A Discovrse of Fire and Salt. Blaise de Vigenère
which are the inward vestment, and the Tabernacle the outward: To this purpose, the Apostle in the fifth of the 2 to the Corinthians, saith, We know that if our earthly house of this Tabernacle were dissolved, we have an Ædifice not built with mans hand, but eternally permanent in the high Heavens. For in this we groane, earnestly desiring to bee clothed upon, with our house which is from heaven, if so be, that being clothed wee shall not bee found naked. So Adam in respect of his body, is a representation of the sensible world; where his skinne corresponds with the Firmament, extending heaven like a Curtaine. For as the heaven covereth and enveloppeth all things, so doth the skin every man; in which, are introduced and fastned its starres and signes, that is to say, the draughts and lineaments in the hands, the forehead, and visage, in which wise men know and reveale, and makes them discerne the inclination of its naturall, imprinted in the inward; And he that doth conjecture from thence, is as he, to whom heaven being covered with Clouds, cannot perceive the constellations that are there, or otherwise darkened from his sight. And although the sagest and most expert in these things can finde out something therein denoted by the draughts and lineaments of the palme of the hand, and fingers, or within them; for by the outside, (it is case a part) and shew nothing, but the nailes which are not a little secret and mystery, because by death they are obfuscate, but have a shining lustre while they live, in the haire, eyes, nose, and lips, and all the rest of his person. For as God hath made the Sunne, Moone, and Stars, thereby to declare to the great World, not only the day, night, and seasons, but the change of times, and many signes that must appeare in the earth. So hath he manifested in the little world Man, certaine draughts and lineaments, holding place of lights and starres, whereby men may attaine to the knowledge of very great secrets, not common, nor knowne of all. Hence is it that the Intelligences of the superiour world do distill and breath as it were, by some channels their influences, whereby the effects come to struggle and accomplish their effects here below, as of things drawn with a rude and strong bow, will plant themselves within a Butt, where they rest themselves.
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