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This tunicle of the foul's whether it be called pure æther, or luciform vehicle, or animal fpirit feemeth to be that which moves and acts upon the grofs organs, as it is determined by the foul, from which it immediately receives impreffion, and in which the moving force truly and properly refides. Some moderns have thought fit to deride all that is faid of æthereal vehicles, as mere jargon or words without a meaning. But they fhould have confidered, that all fpeech concerning the foul is altogether, or for the most part, metaphorical; and that, agreeably thereunto, Plato fpeaketh of the mind or foul, as a driver that guides and governs a chariot, which is, not unfitly, styled auyoedès, a luciform æthereal vehicle, or xua, terms expreffive of the purity, lightnefs, fubtilty and mobility of that fine celeftial nature, in which the foul immediately refides and operates.

172. It was a tenet of the Stoics that the world was an animal, and that providence anfwered to the reasonable foul in man. But then the providence or mind was fuppofed by them to be immediately refident or prefent in fire, to dwell therein, and to act thereby. Briefly, they conceived God to be an intellectual and fiery fpirit, veõμa νοερὸν καὶ πυρῶδες. Therefore though they looked on fire (f) as the rò yeμovinov or governing principle of the world; yet it was not fimply fire, but animated with a mind.

173. Such are the bright and lively signatures of a divine mind, operating and difplaying itself in fire and light throughout the world, that, as Ariftotle obferves in his book De mundo, all things seem full of divinities, whofe apparitions on all Aides strike and dazzle our eyes. And it must be (f) 166.

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owned, the chief philofophers and wife men of antiquity, how much foever they attributed to fecond caufes and the force of fire, yet they fuppofed a mind or intellect always refident therein, active or provident, reftraining it's force and directing it's operations.

174. Thus Hipocrates in his treatise, De diæta, fpeaks of a strong but invifible fire (g), that rules all things without noife. Herein, faith he, refides foul, understanding, prudence, growth, motion, diminution, change, fleep and waking. This is what governs all things and is never in repofe. And the fame author, in his tract De carnibus, after a ferious preface, fetting forth that he is about to declare his own opinion, expreffeth it in thefe terms: "That which we call heat, Jaguar, appears to me "fomething immortal, which underftands all "things, which fees and knows both what is prefent, and what is to come."

175. This fame heat is alfo what Hippocrates calls nature, the author of life and death, good and evil. It is farther to be noted of this heat, that he maketh it the object of no sense. It is that occult, univerfal nature, and inward invifible force, which actuates and animates the whole world, and was worfhipped by the ancients under the name of Saturn; which Voffius judges, not improbably, to be derived from the Hebrew word Satar, to lye hidden or concealed. And what hath been delivered by Hippocrates agrees with the notions of other philofophers: Heraclitus, (b) for inftance, who held fire to be the principle and caufe of the generation of all things, did not mean thereby an inanimate element, but, as he termed it, aug dɛi(wov, an everliving fire.

(g) 168.

(b) 166.

176. Theo

176. Theophraftus, in his Book, De igne, diftinguifheth between heat and fire. The firft he confiders as a principle or cause, not that which ap peareth to fenfe as a paffion or accident existing in a fubject, and which is in truth the effect of that unfeen principle. And it is remarkable, that he refers the treating of this invifible fire or heat, to the investigation of the firft caufes. Fire, the principle, is neither generated nor destroyed, is every where and always prefent (a); while its effects in different times and places fhew themselves more or less, and are very various, foft, and cherishing, or violent and deftructive, terrible or agreeable, conveying good and evil, growth and decay, life and death, throughout the mundane system.

177. It is allowed by all, that the Greeks derived much of their philofophy from the Eastern na tions. And Heraclitus is thought by fome to have drawn his principles from Orpheus, as Orpheus did from the Ægyptians; or, as others write, he had been auditor of Hippafus a Pythagorean, who held the fame notion of fire, and might have derived it from Egypt by his mafter Pythagoras, who had travelled into Egypt, and been instructed by the fages of that nation. One of whofe tenets it was, that fire was the principle of all action which is agreeable to the doctrine of the Stoics, that the whole of things is adminiftred by a fiery in tellectual fpirit. In the Afclepian Dialogue, we find this notion, that all parts of the world vege.. tate by a fine fubtil æther, which acts as an engine or inftrument, fubject to the will of the fupreme God.

178. As the Platonifts held intellect to be lodged in foul, and foul in æther (b); so it paffeth

(a) 43.

(6)

(b) 157.

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for a doctrine of Trifmegiftus in the Pimander, that mind is cloathed by foul, and foul by fpirit. Therefore as the animal fpirit of man, being fubtil and luminous, is the immediate tegument of the human foul, or that wherein and whereby fhe acts; even fo the spirit of the world, that active fiery æthereal fubftance of light, that permeates and animates the whole fyftem, is fuppofed to cloath the foul, which cloaths the mind of the univerfe.

179. The Magi likewife faid of God, that he had light for his body and truth for his foul. And in the Chaldaic oracles, all things are fuppofed to be governed by a mug vosgov or intellectual fire. And in the fame oracles, the creative mind is faid to be cloathed with fre, Εσσάμενος πυρὶ πῦρ, which oriental reduplication of the word fire, feems to imply the extreme purity and force thereof. Thus alfo in the Pfalms, Thou art clothed with light as with a garment. Where, the word rendered light might have been rendered fire, the Hebrew letters being the fame with thofe in the word which fignifies fire, all the difference being in the pointing, which is justly counted a late invention. That other fcripture fentence is remarkable: Who maketh his minifters a flaming fire; which might, perhaps, be rendered more agreeably to the context, as well as confiftently with the Hebrew, after this manner: Who maketh flaming fire his minifters; and the whole might run thus: Who maketh the winds his meffengers, and flaming fire his minifters.

180. A notion of fomething divine in fire, animating the whole world, and ordering its feveral parts, was a tenet of very general extent (a), (a) 156, 157, 163, 166, 167, 168, 170, 172, 173, 174, 175, 177, a

being embraced in the moft diftant times and places, even among the Chinese themselves; who make tien, æther, or heaven, the fovereign principle, or cause of all things, and teach that the celestial virtue, by them called li, when joined to corporeal fubftance, doth fashion, distinguish, and fpecificate all natural beings. This li of the Chinese seems to answer the forms of the Peripatetics. And both bear analogy to the foregoing philofophy of fire.

181. The heaven is fuppofed pregnant with virtues and forms, which conftitute and difcriminate the various fpecies of things. And we have more than once obferved, that, as the light, fire, or celeftial æther, being parted by refracting or reflecting bodies, produceth variety of colours; even fo, that fame apparently uniform fubftance being parted and fecreted by the attracting and repelling powers of the divers fecretory ducts of plants and animals, that is, by natural chemistry, produceth or imparteth the various fpecific properties of natural bodies. Whence the taftes and odours and medicinal virtues fo various in vegetables.

182. The tien is confidered and adored by the learned Chinese, as living and intelligent æther, the Tug voegov of the Chaldæans and the Stoics. And the worship of things celeftial, the fun and stars, among the eastern nations lefs remote, was on account of their fiery nature, their heat and light, and the influence thereof. Upon these accounts, the fun was looked on by the Greek theologers as the spirit of the world, and the power of the world. The clean fing quality, the light and heat of fire are natural fymbols of purity, knowledge, and power, or, if I may fo fay, the things them

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