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 prædominating 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 ourselves by _Ænigma_. 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 dedication 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 _Phæd._ 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 inexhaustible
Fountaine, to all sorts of Creatures, even according as the ancient
_Phœnician_ 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 Hell: 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 yet more mystically shadowed, as _Zohar_ sheweth it, by the
admirable construction of his Tabernacle, then which, there is nothing
more spirituall. Gold, Silver, and pretious Stones, representing the
Sensible world, and _Bezaleel_, that was the Conductor of the worke,
the Intelligible, and the Workman filled with a Divine Spirit, with
Sapience, Intelligence, Knowledge, and all the most accomplisht
learning, as almost every word carries it, woven with _Bezel_, the
shadow, and _El_ God.
The prophane Poets have divided the Sensible World into 3, for they
never tooke much paines to penetrate into the Intelligible: And
assigned the superiour part thereof, from the circle of the Moone
upward, to _Jupiter_, the low Terrestriall to _Pluto_, and the
middlemost, which is from the Earth to the Moone, to _Neptune_: which
the Platonists call the Generative Vertue, because of the humidity,
impregned with Salt, which provoketh much to generation, according
as the word _Salacitas_ designes it, as _Plutarch_ puts it in the 4
Question of Naturall Causes, and in his Treaty of _Osiris_: wherefore
the said Poets attribute more fecundity to the said _Neptune_, then to
all the other Gods.
[Sidenote: _Cornue._]
Each of these 3 worlds furthermore, hath particularly its science,
which is double; the one common and triviall, the other mysticall
and secret. The Intelligible world to our Theologie, and the Caballe
the Celestial to Astrologie and Magie; and the elementary, to the
Physiologie and Alchymie, which revealeth by the resolutions, and
separations of Fire, all the more hidden, and darke secrets of natures,
in three kindes of the composed: for no man can know the composition
of a thing that is ignorant of its destruction, saith _Geber_. But
these three divine sciences have beene by the depravation of ignorant
and evill spirits turned aside to a crying downe, that men durst
scarcely speak thereof, but must presently incurre the bruite of
being an Atheist, Witch, or a false money-coyner. We say then, after
_Empedocles_ and _Anaxagoras_; All this our reason disputes by a
Journey of composition and resolution, going this way and that way, up
and downe. That all the Elementary science consisteth in the mixtion
and separation of the Elements, which is perfected by fire, to which
Alchymy turnes all: As _Avicen_ declareth very openly in his Treaty
of _l’Almahad_, or Division of Sciences. And _Hermes_ in that of his
7 chapters, Understand yee sonnes of the wise, the Science of the
four Elements, whose secret apparition is no where signified, except
they bee divided and compounded, because out of the Elements nothing
is made profitable without such a Regiment; for where Nature ends her
operations, there Art begins. Take such a composed Elementary, what you
will, herbe, wood, or other the like, upon which, fire may exercise its
action, and put it in an Alembic or Cornue; first let them separate
the water, and afterwards the oyle, if the fire bee moderate, if more
pressed and reinforced, both together: but the oyle will swimme above
the water, which may easily bee separated by a fonnel of Glasse. This
water is called _Mercury_, which of it selfe is pure and cleane; and
oyle, the sulphur, adustible and infect, that corrupts every compounded
thing: In the bottome of the vessel will rest the Ashes, of which by
a forme of lee, with water the Salt will bee extracted, and after you
have withdrawn the water with _Balneum Mariæ_, as men call it: for the
oily unctuosities do not mount by this degree of fire, no more doth
the Salt, but much lesse; and the indissoluble Earths stript of all
their humidities proper to vitrifie: for saith _Geber_, every private
thing by its owne humidity doth performe none but a vitrificatory
fusion. So there are two volatill Elements, namely the liquid, Water
and Aire, which is Oyle, for all liquid substances naturally shunne the
fire, which elevates the one, and burnes the other. But not those two
which are dry and solid; which are Salt, wherein is contained Fire,
and pure Earth, which is Glasse: over whom the fire hath no power
but to melt and refine them. See there the four Elements redoubled,
as _Hermes_ cals them, and _Raymund Lullius_ the great Elements; for
as every Element consists of two qualities, these great Elements
redoubled, _Mercury_, _Sulphur_, _Salt_, and _Glasse_, participate of
the two simple Elements, (to say better) of all four; according to the
more, or the lesse, of the one, or of the other; _Mercury_ holding
more of the _Aire_, to which it is attributed; Oyle or _Sulphur_, of
the Aire; _Salt_, of Fire; and _Glasse_, of the Earth, who findes it
selfe pure and cleane in the Center of all the composed Elementaries,
and is the last to reveale it selfe exempt from others. Of this
sort by the Artifice and operation of Fire, and of its effects, we
depure all infections and filth, even to reduce them to a purity of
incorruptible substance from this time forward; by the separation of
their inflamable, and terrestriall impurities; for (saith _Geber_) the
whole intention of the Operator, is versed in this, that the grosser
parts being cast away, the worke may bee perfected with the lighter;
which is to mount from the corruptions here below, to a purity of the
Celestial world, where the Elements are more pure and essential, fire
there predominating which is the chief of all others. Hitherto touching
_Alchymie_, and wherein shee is versed.
_Magick_ for the Celestial world, was in times past, a holy and
venerable Science, which _Plato_ in his _Charmis_ cals the true
Medicine of the soule; and in the first, _Alcibiades_ puts it, that it
was wont to shew the Elders of the great Kings of _Persia_, to teach
them to reverence God, to forme their temporall domination according
to the patterne of the order and policy of the Universe. But it is
nothing else properly (as _Orpheus_ saith) but a forme of marriage of
the starry heaven with the earth, whither hee darts his influences, by
which shee impregnes comming from the Intelligences who assist therein;
and an application of agent vertues upon the passive, and that without
the cooperation of Dæmons the most part, evill, false, and deceptive,
yet some more then others; with which it is thought that the three wise
Kings, _Magi_, that came so farre to adore Jesus Christ, were willing
to have some acquaintance and commerce.
The third is that which men call _Caballe_, or reception, because men
left it there verbally, and by mouth from hand to hand, from one to
another. It is divided into two, the one of _Beresith_, that is to
say, of the Creation, that consisteth in the Sensible world, where
_Moses_ staid, without speaking of the Intelligible, or of separated
substances. The other is of _Mercavah_, or of the Throne of God, which
_Ezekiel_ principally treats of, whose vision is almost all of fire. So
much is this Element throughout the whole holy Scripture appropriated
to Divinity, as one of the most perfect and neare symboles and markes
in things sensible; by meanes whereof wee are so elevated, that by
_Jacobs_ Ladder, or _Homers_ golden Chaine, we come to the knowledge of
things spirituall and intelligible; _for the invisible things of God
from the Creation of the World, are clearely seene, being understood
by the things that are made, even his eternall power and Godhead_.
For the world with the Creatures being there, they are a portraict
of God; for the Creator is understood by the Creature; saith Saint
_Augustine_; for God hath made two things to his image and resemblance,
according to _Tresmegistus_: the world, therein to rejoice, and please
our selves with the infinite brave pieces of worke; and Man, wherein
hee set his most singular delight and pleasure, which _Moses_ hath
tacitely expressed in _Gen._ 1. & 2. where when there was question
of creating the world, Heaven, Earth, Vegetables, Minerals, Animals,
Sunne, Moone, Starres, and all the rest, hee did no more but command
by his word, for hee said, and they were done; hee commanded and they
were created. But in Mans formation, hee insisted much further therein
then in all the rest, saith he; _Let us make man after our Image and
Similitude, hee created him male and female, and formed him dust of
the earth, afterward breathed in his face the spirit of life, and hee
was made a living soule_. In which are touched 4 or 5 particularities.
So _Cyrill_ observes it. After the same manner then, as the Image of
God is the world, so the image of the world, is man: therein there is
such a relation of God with his creatures, that they cannot bee well
comprehended, but reciprocally one by the other, for all the Sensible
nature, (as _Zohar_ hath it) in regard of the intelligible, is as that
of the Moone, towards the Sunne, who thereinto reverberates its light:
or as the light of a Lampe or torch, which parteth the flame fastned
to the weik, which is therein nourished by a grosse matter, viscous,
adustible, without which this splendor and light could not communicate
it selfe to our sight, nor our sight comprehend it: And likewise the
glory and essence of God, which the Hebrewes call _Sequinah_, could not
appeare but in the matter of this Sensible world, which is an image or
patterne thereof. And it is that, which God said to _Moses_, _Exod._
33. _You shall not see my face, you shall see my hinder parts_. The
face of God is his true Essence in the intelligible world, which no
man ever saw, except the _Messihe_, _I did set the Lord alwayes before
mee_, _Psal._ 16. 8. And his posteriour parts are his effects in the
Sensible world. The soule likewise cannot bee discerned and knowne,
but by the functions it exerciseth in the body whilst it is annexed
thereunto: _By which Plato was moved to thinke that soules could not
consist without bodies, no more then fire without water._ So that after
long revolutions of times, they should come againe to incorporate
themselves here below: whereunto adheres that in the 6 of _Virgils
Æneads_.
All these when they have turned for many yeares,
God cals them to the floud of Lethe, by great troopes,
Being forgetfull that they must review the upper convexe,
And begin againe to bee willing to returne into bodies.
But this savours a little of new-birth, and _Pythagorean_ changings of
soules into bodies, in which _Origen_ was likewise out of the way, as
may be seene in his booke of Princes, and in Saint _Jeromes_ Epistle
to _Avitus_. But more sincerely _Porphyrius_, although in the rest an
impious adversary, a Calumniator of Christianisme; that for the perfect
beatitude of soules, they must shunne and fly all bodies. So that, when
the soule shall bee repurged from all corporal affections, and when it
shall returne to its Creator, in its first simplicity, it hath no great
desire to fall againe into the hands and calamities of this age, when
the option should be left unto it free.
From the Intelligible world then, it runnes downe into the Celestial,
and from thence to the Elementary, all that which the spirit of man can
attaine from the knowledge of the admirable effects of Nature, which
Art intimates, in what shee can, whence by the revelation of these rare
secrets, by the action of fire, the most part is magnified, the glory
and magnificence of him who is the first motor and author thereof;
for mans understanding according to _Hermes_, is as a Glasse where
we come to shave off, and to abate the cleare and luminous rayes of
the Divinity, represented to our senses by the Sunne above, and the
fire his correspondent here below; which inflame the soule with an
ardent desire of the knowledge and veneration of his Creatour, and by
consequent of his love, for men love nothing but what they know.
So each of these three worlds, which have their particular sciences,
hath also its fire, and its salt apart: both which do informe us
namely of _Moses_ his fire in the heaven. And the Salt for its firme
consistence and solidity to the earth. What is this Salt? aske one of
your Chymicall Philosophers; a scorched and burned earth, and congealed
water, by the heat of fire, potentially enclosed therein. Moreover Fire
is the operatour here below, in the workes of Art, as the Sunne and
Celestiall Fire is in them of that nature; and in the intelligible,
the holy Spirit by the Hebrewes called _Binah_, or Intelligence, which
the Scripture designes ordinarily by fire, and this spirituall fire,
or igneal spirit, with the _Chomah_ the verbe, where the Sapience
attributes to the Sonne, Wisdome, the Artist of all things, taught mee,
are the fathers operators. By the word of the Lord were the heavens
firmed, and all their beauty by the spirit of his mouth; from whence
that maxime of the Peripateticks differs not much. Every worke of
Nature is a worke of Intelligence.
Behold the three fires, whereof we pretend to speake, of which there
is none more common amongst us then the elementary here below, grosse,
composed, and materiall; that is to say, alwayes fastned to matter; nor
on the the other part lesse known. That which is of him, from whence
he came, and whither hee goes; reducing in an instant all to nothing:
assoone as his nourishment failes him; without which he cannot consist
a moment, but goes as hee comes, being all in the least of his parts:
So that he can in lesse then nothing, multiply to infinity, and in
lesse then nothing empty it selfe: for one little waxe light will at
pleasure enkindle the greatest fires we can imagine, without any losse
or diminution of its substance:
_Though they take a thousand, yet nothing perisheth_:
[Sidenote: Auror _de roolle_ p 61, in course, in order one after
another.]
And in the third of Saint _James_, _Behold how great a matter a little
fire kindleth_; yea one onely small sparkle of fire, would press in
the twinckling of an eye, all the immense hollow of the Universe,
if it were filled with Gun-powder or Napthe and presently after will
vanish away. So that of all bodies, there is nothing that doth approach
nearer to the soule then fire, said _Plotin_. And _Aristotle_ in his
fourth booke of _Metaphysickes_, sets downe, that even to his time
the most part of Philosophers had not well knowne fire, nor yet Aire
to bee perceivable to our sight and feeling. But men may say the
same, that neither _Aristotle_, nor other Grecians of his time knew
so well the fire and its effects, at least wise not so exactly as did
(so long while after) the _Arabians_, by _Alchymie_, on which all
the knowledge of fire dependeth. The _Ægyptians_ 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 proceeds 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 _Caucasus_, where a Vulter dayly eate up his entrails
which did grow againe in course. 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 things lookes downe unto the earth
It gave man a face, to looke up, and see the heavens,
To erect his countenance unto the Stars._
[Sidenote: διάλυσις]
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 διάλυσις 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 Ægyptians
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
Ægyptians the commodity 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 things tacitely and by chance require,
Lightning brought fire on earth to mortalls
First: thence all heate of flame was given_.
[Sidenote: 1500 years.]
[Sidenote: 500]