But to retake the discourse of this double man, and the vestment of him, the Apostle in the 1 Cor. 15. saith, That there are bodies Celestial, and bodies Terrestrial, yet there is a glory both of the one, and of the other. There is a naturall, or animall body, and there is a body spirituall: he will raise up the spirituall body incorruptible; To this relates the Fire, to the corruptible Salt.
From these vestments furthermore the occasion presents it selfe to a larger extension, the better to declare who must be seasoned with Fire, and who with Salt; which is here expressed by the offering, to whom the exteriour doth correspond, according to the Apostle, Rom. 12. I pray you brethren, by the mercy of God, that you offer up your bodies a living Sacrifice, holy, and acceptable unto him, which is your reasonable service: which it could not make it selfe the habitation of the Holy Ghost, if it were not pure, neat, and incontaminate. Know you not that your Body is the Temple of the holy Spirit which is in you? which in Scripture is commonly designed by fire, with which wee must be salted inwardly, that is to say, preserved from corruption; and from what corruption? from sinne that putrifies our soules. Origen in his 7. book against Celsus speaking of its vestments, sets downe, that being of its selfe incorporeall and invisible, in what corporall place soever it findes it selfe, it must have a body convenable to the nature of the place where it resides. As then when it is in this Elementary world, it must have also an elementary body, which it takes when it is incorporated in the belly of a woman, to grow there, and there to live this base life with the body, that it hath taken to the limited terme; which expired, it devests it selfe of this corruptible vestment, although necessary in the earth from whence it came (following that which God said to Adam in the third of Genesis, Thou art dust, and shalt returne to dust,) to be revested with an incorruptible, whose perpetuall abode is in Heaven. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortall must put on immortality. And so the soul putting off its first Terrestriall vestment, takes another more excellent above in the Æthereall Region, which is of the nature of Fire: hitherto Origen, to which nothing could be found more conformable, then that which Pythagoras puts towards the end of his golden verses: Thus forsaking this mortall body, thou passest into the free Æthereall Aire, you shall become an immortall God, incorruptible, and no more subject to death: as if he would say, that after this materiall corruptible body, shall put off the Terrestriall and impure vestment, the perfect portion of it shall shake off these filthinesses and impurities, and shall passe aloft to heaven and adhere to God, which it could not doe, but being pure and neat; nor effect this, but by fire. Zohar speakes to the same purpose, when the Elements destroy themselves, an æthereall body succeeds in their place which doth recloath them; or to speak better, the æthereall body which was reclad with them, devests it selfe; and this is represented to us in the 5 of Esther, where it is said, that on the third day shee tooke off her clothes that shee was wont to weare, and put on her royall apparell to appeare before the King; which signifies the holy Spirit, and Esther the reasonable soule, whose vestments are the garments of the kingdome of Heaven; of which he that Daniel 3. chap. was said to be like to the Son of God, that crowns the just, and adornes them with royall apparell, to bring them into the presence of the King of Kings, to the Paradise of pleasure, clensed with aire from above, which the holy Spirit breathed into it. Origen in his second Homily upon the 36 Psalme. It is the manner of holy Scripture to introduce two sorts of men, that is to say, the interiour and the exteriour, each of which, hath need as much as concernes him, of apparell, as well as nourishment; the external corporal man, maintaines himselfe with meats corruptible, proper and familiar to himselfe, having ever need of Salt, besides their own connaturall; but there is also meat for the inward, whereof it is said in the 8 of Deuteronomy, Man doth not live by bread onely, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. And for matter of drinke, the Apostle in the 1 Cor. 10. Our fathers did eat the same spirituall meat, and did drinke the same spirituall drinke; for they did drinke of that spirituall rocke that followed them, and that rocke was Christ. Who speaking of this drinke in the 4. of Saint John, saith, that hee is the fountaine of living water, and who so drinketh of the water that he shall give them, shall never thirst. There are also two rayments in regard of the inner man. If he be a sinner, it is said Psalme 109. He hath put on malediction as a garment, which must be to him as his apparell, wherewith he is covered, and as a girdle wherewith he is girt. And on the contrary the Apostle Col. 3. Lie not one to another, having cast off the old man with his deeds, and put on the new, but be clothed with mercy, benignity, humility, and meeknesse of Spirit.
These are the vestments which Zohar said were the good works and the nuptiall accoustrements of the soule, which cannot bee washed or cleansed but by Fire, Every mans work shall bee made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every mans worke of what sort it is, 1 Cor. 3. 13. wherein they shall persist without impaire, or consumption, but shall be purified when the soule shall therewith be clothed; from this uncleane scumme, wherein there may remaine some spots that the fire goes on to purge, consuming and defacing them. But what is this fire? It is it which is said in the 4 and 9 of Deuteronomy, our God is a consuming fire: which as Irenæus interprets, was to strike feare and terror into the Israelites; and this afterwards in the 12 to the Hebrewes, 28, 29. Let us serve God acceptably with feare and reverence, for our God is a consuming fire. For they had sufficiently understood that the world once perished by the universall deluge, and that it may not incurre the like accident, but suffer its last extermination by fire. Adde that in the 33. of the Mosaicall Law, it is called The Law of fire, which is in the right hand of the Almighty, because of its austerity and rigour, all filled with menaces, with feares, with horrors; as much as the Christian is, with sweetnesse and mercy: in his right hand, there is a fiery Law: which the Chaldean Paraphrase interpreteth, for that it was given on Mount Horeb, through the middest of fire; according as it is said in the 4 to the purpose touching this feare. The Lord speake unto me saying, Assemble the people there below, that they may heare my words, and learne to feare me: Then came you neare to the foote that burned even to heaven, and the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of fire. And Exodus 3. the burning bush wherein God appeared unto Moses, and was not consumed. Of this consuming fire, further speaketh Zohar thus in conformity to that received Maxime in naturall Philosophy, that a great flame doth devoure and quench a lesse: as wee may sensibly perceive by a lighted Torch, which is extinguished by the Sunbeams, and by a kettle set neare a great fire that sucks and drawes all out to it selfe: Hee saith then upon this Text of the 35. of Exod. You shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the Sabbath: To which purpose, said Rabbi Simeon, was that ordained? and why was it not lawfull to kindle a fire on the seventh day? because that when men kindle fire, it goeth ever upwards according to its naturall, and moving above every thing, following that of the 7. of Sapience, where it is compared to fire. In Wisdome is the spirit of understanding, holy, one only, manifold, subtill, lively, cleare, undefiled, plaine, moveable above every thing, and overtops all by reason of its purity. The Fire hath two properties, to be moving, and pure, not participating of any uncleannesse; and all motion, is a kinde of action and operation, forbidden expresly on the Sabbath day. Fire then mounting aloft, caries with it the impurities designed in the 10. of Leviticus by strange fire, which is there devoured by that which proceeds from the presence of the Lord. And should bee as much, as thereby to draw from it selfe a judgement of his offences that must not be renewed in the sanctification of the Sabbath, for feare that the fire of Gods wrath do not devour and consume that of our iniquities, and us at once, if this our fire be not first purged by a stronger fire, that consumeth and devoureth the lesser and more feeble: Zohar runs through all that, and upon the passage of the foresaid fourth of Deut. Thy God is a consuming fire; he speakes further,
There is a double fire, the one stronger, that devoures the other. He that will know it, let him contemplate the flame that parteth and mounteth from a kindled Fire, or from a Lampe or Torch; for it mounteth not, except it be incorporated to some visible substance, and united with the aire, whereupon it feedeth. But in the flame that mounteth there are two lights, the one white, which shineth and illightneth, having its root somewhat blew; the other red, fastned to the wood, or to the weik that it burneth. That which is white, mounteth directly upwards, and underneath the red remaineth firme, and departs not from the matter, administring wherewith to flame and shine to the other; but they come upon the point to joine and unite together, the one burning, the other burned, till they bee converted into that which predominates and playes the master, namely the white, alwayes the same without variation and change, as the other doth; which now growes blacke, after becomes red, yellow, peach colour, sky colour, azure reinforced above and below, above with a white flame, below with the blacknesse of the matter, which furnisheth it wherewithall to burne, and at the last is therewith consumed. For this azure, red, and yellow flame, the more grosse and materiall it is, endeavours alwayes to exterminate and destroy that which nourished and maintained it: as sinnes do the conscience which harbours them, to the end to make them the perdition and ruine of all that which adheres to it here below, so long, till at the last it remaines extinct; there where the light annexed thereunto, is not eternally extinguished but goes freely upward, and returnes to its proper place of abode, or residence; having accomplished its action below, without changing its brightnesse into any other colour then white. In the like case is it of a tree, whose roots are fastned within the earth, from whence it takes its nourishment, as the weik takes his from the tallow, waxe, or oyle, which makes it burne.
The branch that drawes its juice or sap, by the root, is the same as the weik, where the fire is maintained by the liquor which it drawes unto it, and the white flame, are the branches and boughes, clad with leaves, the flowers and fruits, whereunto tends the finall end of a tree, are the white flame when all comes to bee reduced: wherefore Moses said that thy God is a consuming fire, as it is true; for the fire consumes and devoures all that which is under it, and upon which it exerciseth its action. And therefore very proper in the Hebrew text Elohenu, thy God, and not Anonenu, thy Lord, because the Prophet was in this superiour white light, which neither devoureth, nor can be devoured. And the Israelites were the blew lights, who endeavour to lift up themselves, and unite to him under the law: for the ordinary of this blew light, inclining rather to blacknesse, then to whitenesse; it is true that is constituted as in the midst, and to ruine and destroy all that it layes hold on, and whereunto it adheres.
But if sinners submit thereunto, then the white light shall bee called Adonenu, our Lord, and not Elohenu, our God, for that it domineers and devours it. And it is this blew flame designed by the little and last ה He of the sacred venerable foure lettered Jehovah, which assembles and unites with the three first והי Jehu the white light, which shineth in a most cleare simplicity Trin-one, having under it the blackish, ruddy, & azure colour of the little ה He, which is the humane nature consisting of the four Elements, for that it is sometimes represented by 4 ד, the fourth letter of the Alphabet, and which marketh the number of 4. You will say I have brought you here a prolixe place of Zohar, I do avow it, but it must have a more ample explication, for there are great mysteries covered thereunder. This Rabbi superlative to all others, endeavouring in his profound and abstracted meditations which transcend all to elevate our spirits by the similitude of a light, to the knowledge of spirituall things, which differs not from our principall purpose, which is fire and its effects.
Of this white light, and of its collaterals; other Rabbins speake, as Kamban, Gerundensis; That by the Caballe it appears unto us, that the Scripture was an obscure and darke fire, upon the backe of white fire, and marvailously resplendent.
It is the fire (say they) of the holy Spirit, consuming our iniquities, denoted by the red inflamed ardor, and the blew and azure flame, which is the strange fire, as Saint Ambrose very well expounds it in his fourth Epistle to Simplician.
Strange fire, is all the ardor of slippery concupiscence, of avarice, hatred, rancour, and envy; And of this fire no man is purged nor expiated, but well burned, which if men offer in the presence of the Lord, celestiall fire will devour, as it did Nadab and Abihu; and therefore, he that will purge his sinne, he must cast off from him this strange fire, and let him expiate therefrom; whereof it is said in the 6 of Esay 6. One of the Seraphims flew to me having a live coale in his hand, which he had taken with the Tongs from off the Altar, and touched my lips, saying, Lo this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sinne purged. Having said a little before, that all the house was filled with smoake, which is as an excrement and vapour of fire, bee it before it be lighted, or inflamed, or after it be mortified, and extinct; from whence it comes to procreate soot, then which, there is nothing more troublesome and hurtfull to the eies, having carryed away with it a parcell of adustible corruption; which administred to the fire its nourishment and food. This may bee seen in the distillation of soote, where there appeares a notable quantity of inflamable oyle, which causeth it yet to burne; and of this burning there will arise a smoake, which will againe be concreted into a burning smoake, as aforesaid, but not so much.
These are the remnants of sinne, whereof remained some staines printed in the soule, untill at the last, by a successive repurgation of fire, it be reduced to a point of compleat purity; whereof it is spoken in the 4. of the Canticles, Thou art faire my welbeloved, there is no blemish in thee; which the white flame notifies, which is the highest degree of burning. Those also well know it that maintaine a fire, for when a Fornace begins to bee hot, it waxeth blacke, then enforcing the fire, it becomes red, and at last it waxeth white when it is in the supreame and high degree of heat, where it persisteth in whitenesse more and more. Such are the actions of fire, but there are great mysteries thereunder, ever to declare further the advantage and præcellency, that the white colour hath above the red, as to the Christian faith, designed by white water, Apoc. 4, & 6. & 15. 2. (In the middle of the Throne there was a Sea of Glasse, like unto Crystall,) far above the Judaicall faith, red, heat with rigour, and severity, designed by a pillar of fire, that in the night season conducted the Israelites through the Wildernesse, and the white cloud by day, Exod. 13. 21. In the secret Hebrew Theology, the red alwayes notes Gheburah, Austerity; and the white Ghedulah, or Mercy; Eliah was transported, and by force carried into heaven, in a fiery Chariot, drawne with the like horses. But in the transfiguration of our Saviour, Mat. 17. 2. His vestments became white as snow; 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.