Sal Lumen and Spiritus Mundi Philosophici

Water and fire organise the comparison more precisely. The author places baptism and the Holy Spirit beside the washing and consuming actions through which substances are prepared for renewed activity. Christ’s blood is associated with the true water; the heart becomes the inward globe warmed by the Holy Spirit’s rays. Chymical fire is then compared with that inward action because it consumes alien impurity around a body. The shared structure is removal of corruption followed by freer operation of what is preserved. The argument assigns distinct objects to the actions: sins and affections in one application, excrementitious matter in another. See water, fire and the inward globe.

The fourth chapter adds safeguards against equating regeneration with destruction. Christ’s renewal is said to provide a pattern, although his nature’s centre did not need purging. Material mortification likewise need not mean that the subject loses its body through annihilation. The seed comparison preserves a centre of life through putrefaction; the account of the Redeemer preserves bodily and spiritual union through death and exaltation. These qualifications matter because the desired result requires continuity as well as change. A reader can trace the author’s comparisons without assuming that every theological term names a material constituent. See the pure centre and the pattern and mortification without bodily annihilation.