_Do not in these things tacitely and by chance require, Lightning brought fire on earth to mortalls First: thence all heate of flame was given_. [Sidenote: 1500 years.] [Sidenote: 500] The Greekes attribute it to _Phoroneus_, and put it, that it was neare to _Argos_. That fire being fallen from heaven there-about, it was afterward there kept within the Temple of _Apollo_; which if by chance it came to extinguish, they lighted it againe anew by the Sunnebeames; as also they did at _Rome_ that of the Vestals. And in _Persia_ their sacred fire which they carried ordinarily where the King marcht in person singularly reverencing it, for their respect to the Sunne, which they adored above all other Deities; for they esteemed it here below, their Image. They caryed it (I say) in great pompe and solemnity on a magnificent Chariot drawne by four great Couriers, and followed by 365 young Ministers, for as much as there are so many dayes in the yeare, which describe the Sunne by its course, clad with yellow guilded, the colour conformable to the Sunne, and fire, singing hymnes to their praise. And there was amongst them, no crime more capitall and irremissible, then to cast any dead carkasse or other uncleannesse therein, or to blow it with your breath, for feare to infect it, but they did it to give it aire, for in all this they hazzarded no lesse then life; as to quench it otherwise in water: So that if any one had perpetrated any grievous forfeit, to obtaine grace and pardon therein; the best expedient then was, as _Plutarch_ puts in his first Treatise of the first cold, to put himselfe in running water with fire in the hand, threatning to quench it in the water if they did not grant his request; but after hee had obtained it hee was not left unpunished for his offence, but for the impiety that hee had forethought to commit. And from thence it became a common proverbe mentioned in _Suidas_: I am a _Persian_, borne of _Persian_ parents; what a strange _Persian_? yea Sir, for us to pollute fire, it is sharper then cruel death. But all this which may bee said of fire, and by the meanes thereof, hath not yet been revealed, nor knowne by men: Is there any thing more admirable then Gunpowder, so easy to make, and consisting of so few ingredients; and so common Sulphur, Saltpeter and coale? which seeme to have been mystically designed by the Ægyptians, by the three Celestial powers, whence they alledge Thunder, Lightning, Tempests, to be conducted and governed, _Jupiter_, _Vesta_, and _Vulcan_. By _Vulcan_, Sulphur; by _Jupiter_, Saltpeter, full of aire and winde, as _Raymund Lullius_ puts it, who well knew it, and its nature, and its effects if he would have discovered them; and by _Vesta_ Coale; as well for the Terrestreity that is in it, as for that it is incorruptible, being able to keepe it many thousands of yeares within the ground, without alteration or spoiling, which was the cause that they made a place and stage for it,