Wee have long insisted on these oils, as well for that they are produced for the most part out of the action of fire, of which there is here a question as for that nothing is nearer of kin to fire, then fatty oils, unctuosities, pitch rozin, and black Turpentines, Gums, and other like Inflammative substances, that are the true food, and nourishment thereof: And for that we are so far embarked therein, there will be no hurt, here in one train to prosecute something of the Artifices which are commonly called Grecian fires, whereof there are many sorts, that cannot bee quenched with water.
The foundation of them are Sulphur and Bitumen, black pitch, and rosin, Turpentine, Colophone, Sarcocoll, oils of Lin, petroll, and Laurell, Salt-Peter, Camphere, Tallow, Grease and other unctuosities facil to conceive flame: Of these Greek fires Plutarch speaketh in his Treatise of not lending upon usury: & more lately by Zonaras, in his 3. Tome in the life of Constantine the Pogonate where it is said that in the year of our Lord 678. the Saracens being come to besiege Constantinople, an Ingenier by name Callinicus brought an Artifice of certain fire, by means whereof the Saracens Fleet was defeated: But Gunpowder, and the artifices that may bee made thereby, hath slubbered them all; whence consisteth the most part of our artificiall fires, pots, and fire pikes, circles, granadoes, sauciges, petards, fuses, and infinite other the like, which we pretend not here to specifie in particular.
Take then a pound of Salt-Peter, 8. ounces of Sulphur, 6. ounces of Gunpowder, incorporate them together for Granadoes, and fire-pots, which make great noise in the breaking. But to tye fire to wood, and other inflammative matters, mingle a pound of pitch, rosin, a quartern of black pitch, 3. ounces of Colophon, and 5. of Sulphur, bruise the Gums, and cast into the melted Sulphurs, when it is cold beat them again, and moisten them with oil of Bayes, or linnen. There is another composition much more violent, but more dangerous.
Melt a pound of Sulphur within a leaded earthen pot, and put therein by little and little, but discreetly, a quartern of powder grosse grained, with as much salt Peter, stirring them often with a rod of Iron. Take them off the fire and let them dry. This mingled with the aforesaid Artifices wil work wondrous effects. Some mingle also a little beaten glasse, which coming to be warmed, rewarms consequently the matter, when it comes to flame: whose heat makes it stronger, and of longer durance. Camphere serves to make it burn in the water, as likewise all other greases do, and above all oil of brimstone, drawn by a bath, then which there is nothing more subtible or inflameable. But it would bee too tedious to penetrate into the ruins of mankind, of which there would bee no end, if a man should runne through them all.
Therefore let us return to our left purpose, of two fires. That above, designed by Pallas and Minerva, and that below by Vesta. Which although they be so far distant, yet fail not to have such an affinity together, that they easily transmute one into the other: for the Sun beams are illightned by fire, by reason of a viall filled with water, as Plutarch relate in the life of Numa. Where from a burning looking glasse, of which I remember that I saw one so puissant, in the States of Orleans, that in lesse then nothing, and yet in the moneth of Ianuary, it set a fire the staffe of a torch, and the fire contrariwise by many conveyances and contrivings from the top to the bottom, and through the sides in many circular revolutions, as in those of a Labyrinth, and in furnaces which they call a Tower, its heat comes to be so moderated, that it passeth into a naturall heat, vivifying, and nourishing in stead of burning, baking or consuming: And with such a fire I can say that there were hatched at Rome, at one time more then 100. or 120. Chickens, the Egs being therein couved and setled as under a Hen.
The Persians and Vestalls fire at Rome reverenced as well by the one, as by the other, as very holy, was very carefully entertained. Touching the Persian, Strabo in his 15. Book writeth that the Magi had a custome to conserve it under ashes, before which they went every day to make their prayers and devotions, which is not without some mystery. The ashes denoting the sensible world and the body of man which it represents: being nothing else but ashes: and the fire therein inclosed and covered, the sparkle of life, wherewith it is animated and vivified. Coals kept in Juniper for the space of a year. These ashes furthermore, must be of some gummy trees, to make it of longer durance: namely, of Juniper, wherein I heretofore have kept living coals, more than a year, heaping up bed upon bed within the ashes, being all lock’t fast within a little barrell that no air may enter; and this is that which is meant in the 120. Psalm. 4. ver. with Juniper coals, according to the Hebrew, in place of uncomfortable. With these burning coals the Persians came to light the luminaries of their Temples when they came to be extinguished. But the Vestals in case their fire should extinguish, as it sometimes happened, it was not lawfull for them to light it again, but must draw it from the Sun beams: And did not only attend that it should quench of it selfe, or by some casuall accident, but they renewed it yearly, the first day of March from that of heaven, as Ovidius observes tertio Fastorum.
Adde that new fire was made in the secret house
and the renewed fire took force.
Which Macrobius also toucheth in his second of Saturnals, 12. chap. The first day of March the Vestals lighted a new fire on the Altar of the Goddesse; that by the renewing of the year, they should renew in themselves their care of keeping it from going out. Saint Augustine in his third Book of the City of God, 18 ch. In what reputation (saith he) this sacred fire was at Rome, men may know by this, that when the City was a fire, the grand Pontifex Metellus, for fear that this strange fire should not mingle with the other, put himselfe in danger to be consumed by the flames, to make it retire. So that there is nothing more conformable to the tenth of Leviticus. That if these poor blind people, which took the Symbols and Mysteries of Religion but superficially, and from the bark, as do also the Jewes, from whom they borrowed all their important Traditions, had known that which was covered and prefigured thereunder, what accompt is there to beleeve that they made thereof? Some do alledge that this sacred fire of the Vestals, was illuminated by means of fusil, bruising two pieces of wood one against another, or in piercing them with a borrier as Festus would have it, and Simplicius upon the third Book of Heaven, according to Aristotle. Plinie in the 16. Book, 4. chap. Men rub two woods one against another, from whence fire is forced; which is received in by a bait made of dryed leaves and put in powder, or in the match of the touchwood of a tree. But there is nothing, which doth better conduce thereunto, then Ivy beaten or bruised with Laurell; the same is of late more practiced by the Savages of the West Indies, as Gonzale d’Ovidiedo in his natural History of those quarters, lib. 6. cap. 5. binding (saith he) two dry slicks hard one against another, and putting betwixt their juncture the point of a rod well rounded, which they rub thick and thin betwixt the hands, so long till the fire by rubbing, and the rarefaction of the air that followes them may lighten them. Of this new relightning, to shew us, that we must renew and be borne again to a better and more praisable life, not farre different from the Ceremonies of the Christian Church, when on the Eves of Easter, and Whitsontide, at the Benediction of Springs and Fountains, they make a new great wax Taper, wherewith all the other luminaries are set on fire.
Touching Moses fire, it was first sent from Heaven, and lasted to the construction of Solomons Temple, which was again renewed from Heaven; and maintained to King Manasses his time, when the Jewes were carryed captives into Babylon, which the Levites kept in the bottome of a Well, where it was found again at their return 70 years after, in the form of a gluish and white water, as hath been said heretofore. Pausanias to the Corinthians, sets down, that in the dayes of Antigonus son of Demetrius, there appeared a fountain of warm water near to the City of Mathana, but from the beginning it appeared not in water, but in great flames of Fire which were resolved into hot and salt water. Saint Ambrose yet discoursing upon this water of the Levites, in the third of his offices, sets down, that this doth sufficiently demonstrate, that this was a perpetual fire which could not be taken from another place, to shew that they must not acknowledge any other God, or other religion, and ceremonies then those that were established by the inspiration of the holy Spirit designed by fire; for we may see what the children of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, found in the 10 of Leviticus, being willing to take upon them to offer strange fire unto God. Then all false doctrine, idolatry, heresie, and impiety, may be called strange fire, that devours the soul as a feaver doth the body, with the life that maintains it; there where this true fire sent from Heaven, is that of the holy Spirit, which salteth our hearts and consciences, that is to say, preserves them from corruption, according whereunto the Prophet Jeremie spake in his 20. chapter when he had received it. Then it was made as a burning fire in my heart, and shut up in my bones, and I was weary in forbearing and could not stay. That the Holy Spirit should not be only light, but very fire, Esay doth manifest chap. 10. 17. And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his holy one for a flame. For even so as the burnings, which are a potentiall fire, composed of igneal and burning salts, work not upon a dead part, insensible, and deprived of Natures heat; so the holy Spirit doth not exercise its actions upon cold languishing hearts, that make no account of its ticklings, and invitations, but shew themselves contumacious and refractary; just so as the heat of the Sun, and of the fire, but more and more hardens earth, and clay, in stead of softening it, and melts it as they do wax, butter, and grease. For the acts of Actives are in the disposition of the Patient, where we see fire does divers effects in disagreeable subjects, but not wholly contrary, and directly opposite; as when it blacks a coal, and white chalk where its vertue is imprinted, but all to the contrary; for fire by custome is extinguished by water, it is it, that in this respect inflames and renewes that which was imprinted and hidden in the chalk: whence a fair meditation is presented; that as fire is the symboll of life; water (that is its contrary) and extinguisheth it, must be of consequence the symboll of death; water naturally tending downwards, and fire upwards, wherein consisteth life.