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.