thing therefore Water is a proper and serviceable subject over whom the Fire or Spirit may out-stretch his action Also he hath elevated it for his habitation and residence for by introducing it he elevates it on high in the nature of Aire contiguous unto it which invisible Spirit of the Lord was carryed on the waters or rather did sit over tâ—e waters did see the visible moved the immoveable for water hath no motion of it selfe there is none but Aire and Fire that have and speake by the Organs of one that is dumb for as when by our winde and breath filling a pipe or flute we make it sound though never so mute This Body and Spirit water and fire are designed unto us by Cain and Abel the first Creatures of all others engendred of the seed of man and woman and by their Sacrifices whence those of Cain issuing from the fruits of the earth were by consequent corporall dead and inanimate and together destitute of faith which dependeth of the Spirit and are by Fire dissolved into a waterish vapour Pour le nouveau so that to go to finde it in its sphere and habitation for the newes we are to suffer thereunder But those of Abel were spirituall animate full of life that resides in the bloud full of piety and devotion This also Aben Ezra and the author of the Handfull of Myrrh call a fire descending from one above to regather them which happened not to those of Cain which a strange fire devoured and from thence was declared the exteriour man sensuall animall that must bee salted with Salt But Abel the interiour spirituall salted with Fire which is double the materiall and essentiall the actuall and potentiall as it is in burnings All what is sensible and visible is purged by the actuall and the invisible and intelligible by the spiritual and potentiall Saint Ambrose on the Treatise of Isaac and of the Soule What is man the soule of him or the flesh or the assembly of those two for the clothing is one thing and the thing clothed another Indeed there are two men I leave the Messibe apart Adam was made and formed of God in respect of the body of ashes and of earth but afterwards inspired in him the Spirit of Life if he had kept himselfe from misprision he was like unto Angels made participant of eternall beatitude but his transgression dispossessed him The other man is he which comes successively to be borne of man and woman who by his originall offence is made subject to death to paines travails and diseases therefore must hee returne from whence he came But touching the soule that came from God it remains in its free will if it will adhere to God it is capable to bee admitted into the ranke of his children who are borne not of blood nor of the will of the flesh Joh. 1.13 nor of the will of man but of God Such was Adam before his first transgression The soule then which is the inner man spirit and the very true man which liveth properly for the body hath no life of it selfe nor motion and is nothing else but as it were the barke and clothing of the inner man according to Zohar alledging that out of the 10 of Job 11. Thou hast clothed me with skinne and flesh whereunto that in the 6. of S. Matthew seemeth to agree where to shew us how much the soule ought to bee in greater recommendation then the body as more worthy and
God and Angels Fire and doth not onely propose unto us Chariots and wheeles of Fire but of igneall animals of burning brookes and rivers of coales and men all burned All these celestial bodies are but flaming lights and thrones and Seraphims all of fire there is so great affinity and agreement with Divinity for the fire that the feeling and smelling perceiveth is separated in respect of the substance from all others that may bee joined and mingled therewith except it bee of the matter to which it is incorporated to burne It shines it spreads it selfe from side to side and gathering it selfe to its selfe with its light it illustrates all that is neare it nor can it bee seene without the matter whereto it adheres and exerciseth its action no more then Divinity but by its effects nor arrest nor fasten nor mingle with any thing nor change so long as it liveth there where it handleth all things and draws them to its selfe and to its nature It renewes and rejoyceth all with vitall heat it illustrates and illuminates all tending alwaies upward with agility and incomparable speed It communicates his motion to all its light its heat without any diminution of its substance what portion soever it lends but ever remaines entire in it selfe It comes suddenly and returneth as fast without mans knowledge whence it comes or whither it goes with many other worthy considerations of this common fire which brings us to the knowledge of the divine fire whereof this materiall is but as a garment and coverture and Salt the coverture of Fire which is appeased in Salt and agreeth with its enemy Water as Earth in Saltpeter doth with its contra-opposite the Aire by reason of the water that is betweene them for Saltpeter participates of the nature of Brimstone and of Fire for that it burnes and of Salt for that it resolves into water For saith Heber it is the property of Salts and Alums to bee dissolved into water sith they were made thereof But of this more to the purpose hereafter in its place The meditations of the Covertures and revestments are of no small importance to mount from things sensible to things intelligible for they are all infolded one in another as an Encyclie or a spirall Moone Zohar makes these revestments double Pag. 29. Encyclides ab 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 round Eph. 4.22 24. the one mounting and devesting its selfe Put off the old man and put on the new for no spirituall thing descending downwards operates without a vestment Sit yee in Jerusalem till you be clad with power from above Luk. 24.49 And in this case the body envelopeth and reclotheth the spirit the spirit the soule the soul the intellect the intellect the Temple the Temple the Throne the Throne the Sechinah or the glory and presence of God which shineth in the Tabernacle In descending this glory is shut out from the Throne and from the Arke of the Covenant which is within the Tabernacle or Intellect the Tabernacle within the Temple which is our Soule Yee are the Temple of God the Temple is in Jerusalem our vital spirit Jerusalem in Palestine our body and Palestine in the midst of the earth whence our body is composed God then being a pure Spirit stript of al corporeity and matter for our soule being such for more reason must hee be so that made it to his image and resemblance hee cannot bee in this simple and absolute nakednesse comprehended nor apprehended by his Creatures but by certaine attributes which they give him which are as many vestments which the Caballists do particularize to ten Zephirots or numerations 3 in the intelligible world and 7 in the celestiall which come to terminate in the Moone or Malcut the last in descending and the first in mounting from the Elementary world upwards for it is a passage from here below to heaven So that the Pythagoreans call the Moone the Celestial earth and the heaven or terrestrial Star all the nature here below in the elementary world being in regard of the celestiall and the celestiall of the intelligible this Zohar called feminine passible as from the Moone towards the Sunne from whom so much as she absents her selfe till she comes to its opposition by so much she increaseth in light for our regard here below where on the contrarry in her conjunction that shee remaines all darkened the party upward is all illightned to shew us that the more that our understanding doth abate to things sensible so much the more doth he disjoine or sever them from the intelligible and contrariwise this was the cause that Adam was lodged in an earthly Paradise to have more leisure to contemplate on divine things when he thought to turne after sensible and temporall things willing to taste of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evill whereby hee departed from that of life to assubject himselfe to death he was banished from thence and put out To this very purpose Zohar doth yet adde that two vestments come from heaven to this temporall life The one formall white and resplendent masculine fatherly and agent for whatsoever is active takes place from forme of the male and from the father and this very thing comes to us from fire and from the clearnesse of the stars to illustrate our understanding The other is red maternall faeminine for the soule coming from the substance of heaven which is more rare then that of heavenly bodies That of the understanding is lodged in the braine and the other of the soule in the heart The intellect or understanding is that part of the reasonable soule made and formed after the image and semblance of its Creators and the soule in it the animal faculty called Nephesch the life namely that which resideth in the bloud and as the heaven containes the stars this contains the intellect which to us is for the rest common with brute beasts But the intellect or reasonable soule is proper and particular to men that which can merit or demerit therefore it needs repurgation and cleansing from the spots that it hath drawne and conceived from the flesh wherein it was plunged according to that in the 8. of Genesis 21. The thought and imagination of mans heart were inclined to evill from his youth And fith it is a question about cleansing the vestment which is of a fiery nature it must likewise be that it be done b◠meanes of fire for wee see by experience that one fire chaseth away another as it hath been said heretofore so that if a man bee burnt there is no readier remedy then to burne it againe in the same place enduring the heat of the fire as much as you can which drawes the inflammation to its selfe out of the party or else tempering it with Aqua vitae wherein Vitriol hath beene calcined from whence Chirurgeons have not found a more soveraigne remedy to take away the fire of a musket sho◠to
heale inflammations and gangrenes and yet there are two fires joined together But â—hâ—at which during this life must repurge our soules iâ— that whereof â—â—int Augustine in the 29. Sermon speakes thus out of the Apostles words for there is another afterwards Kindle in your selves a sparkle of good and charitable dilection blow it and kindle it for when it shall grow to a great flame that will consume the hay wood and chaffe of all your carnall concupiscences but the matter wherewith this fire must bee continued are prayers and good workes which must alwayes burne on your altar for it is it whereof our Saviour said I am come to put fire in the earth and what will I if in bee already kindled Luke 12.49 There are further two fires one on the bad part to wit of carnall concupisence the other of the good which is charity which consumes all the bad leaving nothing but good which exalts it selfe in a fume of a sweet odour for the heart of every on is as an altar either of God or of the adversary and therefore hee that is illuminated with the torch of charity which must more and more bee increased by good works that it may nourish in it selfe the ardour that our Saviour will vouchsafe to kindle whereby that is accomplished which the Apostle saith in the 5 to the Ephes That Jesus Christ hath appropriated to himselfe a Church not having spot or wrinckle holy and pure without blemish For that which the Church is in generall and common towards God the conscience of every one of us is in particular the same when it is sincerely prepared as it is requisite and that upon the fâ—â—ndation thereof men build Gold Silver pretious stones that is to say a firme faith and beleefe accompanied with good works without which faith is dead and buried all upon the model and pattern of the heavenly Jerusalem designed in the 21 of the Apoc. which is the type of the Church as is also the reasonablâ— soule where it must burne alwaies with fire upon the Altar and after the imitation of the wise and prudent virgins we may have our lamps ready well lighted and garnished with what is needfull to maintaine light attending the Bridegrome as our Saviour commanded is in Saint Luke 12. Zohar furthermore makes this repurgation of the soule to bee double which is not saâ—r â—â—sagreeing from our beleefe One is whilest the soule is yâ—â— jâ—â—ne body â—ee cals that according to the mysticall manner of â—â—king the conjunction of the Moon with the Sunne then when iâ—â—â—â—ard of â—â— here below it is not illuminated for as long as the soule is anâ—exed within the body it enjoyes very little of its owne light being all darkened thereby as if it were imprisoned in some darke obscure prison And this repurgation doth consist in repentance of its misdoings satisfaction for them and conversion to a better life in fastings almes prayers and other such penitences which may be exercised in this world The other is after the separation of soul and body which is made in the purgative fire which neither Jewes Mahometans or Ethnicks ever called in doubt But when with supreame light life leaves us yet all evill from miserable men nor yet all coporeall plagues do passe away and the punishment of old evils do weigh us some are exposed to vaine windes to others under a vast gulfe their infected wickednesse is washed off or burnt with fire Where there are set forth three repurgative Elements Aire Water and Fire But wee must not understand saith Saint Augustine on his third Sermon upon such as are diseased that by this transitory fire grievous and mortall offences and capitall sins are purged if they have not beene repented of in this temporall life or to blot out the expiation on the other side where the rest is perfected in the fire as man-slayers adulterers false witnesses concussions violences rapines injustices infidelitie erroneous obstinations and the like which are directly opposite to Gods Divine precepts and commandements but the smaller faults onely which they call veniall sinnes as eating and drinking to excesse vaine words foolish desires and depraved concupiscences not brought to effect not to exercise the works of mercy whither common charity and commiseration cals us and such other frailties of which if we repent not in this world fire shall repurge us in another and more sharply To this purpose the Hebrewes make a triple distinction of sins Chataoth are those that wee mistake against our selves without hurting any other but our selves gourmandizings inconstancies lazines idlenesse anger spite The Avonoth are addressed to our neighbour which do not blot out and pardon but by meanes of reparation and the Peschaim the transgressions praevarications and impieties directly addressed against God They draw this first out of the 34 of Exodus 7. pardoning iniquitie rebellion and offences more in the 106 Psal 6. We have sinned wee have committed iniquity wee have done foolishly and in the 9 of Dan. Chatanu Veavinu Vehirsannu there are sinnes saith Zohar imprinted above others below and others both in the one and in the other above against God below against our neighbour and in the one and in the other against our selves bodies and goods as well our neighbours as our owne noting that below the soule that above made after the image and semblance of God If they bee blotted out below they are so above Jesus Christ after his resurrection breathed on his Disciples and said unto them Receive the holy Ghost To whom soever you pardon sinnes they shall bee pardoned and whose sinnes soever yee retaine they are retained Joh 20.23 that which you shall binde on earth shall be bound in heaven But to returne to the recloâ—thing and to say something thereof the superiour is alwaies clad with the inferiour the intelligible world with the celestiall which is but as it were a shadow thereof and the celestiall with the elementary and notwithstanding it would seeme cleane câ—ntrary by the figure of Hypallage as in the 18. Psal God hath put his Tabernacle in the Sunne which is to say hee hath put the Sunne in his Tabernacle which is heaven for God doth not reside in this World but rather the World in God who comprehends all for in him wee live wee move and have our beeing Also the intelligible world should be clothed with the celestiall and the celestiall with the elementary But this to shew that we cannot well comprehend heaven being so remote from us but by that which is expounded to the knowledge of our senses here below nor of the s parated Intelligences but by the sensible There was nothing said the Philosopher in the intellect that was not first in the sensse And the Apostle in the first to the Romanes that the invisible things of God are seene in the Creation of the world by those that were made This all conformably unto Zohar In thee said he in the prayer of Elias
their destruction wherefore of necessity that which is pure and incorruptible must be separated from its contrary the corruptible and impure which cannot be done but by fire the separator and purificator But the three liquid Elements Water Aire and Fire are as inseparable one from the other for if the Aire were distracted from the fire the fire which hath therefrom one of its principall maintainments and food would suddenly extinguish and if the water were separated from the Aire all would bee in a flame That if the Aire should be quite drawne from the water for as much as by its legerity it holds it somewhat suspended all would be drowned Likewise if Fire should be separated from the Water all would bee reduced into a deluge For three Elements neverthelesse may well bee disjoined from the Earth but not wholly there must remaine some part to give consistence to the Body and render it tangible by the meanes of a most subtill and thinne portion thereof which they will elevate with them out of this gross thickness that remaines below as wee may sensibly see in glass which by an industrious Artifice of fire is depured of the darknesse that was in the ashes to passe from thence to a transparent clearnesse which is of the nature of Fire and indissoluble Salt accompanied with a firme and solid thicknesse having neither transpiration nor pores But wherefore should wee not hereto file all in one traine those so excellent Meditations of Zohar sith all depends on the same purpose God formed Adam of the slime of the earth or according to the Hebrew God formed man dust of the earth which word of forming belongeth properly to Potters who fashion of earth all that they thinke good And touching the dust this is but to abate our pride with which wee may bee swolne when wee consider the vile and corruptible matter whereof wee are made in respect of our bodies which is nothing else but mire and dirt Consider then three things saith Zohar and thou shalt not fall into transgression Remember from whence thou art come of such filthy and foule stuffe and whither thou must at last returne to dust wormes and rottennesse and before whom thou art to render an account and reason of all thy actions and comportments who is the soveraigne Judge the King of all who leaves no transgression unpunished nor good worke irrecompensed Adam then and all his posterity were formed of the dust of the earth which had before beene moistned with the fountaine or vapour which was highly elevated by the Sunnebeams to water and to soften the earth For the Earth being of it selfe cold and dry is altogether sterill and fruitlesse if it be not impregned with moisture and heat whence proceed fecundity So that Adam was composed of Earth and Water mingled together These two elements betoken a double faculty in him and double formation the one of the body in regard of this age the other of the soule in another world Water shewes the celestiall Meditation whereto our spirit may exalt it selfe and the earth of it selfe immoveable and that can never budge from below nor willingly mingle with the other three volatil elements by reason of its extreame drynesse so that it doth but grow hard by the action of fire and makes it selfe more contrary and untractable by the spirit of contradiction hard and refractory from the flesh against the spirit so that shee should reject the water which men thought to put therein if it were not by meanes of the subtill Aire interposing and mingling therewith and penetrating into the smallest parts which being suckt within the water forces the earth to feed on it to inclose it in her selfe as if shee would detaine it prisoner and by that meanes remaines great as the female by a male for every superiour thing in order and degree holds the place of male to that which is inferiour and subject thereunto Now if the Aire absent it selfe which associates and unites them together as being suppeditated and banished which is moist and hot from the extreame drynesse and coldnesse of the earth it will force it with all its power to reject the water and so reduce it selfe to its first drynesse which we may perceive in Sand which will never receive water except it be quickly separated Even so the earth is alwaies rebellious and contumacious of it selfe to bee mollified be it by water by aire by fire and after this manner there was a spirit of contradiction and disobedience introduced into Adam by reason of the earth whereof he was formed as his Companion and himselfe do shew when by the suggestion of the Serpent the most terrestriall animall of all others they so easily contradicted that extreame prohibition which was given them of not tasting the fruit of the knowledge of good and evill for the punishment whereof it was said to the Serpent thou shallt eat earth all the dayes of thy life which Isaiah resumes in 65. chap. Dust is thy bread And to Adam that the earth should produce nothing but thornes briars and thistles by means whereof if he would live he must cultivate it with the sweat of his browes till he returne to that from whence he was drawne for being dust hee must returne to dust But water which notifies Divine speculations disirous to mingle and unite with all things to whom it gave beginning and made them grow and multiply is as the carriage or vestment of the spirit following that which was said in the beginning of the Creation that the Spirit of God was stretched over the waters or as the Hebrew word Marachephet caries it hovering over them fomenting and vivifying them as a Henne doth her Chickens with a connaturall heat for this word Elobim imports I know not what of heate and fire By Water then the docill spirit obedient to the invitations of the intellect insinuated it selfe into Adam and by Earth the refractory and opiniaster that spurneth against the pricke for as the earth was the most ignoble Element of all others water rejecteth it and disdaineth it and could agree with it but as to a lee and excrement but if the pure and neat spirit remaines within the water where it made choice of its residence for from the three natures of earth water at least never joines with the two that is to say sand for its extreame drynesse that causeth a discontinuation of parts and the dirt to be fatty and unctuous there is not any thing else Argilla but slime only with which some food and mingling which may bee thereof made the water at last lets it reside below and it swimmes over as being of a contrary nature the one altogether immoveable solid and compact the other fluent removing and gliding as bloud through the veines wherein the spirits reside who can easily bee elevated to bee of a fiery quality alwayes soring upward So that the water which notifies the interiour spirit endeavours to
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
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
in the hand threatning to quench it in the water if they did not grant his request but after hee had obtained it hee was not left unpunished for his offence but for the impiety that hee had forethought to commit And from thence it became a common proverbe mentioned in Suidas I am a Persian borne of Persian parents what a strange Persian yea Sir for us to pollute fire it is sharper then cruel death But all this which may bee said of fire and by the meanes thereof hath not yet been revealed nor knowne by men Is there any thing more admirable then Gunpowder so easy to make and consisting of so few ingredients and so common Sulphur Saltpeter and coale which seeme to have been mystically designed by the Aegyptians by the three Celestial powers whence they alledge Thunder Lightning Tempests to be conducted and governed Jupiter Vesta and Vulcan By Vulcan Sulphur by Jupiter Saltpeter full of aire and winde as Raymund Lullius puts it who well knew it and its nature and its effects if he would have discovered them and by Vesta Coale as well for the Terrestreity that is in it as for that it is incorruptible being able to keepe it many thousands of yeares within the ground without alteration or spoiling which was the cause that they made a place and stage for it in the foundation of the Temple of Diana at Ephesiu Saltpeter is appropriated to the Aire because it is as of a meane disposition of nature betwixt Sea water and the Fire or Sulphur whereof it participates for that it is so inflamable and saltish on the other side resolving it selfe into moisture and water as the Salts do from whence it hath bitternesse and acuity and as the inclosed and retained aire within the clouds doth breake and lighten by the impetuosity of Thunder the same doth Saltpeter But this will come to better purpose hereafter in Salts Moreover hee that can make powder composed of certaine proportions of Sulphur and Saltpeter and in stead of Coale with the Terrestrial scurf of Antimony which must be separated by frequent and reiterated ablutions of lukewarme water may come to an artificiall fire not to bee disdained of a powder that will give a small report 't is true that it is not so impetuous and full of force as the common In regard of the invention of Gunpowder the relations of China do cary that by their ancient Chronicles it is found out that they have had the use of it more then 1500 yeares as also of printing Roger Bacon 1500 years the famous English Philosopher who writ above 300 yeares agoe in his booke of the admirable power of Nature and Art sets downe that with a certaine composition imitating lightning and thunder Gideon was wont to feare his Enemies with And yet that it is not formally as it is written in the 7 of Judges yet it is said neverthelesse more then sixscore yeares before the divulgation of Gun-powder see his word furthermore there may bee made perpetuall lights and bathes burning without end for we have knowne many things that are not burned but purified but besides these there are other stupendious things of Nature and Art for sounds may be made in the aire like thunders and of greater horror then such as are made by nature And a little matter adapted to the quantity of a thumb makes a horrible sound and shewes a vehement coruscation and this may bee done many wayes by which every City and Army may bee destroyed after the manner of Gideons Artifice who with broken pitchers and lamps fire breaking out with ineffable fragor destroyed the Midianitish Army with only 300 men These may be Granadoes and fire pots And to be short nothing could better agree on all points to Gun-powder but these good men foreseeing the ruine that such things might bring made too great conscience to reveale it To the purpose of perpetuall fires by meanes of most long durance Hermolaus Barbarus in his notes upon Pliny relates that in his time there was an old Sepulchre opened in the Territory of Padoua and therein found a little Coffer where there was a Lampe yet burning although that according to the inscription it must have beene more then 500 yeares since it was lighted 500 So that by this reckoning it should not bee altogether impossible to make fires that will not be put out for wee see the same in many sorts of that which men call Grec whereof Aristotle as it is reported heretofore composed a Treatise which could not bee quenched with water chiefly Sea water by reason of the fatty and unctuous Salt mingled therewith but they grow worser and waxe more fiery But what hurt were there to stay thereon a little since likewise it is a question of Fire Of Acornes steeped in wine afterward dryed and put in a mill so long till the liquor come forth which afterwards accompanied with other oyles besmeared upon quicke chalâ— Pumice stone spectacle glasse and Alum calcined together with Soap and other the like things that hold their adustible impurities in the bottome of a vessel whilest that the oile by distillation mounts cleare neat and purified and lesse inflamable but this requireth a sufficient good fire for the matches corresponding thereto make them of cotten yearne besmeared within the Lee then bath them in the oile or liquor of Tartar Saltpetring them over Alum plumed intermingled with pitch rozin finely bruised and beaten or of Colophon These fires of so long duration would seeme to us a thing fabulous if wee were not ascertained by authentique Authors of that so famous a Lampe hung in a certaine Temple of Venus where there burned without ceasing the Stone called Asbestus which being once set on fire never goes out But some will say that that is also a fable I will leave others to decide it and I will tell you what befell mee seeking nothing lesse then that to meet with a substance conducted thereunto by graduall artifices of fire which being bound fast within a Viall of glasse and sealed with Hermes his Seale that no aire could any way enter in might be kept 1000 yeares after the manner of speech in the bottome of the Sea and opening it at the termination of so long a season or when you shall please you shall therein finde a suddaine fire which when it sents the aire will light matches We reade in the second booke of the Maccabees chap. 1. vers 20. that at the transmigration of Babylon the Levites having hid their sacred fire in the bottome of a well or pit 70 yeares after they found there a thicke water and whitish who assoone as ever the Sunbeames gave thereon tooke fire These two Deities aforesaid Pallas and Vesta one and the other chaste Virgins as is also Fire represent unto us the two fires of the Sensible world that is to say Pallas the Celestiall and Vesta the Elementary here below the which notwithstanding it bee more
secrets whereof shee penetrates Alchymie is in naturall and elementary which shee reveals unto us Geber saith some man cannot know the composition of a thing that is ignorant of its destruction which destruction is perfected by the separations caused by fire Nature then taketh great pains care and pleasure to labour in metals and puts in them a very great length of Time to bring them to the last degree of perfection which settles in Gold the most perfect and incorruptible substance of all others and the homogeneall and equall in all his parties whence it is taken for distributive justice for mingle a party of Gold with 3. or 4. hundreds of silver or Copper leaving them melted together to sport never so little within a little Cruset every portion how small soever it may be of silver or copper will suck up its equâ—ll part and portion of gold It is moreover so exactly depured that it cannot be altered or corrupted by any thing that is either in the earth water air or fire nor by any corrosive or poyson that you can apply thereunto It is not corrupted by clay nor burnt with any burning thing nor mortified or devoured by any green colouring or dividing water there is nothing in it superfluous or defective There are saith Hermes seven Metallick bodies of which the most worthy and principall is gold attributed unto the Sun from whence it hath its name for the same that the Sun is to the stars gold is toward the elementary bodies what thing soever burning it can bee cannot burne it the earth cannot corrupt it nor the water destroy nor alter because its complexion is tempered in heat moisture coldnesse and drinesse and there is nothing in it superfluous or deficient By reason whereof I finde that those are farre wide of their accompt which to keep themselves from poysoning would serve themselves with vessells of gold to eat and drink in for gold respects no more poisons nor venomes then it would doe of capon broth So do silver pewter copper lead iron which would therewith change immediately Even as a fearful man and of small resolution who at the encounter of a Serpent or other venemous beast would grow suddainly pale and come to change colour The care curiosity and assiduous travell of infinite rare and meditating spirits by the space of 4 or 5000 years have found in metals secrets without number and yet knew not to do so well but that they have left much more to enquire into and to search after although there be but seven in all comprehending therein running quick-silver Wherein it is wonderfull that Nature so copious and abundant in all her procreations which are divers is pleased in this respect with so small a number Metals then being such whose regiment depends on fire which is one of the proper visible symboles to represent the most hidden secrets and mysteries of Divinity invisible and imperceptible to our senses The Prophets also were willing to serve themselves for the most part of their parables and similitudes aenigmaes allegories and figures where they have covered and hid that which they would not so openly declare for they have very seldome expressed themselves as did Esay in his 5 Chapter where he interprets that the vision of the Lord of Hosts whereof he there brought a parable was the people of Israel and the men of Judah his delectable plant And in another passage many waters are many nations Moreover Ezekiel 23. having spoken of the two sisters Ahoâ—ah and Aholibah he set downe that this was Samaria and that Jerusalem God by the mouth of Moses in the 28. of Leviticus and in the 28. of Deuteronomy threatned the Israelites said if they come to mis-know him and do not keep well his commandements that he would make the heaven over their head brasse and the earth under them iron which are the two most terrestriall metals and most hard and rebellious to melt and to handle opposing them to the durity of this people as it is there said I will bruise the pride of your hardnesse and will make heaven over you as iron and earth as brasse your labour shall consume unprofitably your earth shall not bring forth its seed nor the tree yeeld any fruit For metals produce nothing but are barren the Poets of their side have used many sorts of Metaphores and figures as in the 6. of the Aeneid an iron voice for a strong and resounding voice and Hesiod calleth the infernall dog Cerberus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a voice of brasse because it is the most sounding metall His voice shall sound as brasse Jer. 16. and Origen upon the 25. of Exod Brasse is taken for a strong and thundering voice because of its resounding Although I should speake with the tongue of Angels and have not charity in me I am as sounding brasse and as a tinkling cymball Pindarus hath appropriated to Heaven the Epithet of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heaven of brasse in the 10. of the Pythians because of the firme solidity of the firmament as the word importeth Homer doth the same in the 3. of his Odes calleth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most brasse as Euripedes and Anaxagoras make the Sunne a fired iron for the Greek Poets ordinarily doe put fire and brasse one for another the same doth Homer in many places as in the 4. of the Iliads where Apollo to encourage the Trojans remonstrates unto them that the Greeks have not impenetrable bodies of stone or of iron that they should be able to resist blowes of cutting brasse without hurting them These are manners of speech which are not very strange amongst the Prophets who have thereby figured out the most part of their solutions under which some mysteries were shadowed which if men would take altogether raw according to the letter without allegorizing thereupon they would find themselves farre from their reckoning as the Martyr Pamphilus said well in the defence of Origen speaking of those who to shunne allegories were constrained to stumble at gross impertinencies They think it of this sort said he for that they would not admit of allegories in the holy writ by reason whereof assubjecting themselves to the literall sense they imagine and invent to themselves fine fables and fictions And indeed how could a man take according to the letter that of the 33. of Deut. speaking of Aser Thy shoes shall be iron and brasse for he would not say that Aser was shod with iron and brasse but he would understand thereby his force and power denoted as well by the two metals as by the shoe I will extend my shoe against Idumaea strangers are my subjects These are all allegories and figure as also in the 60. of Esay For brass I bring thee gold and silver in stead of Iron brasse for wood and fire for stones Marke well how the Prophet observes the relations opposing brasse to gold and iron to silver and againe brasse to wood and iron to
to which it doth adhere makes it vary And this it is in which it comes nearest to the Celestiall nature which is all Uniform in it self and so well regulated that it hath nothing unlike which maketh that the fire is repurgative above the rest of his fellow Elements to clear them and put in evidence In the 12. of St. Luke our Saviour warneth his Disciples to have their Lampes burning in their hands that their light might come to shine amongst men that their good workes may bee seen to glorifie their Father which is in heaven for hee that doth ill hates the light which Job saith is worse to Malefactors then the shadow of death It is the same also that Moses would secretly infer in the 3. of Gen. where hee makes God to walk at noon which is the clearest light of the day And the Apostle in the 1. of Tim. 6.16 saith that he dwells in light in accessible without which all would be confusedly folded up in hideous darknesse Let us then take heed that the light which hee hath pleased to put into our soul be not obfuscate and converted into black obscurity and that on this solid foundation which hee hath granted us of his knowledge wee build not hay wood and chaffe all things of themselves obscure and dark in lieu of gold silver pretious stones so clear shining and bright Let us hear again that which Zohar divinely discourseth of about fire and light upon the Text of the 4. of Levit. Thy Lord God is a consuming fire That there is one fire which devoures another being the stronger as wee may see in some burning firebrand or torch that which proceeds therefrom is of two sorts the one blew attached to a black match which retaineth it self there nourishing it self from corruption The other flame proceeding from the red inflamed Match is white and the blew is white in the highest as to return to the first originall this Homer was not ignorant of when in the 6. of his Odysses hee attributed to the Olympus a pure and bright splendor Nothing should better represent unto us the four worlds namely the white which is supercelestial the blew celestiall the match fired the Elementary and the burning darknesse Hell which abundantly shews us the body Rednes the vitall spirit resident in the bloud the blew the soul the white the intellect and the divine character imprinted in the soul and as the blew light doth quickly change into yellow quickly into white the soul also can doe the same according as it shall incline it self to good or to evill or whether shee follows the provocations of the flesh or the invitations and exhortations of the intellect following that which is written in the 4. Gen. 7. If thou doe well shalt thou not bee accepted and if thou dost not well sin lieth at the dore And unto thee shall bee his desire and thou shalt rule over him The white flame is alwayes the same without variation or change as doth the blew So the fire in this respect is fourfold Black in the lower part of its weik where the flame that is fastened to it is blew Red in the top of the weik and the flame white This which relates also to the four Elements black materiall to the Earth Blew more spirituall to the air Red to fire and white to water For heaven is composed of fire and water which is above the heavens Let the waters that are above the heavens praise the Lord. Yet neverthelesse all this is but fire as Moses the son of Maynon declares very well in the second Book of his Mor. chap. 31. where he saith that under the name of Earth are comprised the four Elements and by darknesse was understood the first fire for it is said in the of Deut. You have heard his words out of the midst of fire and then he adds of a sodain You have heard his voice out of darknesse This fire moreover was called the first fire because that is not it which is shining and clear but it is only so transparent to the sight as is the Air and could not comprehend it self therewith for if it were shining wee should in the night see all the air shine as fire And for that the darknesse which was first named denoted fire namely that whereof it is said that darknesse was upon the face of the Abysse because the fire was under the three Elements comprised under this word Abyssus There are other darknesses which follow after then when the separation of things was made and the Darknesses he called Night All this the foresaid Rabbin put out To which that would touch which the Alcoran carries in Azoare 65. I will send you a clear and beautifull fire All this which adheres then to the low black part is therwith consumed destroyed and holdeth place of death after which cometh true life the blue flame likewise if it therein degenerate and lets it predominate but the white doth not endeavor but to uncover it self here below to transport it self upwards and not suffer it self to bee over mastered by others And doth not devoure nor destroy nor is not thereby devoured nor his clear shining splendor altered as are those of the others By reason whereof wee must adhere and let our selves be salted with this white fire and bee illuminated with this fair white light that never varies following that which is said in the 4. of Deut. You which adhere to the Lord your God you are all living also as at this day But if our blew light the soul adhere to the black and to the red which are our sensualities and concupiscences the strange fire will force it selfe into us and will devoure and consume us This knowledge of the Elements and of their colours doth not insist only in composed bodies here below but thereby wee may mount as by Jacobs Ladder the height of this celestiall world where the Elements are also yet of another sort more simple and depured and from thence to passe beyond into the intelligible world where they are in their true essence for all consists in the four Elements Sons of wisdome understand saith Hermes in his Tract of 7. chapters not only corporally but also spiritually the science of the four Elements whose secret apparition is in no wise signified except they bee first compounded because of the Elements there is nothing made without their composition and Regiment Will we dive more deeply into the secrets of this Caball This Composition and Regiment of the Elements is no other thing then the Sacrosanct four-lettered ineffable Jehovah which comprehends all that which is was and shall bee where the little and finall ה notes the body and matter or other the like where the Fire cleaveth or fasteneth unto The ך vau or cloud copulative which assembles the two ה the intelligible and the sensible are the spirits that join the Soul with the Body the red inflammation of the coal or weik
on high as a vapour to imply saith the same Zohar that wee must offer him nothing but what is cleane and candid for rednesse represents sinne and punishment that followes it and the white sinceritie with mercy and the finall recompence that doth accompany it What is it saith Zohar which is designed by the red Roses and the white Lillies It is the odour of the oblation proceeding from red blood and from fat which is white which God reserveth for his owne portion which fatnesse relates to the sacrifice or animall man who is nourished with this fat as the vitall spirits with blood wherefore it is said when we fast to extenuate and macerate the pricks of the flesh and concupiscence that we offer unto God fatnesse who will have from his Creature the soul which is fire and bloud and the body namely fat wherewith it is nourished but the one and the other incontaminate pure and neat without corruption as if they were to passe through the fire and salted Therefore he would that they should be burned to him that they may ascend in a white fume and an odour of suavity before him for fume is more spiritual then matter which the fire by subtiliation raiseth it after the manner of Incense And indeed all this world here is but an odour that mounts unto God sometimes good and agreeable sometimes wicked and hurtfull The forme of the thing which consisteth in its colour and figure remains incorporeall in the matter where the eye goes to apprehend it and associates with it The tast also remains attached to it as the spittle moistens it and communicates it to the tast But odor or smell separates them and comes from farre by an unperceivable vapor to the sense of the nose and braine Wherefore the Scripture doth particularize in the rose and in the lillies the Red and White whose smell doth not vanish And yet though the roses be red yet the water of them distilled and the fume if you burne them are white as those of incense whereof it is spoken in Psal 41.2 Let my prayer he directed as incense in thy sight by prayers are understood not only prayers but all our desires thoughts and comportmens and thereupon Rabbi Eliezer sonne of Rabbi Simeon the author of Zohar making his prayer doth thus paraphrase This is well knowne and manifest before thee O Lord my God God of our prayers that I have offered unto thee my fat and my blood I have offered them in an odor of Suavity with firme faith and beleefe macerating chastising the sensuality of my flesh That it will please thee then Lord that the odor of my prayer proceeding from my mouth may be presently addressed before thy face as an odor of a burnt offering which they burne unto thee upon the altar of propitiation and that thou wilt accept it as agreeable He said that because that after the comming of our Saviour the destruction of the second Temple by the Romans the Jewish sacrifices were converted into prayers the bloudy sacrifices signified by the red roses and colour of bloud and those without bloud as the minchad other the like of meal by the white lillies following that which was said Cant. Chap. 5. 6. My beloved is white and ruddy he feedeth among the lillies Under these four colours furthermore which signifie the four Elements Black the Earth White the Water Blew the Air and Red the fire are comprised the greatest secrets mysteries Otherwise reading in ch 10. of 35 book Plinie that Apelles had painted Alexander holding lightning in his hand fingers seemed to hang out and lightning to be without the Table but reading they remembred that all those consisted of four colours I cannot well specifie what those four colours were which must be principall in nature till I had learned out of Zohar to consider them in the light where that is to be noted that there are two fastned to the week namely black noting the Earth and red proceeding there from fire and two to the flame Blew in the root over against the black and white on the top opposite to red But let us see how this doth well suit with Chymicall Theorie which constitutes of these four Elements two solid and fix'd which prepare themselves together the earth and the fire which adhere to the week and the other two liquid volatills and flitting water and air white and blew as is the flame which is liquid and in perpetuall motion And we must not think it strange that the air the blew should be lower then the water or the white flame which is aloft because the aereall party which is the oil and fat separate more hardly and more difficultly from the composed then doth the water more opposite to fire But let us look more mystically thereinto which the Zohar hath more abundantly run through The red light as well in earth as in heaven is that which destroyes all dissipates all for it is the bark of the tree of death as we may see in a lamp candle and other light whose root is in the earth namely this corruptible and corrupting blacknesse which watereth the week the branches and the boughes are the flames blew and white The week with its blacknesse and rednesse is the Elementary world and the flame the Celestiall The red colour commands all that is under it and devoureth it And if you say that it domineers also in heaven not as in the inferiour world wee may answer And although there be vertues and powers above that are destructive and dissipate all base subjacent things All these superiors are anchored in this red light and not the inferiors for they are thick grosse and obscure and this red light which is contiguous to that above gnawes and devours them and there ia nothing in the low world which shall not be destroyed It penetrates and enters into stones it pierceth them and hollowes them that waters may passe over them and drowns all in the depths and hollowes of the earth where they divide themselves of the one side and on the other till they come to resemble anew in their Abyssus passing crosse the darknesses that are confounded with them which is the cause that waters rise and fall they mount when they come from the sea under earth to their sources to glide anew above the earth downwards returning to the place from which they parted So that the waters darknesse and light mingling themselves pellmell there is made within another Chaos which nature comes to unmingle the heat namely which is therein inclosed by Ordinance of the Soveraign Dispensator that commands it And there make lights which men cannot see because they are dark Every channell to be brief mounts upwards with his voices whence Abyssus are shaken and cry to their companion One depth calleth to another in the voice of their Catarracts And who is it that cries Open thee with thy waters and I will enter into thee
raze Traiters-houses and sow them with salt as reputed unworthy to produce any more Salt indeed produceth nothing as it is where its sweet substance is so drowned with the salt that it cannot expresse it selfe in action so as it is except it be freed out of prison for the saltnesse predominates over it and covers it But for replication thereunto which was said before that fresh water alone doth neither nourish nor produce any thing which we see to the contrary by experience in many waterish herbs that grow in the midst of waters and in flints that it engenders shells and fishes and wormes to be short that its procreation doth extend to the three composed kinds of Minerals Vegetables Animals And indeed put little pebbles in a phial and water thereon every day renewing it daily at the end of certaine time you will find them so great and so bigge that they cannot come out at the neck by which they were put in But indeed all this proceeds from the slime which is mingled with the water as frogs and other things which are procreated in the middle Region of the aire of the slime which the Sun beams hath thence raised with the water for al rains snowes and other such impressions participate much of the slime from thence it comes that the snow doth smoak and fatten the earth and the water of raine is more connaturall to trees herbes and seeds chiefly those which fall by stormes and thunders then those of wels and rivers whereof Plutarch forceth himselfe to bring forth many reasons in naturall causes which have no great apparence There is yet more to say for that they are better baked and accompanied with more subtle and hot slime and are of lighter concoction and nourishment then plants as of meate in the stomach of Animals some more then others where the waters here below are more raw and indigested we insist a little in water because salt is nothing else but water mingled and setled with dry and burned earth of the nature of fire which makes it bitter and salt So that before we passe from this subject of fresh water we will here touch upon an experiment of more rare things from whence come many fair scret considerations Sweet water is a body so homogeneal that it would seem to the sight so cleare transparent and liquid in all its parts resembling to it selfe that there is in it but one only substance since that by d stillations shee passeth all But yet there is another found substance solid and compact in the forme of earth mingled with its liquid homogeneity which it separates by Artifice and it is that which Aristotle saith in the swarme of Philosophers The earth is concreat by the grossenesse of the water And this may be seene with water agitated and beaten and after redistilled many times alwayes separating the fift or sixth part which shall passe the first You must then take a good quantity of wel water or the same of fountaine river or rain water and let it settle twenty or thirty houres untill there be some ordure or slime it separates it selfe Take of this water as you may say forty pintes and cause the halfe to vapour away by very easie fire that it boile not put these twenty pintes apart and take new water as above of which you shall evaporate the moity and so long continue it that you may have well a hundred pintes halfe evaporated from this one hundred make to evaporate thirty pintes and of sixty ten twenty of fifty that shall remain twenty of thirty ten and of twenty ten and cast away all these slimes that shall reside for they are nothing worth and are but immundicity and ordure unto the seaventh or eighth evaporation or distillation after which there will appeare in your water infinite little atomes and little bodies which at last by little and little will be congealed into one solid substance of a grisly colour soft as dough Of which I have seen such admirable effects that men would hardly beleeve it Abundance of fluxes of blood in Cankers Gangrenes Hemorrhagies bloody flux Women newly laid in bed and at nose diseases in the stomach and infinite other such accidents that no terra sigillata nor Bolarmoniac could compare with You may make your round pills impasting them with the last waters that were extracted which are also of great vertue to wash wounds inveterate Maladies of the stomach and other the like wherefore you must keepe them well You may also calcine it for six or seven houres in a small pot well luted and casting thereon vinegar distilled boiling dissolving one part nourishing the rest calcine it againe and dissolve it till you have all the salt which will be white and of sweet tast make it dissolve to oile you may draw from thence great effects even upon Gold But sea-water is yet of more efficacy then that of wels and rivers sweet water I say which shall be separated from salt by distillation which would be easie to do near the Sea having to that end foure or five alembies of leaden earth and yet more of sweet water which is drawne by distillation of salt resolved in liquor to humidity But there is yet another manner of proceeding in the separation of the substances of common water and more spirituall then the precedent Take very clean water out of a well river or fountain let it settle twenty foure houres and take the pure and the cleare which you shall put in vessels of Beauvois earth well stopped to putrifie in hot dung fourty dayes renewing it two or three times every week filter the water and give only five or six boylings scumming off the scurfes that arise thereon with a feather then put it in Cornues of glasse not putting therein but the third part or the moity at most of that which they may containe and distill of two parts three then change the Recipient and accomplish to distill all the water but with an easie fire Then strengthen the fire by little and little till you see small fumes ascend continue this degree of fire with increasing untill it mount no more Let the fire quench of it selfe and recoole the vessell then gather the salt which shall be so elevated towards the beck of the Cornue and within the recipient and keep it in a vessel of earth very close and sealed in a warm and dry place that it melt not nor dissolve Put the Cornue to againe with that which remains in the bottome and strengthen the fire untill you see a reddish oile end your distillation after cease the fire Take the black feces that remain in the bottome stampe them and put them in a sublimatory of good earth of an inch thick and no more for sâ—x houres first a little fire then reinforce it for twelve others till the sublimatory be red the fire being alwaies in the same degree let it coole and gather the salt which
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