Seções:
Índice Geral
Seção
Atual: Índice
Índice da Obra Anterior: V.
That all
kinds of Sciences (…)
Seguinte: VII. Touching the
Distribution of all Astrology (…)
(p. 86)
CHAPTER VI.
Touching a double
Firmament and Star in every man; and that, by the benefit of Regeneration in the
exercise of the Sabbath, a man may be transposed from a worse Nature into a
better.
FROM the above-said, there appears a most
elegant doctrine, to wit; although some of us by constitution and concordance of
the external and internal Heaven, in the point of his conception and nativity,
should haply have attained the most wicked constellation and nature, ready and
prone to commit any kind of maliciousness, so as he should even bear in his
face, in his countenance, in his hands, and in his whole body, an evident
signature or physiognomy to every most wicked crime, all which should shew most
certain tokens that he should act only a most miserable and most wicked
(p. 87)
kind of life; but also should expect on himself the
most cruel punishment and destruction. Yet, nevertheless, we must not altogether
despair of such a man's correction and salvation. The reason is, because besides
the natural Heaven, and Astralic
Firmament which is in our soul, we have another Heaven, another Sidus, another star, another Light, another Constellation,
which is the Spirit of God, by whose power being supported, we may shake off and
drive away all the provocations of the evil ascendants of natural stars, as an
ass is wont to shake off and drive away flies and gnats stinging him on his
back.
Sibi Velit.
– Therefore although Nature is potent and strong in herself in inciting and
forcing a man in his proper will and reason by her divers and delectable concupiscences to any kind of crime; yet the Spirit of the
Lord in his virtue, power and fortitude, is far superior, and exceeds Nature in
as great a measure as the Sun is seen to excel the Moon. Let a man then at
length learn, and do his endeavor that he may know what that most profitable
precept of God, touching the sanctification of the Sabbath to be exercised every
seventh day requires of him, in which exercise, nevertheless, the worst of
things may be corrected, and also transformed into the best things. For such a
medicine lieth hid in the holy exercise of the
Sabbath, as whole Nature, with her universal virtue is not able to exhibit to a
man; for which medicine's sake, this book is written.
A man, therefore, inclined naturally to this or that vice, by occasion of his
generation, ought not to connive at himself, or to frame any excuse, as if he
could by right accuse the external heaven that it is the cause, wherefore he
cannot live honestly and do that which is good, nor
(p. 88)
by any means can overcome, chance, break,
correct his sinful nature, or convert it into better; and so under the pretext
of human imbecility, as it were, defend his spontaneous malice, avarice, lust,
pride and intemperance, etc., and to go forward in a vicious life.
O opinion most worthy of refutation, and to be accursed! I pray, what should the
cry of Christ, the Prophets and Apostles avail? Repent, repent, be ye converted
unto me, and I will be converted unto you; put off the old man, and put on the
new man; and fly evil, and cleave to that which is good; and lay aside the works
of darkness, and walk in the light! I say, to what end should these things be
spoken and commanded, if our defence or excuse should
have place in the divine Judgment?
Let such a man, therefore, so wickedly deceived of himself, suffer himself to be
instructed and taught by this our most profitable
Theologization
of Astrology, wherein we have found and tried, not without the greatest joy of
the mind, that besides the shop and operation of Nature, there is always present
in us something far more great and excellent, with the knowledge and virtue
whereof we being fraught, have power of resisting not only one, but all vices,
as well the greatest as the least, whatsoever lie hid and are manifest in us.
Yea, power not only of casting down, and drowning one stone, but also the whole
mountain of the Microcosm being in us, in the Sea of divine Power; or
extirpating utterly, not only one leaf, but even the whole tree of the knowledge
of good and evil extant in us, and of transplanting it into the garden of the
celestial Paradise.
Mark
this. – For so all these things are manifest in Theological Mysteries to
those that understand these
(p. 89)
things. Truly, it is evident, all things
are Essentially to be transferred unto Man, which are divinely written for Man.
See
the Scripture, of Regeneration and New Birth. – I say, we have a power
lying hid in us of over-ruling whole Nature, of stopping the Serpent, and
overcoming all his force, and of instituting in us a new, and that a good – a
better – the best Nativity; of erecting and instituting in us, from a new
Heaven, a new kind of Life, and a far more happy figure, and that by the sole
benefit of the Sabbath; by which, from day to day we may put off the old man,
and put on the new man; fall back from vices, and pass on to virtues, that is,
to shake off from us all the ascendant stars or flames of divers concupiscences and desires to all kind of pleasures of this
world, ever and anon provoking, drawing, and seducing, us.
John 17. – By this means we go forth safe
and free from the House of Egypt; from the Babylonian Captivity; and we escape
from the power of the great Creature; we overcome sinful Nature, we resist the
Serpent, we chase away the Devil. And by how much the more frequent we are in
this exercise of the Sabbath, or in this Theologization
of Astrology, by so much the more are we made strangers to Nature, that we are
scarce any more known or touched by her, neither doth any Astrologer, Physiognomist, Signator, Divinator, artist how industrious soever,
know any more to erect any certain nativity, or to prognosticate any thing, to
come. Because they which are frequent in familiarity with God, these are more
and more alienated from the world, that they are not any more said to be of the
world, but of heaven, although as to the body, they are as yet conversant in the
world. And whatsoever any one doth by the Sabbath,
(p. 90)
in the introversion of his mind, he acts and
orders with God, and God with him, in the hidden place of his heart; this cannot
be seen or known by any spirit, much less by man.
Here some Astrologers are to be admonished of their want of knowledge, who have
not doubted to subject even the whole man, with all things which are in him, to
the dominion of the world and stars, in erecting their nativities as if a man
were or had no more in himself than a brute or beast, through ignorance passing
by the constitution of Man in three parts – Spirit, Soul, and Body; whose soul
arising from the firmamental zodiac, and whose body from the elements, are
altogether subject to the dominion of Nature. (1) But not the Spirit,
which we have from God; and listening, nothing, to that, which every disciple of
Christ and friend of God, regenerate from above, by faith and the death of sin
in the
(p. 91)
most holy Sabbath, hath within himself, a most
present medicine in his heart, against all the poisonous and deadly wounds of
nature, and the Serpent; and also the divine commandment of deposing,
overcoming, and conquering, the old heaven, with its inclinations of divers concupiscences, and of walking in the newness of the Spirit,
in the Light of Grace.
The
exercise of the Sabbath, or Theologization of
Astrology, is to die to thyself and the whole creature; to offer thyself wholly
to God, with all things which are within and without. Hither belong all the
Scriptures, and all books speaking of the mortification of Man. – To
wise men, therefore, that is, to those that know both God and themselves
rightly, the matter is far better to be looked into, for they know both are in
us: –
God, and Nature.
The
The Tree of Life, and the Tree of Death.
The greater Light, and the lesser Light.
The seed of the Woman, and the seed of the Serpent.
And also that Man is placed between these two, to be exercised in this world in
a perpetual war, whether of these should overcome; thence shall man have his
reward, for God will render to every one – all crafty excuse and imbecility
being laid aside – according to his works, whether they be good or evil.
Here you shall observe an example, touching the change of man from an inferior
and worse nature into a superior and better nature. If you take a certain stone,
lying, by chance in a sunny place, and very much heated by the too much parching
heat of the sun, and put it into water or some river, then the sun can no more
make
(p. 92)
it so hot, or penetrate it with his heat; in like
manner the case is in the Theologization of Astrology.
Take or gather, and apprehend all thy evil nature, and thy insincere affections,
and unlawful lusts, too much operating and flourishing in thee; I say, take and
put them by the Sabbath, into the mind, or spirit of thy mind, which thou hast
from God, who is the everlasting fountain and water of life; and
sabbathize in a solid and constant abnegation of thyself, and of all
things known unto thee, which are within thee, as well as without thee, that
thou mayest almost wholly die there; then will thy
soul with all her adherent stores of concupiscences,
fall down and be drowned in the depth of the supernal water, which is the Spirit
of God infused in us; and the firmamental operation will more and more cease and
be wearied in thee, and the ascendant stars of thy concupiscences will no more afflict, urge, drive, carry thee
as before; but, from day to day, thou shalt ease
thyself from that most hard yoke of the Zodiac, and of all the Planets; thy
youth shall be renewed as an Eagle, and thou shalt be
like an infant new-born, and shalt perceive in thyself
new virtues, and affections to work and move in thee, arising, inclining,
occupying, leading and governing thee from the celestial Star, and influence of
the divine Spirit. So as where, heretofore, thou hast been the servant of sin,
and hast given thy members weapons of unrighteousness and malice, now with
trembling thou abhorrest the performances of thy
fore-past life, and fraught with a new mind, heart, affections and desire, from
the exercise of the Sabbath, by the Spirit of God, hereafter thou shalt serve God, and give up thy members weapons of justice,
piety, charity, mercy, meekness, temperance, modesty, chastity, and so thou
shalt rightly Theologize thy Astrology, so shalt
(p. 93)
thou best overcome, correct, amend thy nature, so shalt thou rightly tread the head of the Serpent under thy
feet, so shalt thou well silence in thyself the
assaults of the devil.
Hence the true Sabbath instituted and commanded of God, is the best cure and
medicine against all kind of evil, – which quickly brings death eternal to the
soul, and temporal to the body, by which we may put off, bear and take off that
great and most grievous yoke and mountain of so great a Zodiac, of so great a
Firmament, of so great Governors. I say, to take away the Kingdom of Rule, and
to precipitate into the immense Sea of eternal water, and ever and anon get new
strength, and come out more vivacious, as was well known and used by the
Patriarchs in the first age, whence also they could yet to themselves the Enochian long life upon earth, by the exercise of this kind
of mental Sabbath, which, indeed, is altogether obliterated, abrogated in this
our age, and seems to be a thing unknown.
But how every one of us ought, and may know, and try in himself, what and what
kind truly is his Astrology or firmamental action or operation of the Light of
Nature; and how he may and can Theologize the same, that is, overcome Nature and
be made the Son of God, this the following Chapters will illustrate, and teach
more clearly than the Sun.
FOOTNOTE
(90:1) Note that our Author here speaks of
the
Anima
Bruta; – not of the Anima
Divina (Koré).
A.K.
Seções:
Índice Geral
Seção
Atual: Índice
Índice da Obra
Anterior:
V. That all
kinds of Sciences (…)
Seguinte: VII. Touching the
Distribution of all Astrology (…)