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 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 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 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, 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.

Rom 12. — In brief, by the Sabbath alone, the Phoenix of our Soul is renewed, who, altogether denying, deposing, refusing and accompting for nothing all the vanity of this world, and itself from within and without, plainly dies in the forgetfulness and contempt of all things, and of itself, and offers itself a living and pleasing sacrifice to God and, being regenerate anew, becomes a new creature, a new offspring from the seed of the Woman, by conception from the holy Spirit, is made a Son of God, a new man, an imitator of Christ, following his steps; is made a hater of evil, and a follower of good ; a new plant, a new tree that is good, which brings forth good fruits. This is true repentance, true penitence, the true putting off the old 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. 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 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 Kingdom of Heaven, and the Kingdom of the world.

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 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 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.