A Discovrse of Fire and Salt Discovering Many Secret Mysteries as well Philosophicall, as Theologicall

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, according to the Letter, he touched one thing, and mystically understood and comprised another; (wherein he imitates the Ægyptians and Chaldæans, 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 Timæus, after, Timæus 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 Æthereall Region: for the word ἄιθηρ, comes from the verbe ἄιθω 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.

[Sidenote: Act. 17. 28.]

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 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, move, and have our beeing; 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 Chapters, 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 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 the 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.