Part 13

But there are four differences of visible things, some cannot see but by day, the others, on the contrary, but by night, others by day and night, and others that have no place in darknesse. Colours are not seen but by day, not by night; Of things called resplendent, some by day, others by night, others by day and night; for there are some that are illustrious and cleare, others darke and heavy, and others betwixt both; others that have lustre and splendor, dark and waterish, and are not seene but by night, as the foresaid flyes, worms, fish scales, rotten wood, and the like, for in the day time their splendor is surmounted by another more powerfull which defaceth it; as also there are more stars, so that the darker the night is, the clearer they shine. Those betwixt both, as the Moon and some Stars, by day and by night, as the morning and the evening Stars, called by the Greeks _Phosphor_, by the Latines _Lucifer_, this is _Venus_ Starre. Fire also which pierceth the air more then it may, and illustrates it to demonstrate the colours that are therein; for the rest it is content to make it see, without bringing into action the transparence that is in the air, as we may see in the darke, where wee see fire a great way off, but not by the colours that are betwixt them. By day it shines also, but not act against the air, for that it is suffocated and extinguished by a stronger light. The clearnesse of the Moone likewise, for that shee is not very dark, shee is seen in the day time, but better in the night. _Suidas_ runs through all this; But to the purpose of lights without heat, I have read of nothing more admirable and strange, then that which _Gonzalo de Oviedo_ in the 15. Book 8. chap. of his _Naturall History of the Indies_, alledgeth of a certain little flying animal, of the bignesse of an Hanneton, very frequent in the Isle of _Spaine_, and in other Islands thereabouts, having two wings above, strong and hard, and two below them, two others more thinne and fine. The little beast called _Cocuye_, hath shining eyes as lighted candles, so that wheresoever he passes he illuminates the air, and gives it such a brightnesse that a man may see him a great way off, and in a chamber as dark as it may be, even at midnight, men may read and write by the light that comes from them; So that if a man binde two or three together, this would give more light then a Lanthorne or a Torch, in the field: and amidst the Woods in the night, as darke as may bee, they make themselves to be seen more then a mile. This clearnesse consists not onely in the eyes but also in their flanks, when they open their wings. They are accustomed to serve themselves with them, as we do with a Lamp or other light, to sup at night, and to do the affairs of the house. But when he comes to determine and dye, its light extinguisheth also. The Indians had a custome to make a post of them to strike feare in seeing them by night, for that it seemed that they had a visage, being rub’d therewith, as if it were all fire. _Plinie_ in his 21. Book, chap. 11. speaketh of a shining herb in the night, called _Nyctegretes_ or _Nyctilops_ for that we may see it shine a farre off, but he alledgeth many things by heare-say, as not having seen them.

But to returne to the Suns light which is therein more perfect, then in any other thing sensible with heat, for it is the true heavenly fire, as _Speusippus_ said, which describeth all that appertaines to the nourishment of this great man, the Universe; as the Elementary doth the viands of the animal man. And as the heart in animals is the principall soul of life, the same is the Sunne in the heart of the world; and the primordiall spring of all light therein, which he departs to the Stars, as doth Jesus Christ to our souls. And no more nor lesse then the Sunne and the Moon (said _Origen_ upon _Genesis_) illightens our bodies; likewise our consciences and thoughts are from this splendour of the Father if wee be not blinde, and that this proceeds not by our faults: Now if we be not all equally illuminated, no more then the Stars are by the Sunne, which differ in brightnesse one from the other but according to our capacity and carriage, and as more or lesse, we lift up the eyes of our contemplation to receive this light. Returne you towards me, and I will returne towards you, for he is a God at hand, and not a God a farre off. That which we can have of intelligence (saith _Zohar_) by our naturall ratiocination, is as if our spirit were lightned by the Moone: but the Divine relation holds place of the Sunne, whence the light chaseth away and banisheth the Princes of Darknesse, where their greatest force and vigour raignes. The Sunne is risen, they shall be placed in their chambers, sayes the 104 _Psalme_ speaking of Devils and wicked Spirits, under the name of savage and revenous Beasts. For (as _Zohar_ puts it) these tenebrions are stronger and more gallant in the darke, so the good Angels that assist and favour us, receive great reinforcement from the light, not onely from the Divine, but from the Celestiall and solar, by which the Divine and Supreame shining brightnesse, imparts her vertue to the heavens, and by them communicates it to all that is under the sphere of the Moone within the elementary world. Wherefore, not without cause, about dead bodies till they bee put in the grave, they imploy lights to drive farre off this ancient Serpent _Zamael_, to whom for malediction it is said, thou shalt eat earth all the dayes of thy life; for our Bodies being deprived thereof, are no more but dust and earth. So that fire is a great aid and comfort to us, not onely during our life, but yet after our death against these wicked dark powers which gnaw in obscurity, as these night birds and savage beasts which dare not appeare in the day, fearing the light of the Sunne; how much more then that of good spirits their adversaries, which receive it from the divine resplendence? for the same, as is the Sunne towards it, the fire is in regard of the Sunne, who serves us, amongst other things to make us see this so great accomplished work of the universe built by the Soveraigne Creator of so excellent Artifice, and that which his light doth manifest unto us, in this sensible world, it is nothing for this regard, for the true being doth consist of things intellectuall, stript of all corporeity and matter, the Sunne it selfe, the rarest master-piece of all others, could not see it selfe, but by its proper light, which is presently accompanied with a heat vivifying all things; for there is a double propriety, one to shine and clarifie, the other to warme, yea to burne the subjacent matters which illuminates the whitenesse, and waxeth blacke with the Sunnes heat. The _Sunne hath coloured mee, Cant. 1._ Whereupon _Origen_ notes, that there where there is no sinne, nor matter of sinne, there is scorching or burning following, the 121 _Psalm_. _The Sun shall not burne thee by day, nor the Moon by night_; for the Sunne illuminates good men, but it burnes up sinners; who hating light for the evill they have done; for in many places of Scripture you shall finde that the Sunne and the Fire, whereof it speaks, they are not those that wee see, but the spirituall. The spirituall Sunne saith Saint _Augustine_, doth not rise, but upon holy persons, following that which is spoken of the perverse, in the 5. of _Wisdome, The light of Justice is not risen upon us, nor the Sunne of Intelligence is not come to illighten us_. As for its heat, it must rather be kept for witnesse of Holy Scripture, there is no man can hide him from the heat thereof; not to frivolous imaginations and subtilities of those that maintaine it to be neither hot nor cold, grounding themselves upon this argument, All heat in long continuance although that it remaine alwayes in the same estate and degree, doth notwithstanding augment it selfe, so that it would bee intolerable.

If then the Sunne be so hot, as it seems, after five or six thousand years since when it was first created, it would follow that there would come a conflagration under the torrid _Zone_, from whence he stirs not; who from thence was extended to all the rest of the earth; there where we see the contrary, for the whole is alwayes in the same estate. And afterwards for that the sunne is many times greater then the globe of the Sea, and the Earth, and its Sphere, so farre esloigned from it, that it hath no proportion with it, it should follow, that it was as hot in one time and place, as in another. With semblable deductions, against which it is easie to contradict, but this would turne us aside too farre from our principall Subject. _Anaxagoras_ also said, that it was a grosse enflamed stone, or a plate of burning fire. _Anaximander_, a wheel full of fire, 25 times greater then all the earth. _Xenophanes_, an heap of little fires. The Stoicks, an inflamed body, proceeding from the Sea, wherein they have shewed the affinity of fire and salt together. _Plato_ a body of much fire; and thus, one after one fashion, one after another, but all tending to make it of the nature of fire. Moreover, it is a thing too admirable, of its greatnesse, so immense, whereupon the spirit of man hath fair Galleries to walke, in pursuit of the high fetched meditations of Gods mervails; for (as _Chrysostome_ said well 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 lapped within the matrix, is nourished, fomented, and entertained with corrupt bloud by the help of naturall heat, so fire, 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 intelligible and sensible World, by the contemplation whereof, we come to the contemplation of spirituall things, which the Apostle before him had touched in the first to the _Romanes_. _The invisible things of him from the creation of the World, are made knowne by those things which are seene_; 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 procreated before it. But in this respect there presents a very rare mystery, and worthy of observation, that the complete perfection of things fals out alwaies on the fourth day, as of the light. The Sunne and Moone were made the fourth day, waters on the second day, produced nought but fishes; the fifth, which is the fourth after, and al animals; the sixth with man, for whom the fruits of the earth were made the third. Which sheweth us that the 4 number so much celebrated by _Pythagoras_, denoteth the perfection that resides in ten, resulting from the four first numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, make ten.

So _Plato_ was willing to informe his _Timeus_, where he treats of the procreation of things by these words, one, two, three, but where is the fourth? _Zohar_ upon this particle of the 14. of _Leviticus, you shall keepe my Sabbaths_. See saith _Rabbi Eliezer_, what is the mystery here contained. In six dayes was the world created, in each of those is manifested the worke that was made therein, and God gave it his particular vertue after he had finished it; but on the fourth be attributed one more expresse, for those of the third preceding, being secret and hidden, came not in evidence, except that the fourth day happened their faculties would reveal themselves; for water, air, and fire, the three superiour elements remained as suspended, and the workmanship of them did not appeare till the fourth day manifested them, and then appeared all that was made on each. But if you will alledge that this was the third day, that then God said, _Let the earth sprout and produce the green herb, producing seed; and the fruit trees bearing fruit after his kinde, which hath his seed in it selfe upon the earth, and it was so_; yet this, notwithstanding that this happened on the third day, he suffered not to be annexed with the fourth, without any separation; the which fourth comes to meet with the Sabbath, which is the fourth day, the fourth, and is by it selfe the perfect fourth, where there appeared all the works of the six preceding dayes: and it is the fourth foot of the _Merchavah_, of the divine throne, whereon God sate for his repose all the six dayes, Thus discourseth _Zohar_.

We must not here passe over another mystery, which these two luminaries have, each three names, the Sunne is called _Chomah_ wisdome, _Scemesch_ heat, and _Cheres_ drynesse. _Plato_ in _Timæus_, All moisture that the celerity of fire raised, and that which remained arid and dry, wee call κεραμὸν potters earth. That of _Maor_ Luminary, is common to the one, and to the other. The Moone is called _Malchut_, reigne, or kingdome, _Jareha_, which the Greek call μήνη for that she perfects her course in a month, and _lebenab_ white, for as the Sun representeth Jesus Christ, the Moon denotes the Church which is all fair without any blemish, following that which is written in the 6. of _Canticles_ 10. _Who is she that looketh forth, as the morning, fair as the Moone, clear as the Sun?_ Of this light of the Sunne of Righteousnesse, whereof it is said in the fourth of _Malachy_, _But unto you that do feare my name, the Sunne of Justice shall arise_, 4. 2. Where the Moone the Church is illustrated on a perpetuall day without darknesse, according to _Esay 60. v. 20._ _The Lord shall be thine everlasting light, who hath planted his Tabernacle, or Church, within the fair clear shining Sunne, that illuminates every man that comes into the world_; no more nor lesse then the starres, which are innumerable, and the least as big as the whole earth, receive all their light from the visible sunne. Of whom shall it not here bee lawfull to relate something of his praises of the Song that _Orpheus_ made unto it.

_Hear mee most blessed Sunne, Worlds heart and eie, Heavenly brightnesse shining, Living mens pleasing aspect, Begetting Aurera in thy right hand, And the night on thy left. Thou governest the four seasons, Who dance in a round, At the sound of thy golden harpe Thou runnest through this great vault, Upon thy shining Chariot Drawn with thy Coursers That respire heat and life. Ardent, unpolluted measurer Of times, that shewes thy selfe to all. A Soveraigne aid to each, Keeping faith, eye of Justice. Brightnesse of shining light._

Behold that which we here thought to runne through concerning these three fires, (as for the three salts which relate thereunto, we will speak thereof hereafter) namely, the Terrestriall and Elementary, the Heavenly and Solary, and the Intelligible, that of the Divine Essence denoting the Father, from whence proceeds the light which is the Sunne, and these two the heat of the Holy Spirit, which kindles our hearts with the love and knowledge of God, and with charitable love to our neighbour.

The same in heaven, the light of the Sunne expands it selfe to illighten all the starres, and here below to the production and vivification of all that which is there begotten, and maintained. And in the Elementary world, fire doth clear us, warm us, and boil our viands, and lends us all other commodities, and usages.