Two Treatises on the Nature of the Elements and the Fifth Essence

17
DE ELEMENTIS.

...you may perceive a distinction between both (vtraque). Our culinary fire (Ignis Culinaris) is an example and a proof, which, being nourished by wood or dry sods, collects with great force and, as if by sucking, attracts air (aër) to itself: it renders it bright, pure, and shining, and assimilates it to itself thoroughly. Which thing itself it does so eagerly and so intently that if by chance it is cut off, with the air withdrawn and intercepted (that is, whenever it happens to be suffocated), it soon dies away and vanishes into thin breezes; which is surely most worthy of note.

For it shows how zealously God’s creatures carry out their functions; how diligently they work as long as they have that upon which they may act, and the more they find, the better they act, if nothing should be a hindrance to them. So that here we also may properly perform our duty, and permit God the Creator (Creator) and the gifts of God to work in us without envy and without hindrance, so that from one light we may be advanced into another, having been rendered purer and more illustrious by the rays of divine light (diuina lux).