gold, whose solary and celestial nature I admire, ex-
posed unto the violence of fire, grows only hot, and
liquefies, but consumeth not; so when the consumable
and volatile pieces of our bodies shall be refined into a
more impregnable and fixed temper, like gold, though
they suffer from the action of flames, they shall never
perish, but lie immortal in the arms of fire. And
surely, if this flame must suffer only by the action of
this element, there will many bodies escape; and not
only heaven, but earth will not be at an end, but
rather a beginning. For at present it is not earth, but
a composition of fire, water, earth, and air; but at that
time, spoiled of these ingredients, it shall appear in a
substance more like itself, its ashes. Philosophers that
opinioned the world's destruction by fire, did never
dream of annihilation, which is beyond the power of
sublunary causes; for the last and proper action of that
element is but vitrification, or a reduction of a body into
glass; and therefore some of our chymicks facetiously
affirm, that, at the last fire, all shall be crystalized and
reverberated into glass, which is the utmost action of
that element. Nor need we fear this term, annihilation,
or wonder that God will destroy the works of his crea-
tion: for man subsisting, who is, and will then truly
appear, a microcosm, the world cannot be said to be
destroyed. For the eyes of God, and perhaps also of
our glorified selves, shall as really behold and contem-
plate the world, in its epitome or contracted essence, as
now it doth at large and in its dilated substance. In
the seed of a plant, to the eyes of God, and to the under-