thereof Otherwise we can hardly explain this matter because of his Inscrutable Majesty That therefore the Celestial Bodies are Animate is hence rightly concluded For it were absurd to deny a Life and Soul to be in Heaven and the Stars the which Inspire both Life and Soul even in the vilest of these Inferiour Bodies They give Life unto Plants which grow without Natural Seed as we see in the Mountains and Places untill'd So likewise to the Earth For if a Lump be taken out of the Bowels thereof and for some time exposed to the Rays of the Sun it yieldeth Grass or some Herbs oftentimes the twiggs of little Trees The Stars also bestow Life upon Animals not generated by Copulation Nor can we be so stupid as to imagine that Plants Trees c. are of a Nobler Condition than the Celestial Bodies This manifest perpetual Operation cannot come but from a Pure and Cleansed Body These things I suppose are sufficient to prove the World hath a Soul placed in Heaven as in the most Noble Part thereof But perhaps you desire it may be further Proved that these Celestial Souls are Rational and participate of the Divine Mind The Matter is not obscure For if the World as Plato saith be the best effect that could be of goodness it self That is of GOD for we Germans so express it because Got sounds nothing else with us than Gut if we rightly enquire the Reason of the Idiom it must certainly participate not only of Life Sense and Reason but also of Intelligence The Soul is the Perfection of the Body And that Body most Perfect which hath the Perfectest Soul Wherefore if the Celestial Bodies be most Perfect they must of necessity enjoy the most Perfect Souls The Heavens therefore do Participate of the Intellect and Mind Which very thing the Platonicks plainly approve by Musical Concords For seeing that Musical Concord is as it were Living Rational and Efficaâ—ious what Resemblance hath it unto Life it self how Pleasing is it to the Mind and even Ravisheth the whole Man And which is more the Mind and all things else are made by the Soul By her they are preserved by her they are moved And therefore Plato did not amiss when he Described the Soul to be she that made preserved and moved all Natural things especially by Musical Numbers and Proportion constituted I say by Numbers not Mathematical as some Calumniate but by Ideal and Metaphysical Proportions of Numbers This Harmony consisteth altogether in Motion because that by an Aërial Nature posited in Motion it moveth the Body By a Purified Air it stirs up the Aërial Spirit the Chain of Soul and Body By affect it at once disposeth the Sense and Affection By signification it Operates upon the Mind Lastly through this Motion of the subtil Air it penetrates vehemently It floweth sweetly through the Contemplation And by its conform Quality poureth out it self with a wonderful Pleasure By its Nature as well Spiritual as Material it at once Ravisheth and Claimeth all that is Man Wherefore let us seriously consider how the Sounds of most sweet Musick elevate and as it were double and treble our Minds And in like sort judge the Melody of the Celestial Bodies who now by a slower but anon by a swifter Motion produce a tone that is Grave or Acute Whereunto agree in these Sublunaries Gravity and Levity Cold and Heat Moisture and Dryness of Elements So likewise Matter and Form in the Gâ—neration of things Meekness and Magnanimity Temperance and Fortitude in Humane Affairs Seeing therefore that Motion is â—very where Free in its own Nature it might easily prevaricate and wander unless it were Ruled by the Intellect and Mind The which we cannot further enquire of in this Place according to the Exigence of the Matter Besides it is absurd for us to have Reasons of our own works For the Celestial Souls and so the Soul of the Universe have no Reasons of theirs of whose Spirit even we our selves are generated and live continually If the Lesser World enjoy an Intelligent Soul such also enjoys the Greater But we will cease to prosecute this any further concluding that the World is a System of Celâ—stial and Terrestrial Bodies constant in Order Number and Measure but Living Animate Intellectual Whence we safely gather that the Soul of the World is a certain singular Life filling all things vivifying all things producing and connecting all things that it may accomplish and preserve one Fabrick of the whole World and be as a Monochord sounding out by the three-fold kinds of Creatures Intellectual Celestial and Corruptible at one Blast one only Life The Mystery of Unity is but known of a few Now can we here pass by the Authority both of the Holy Scriptures and also of the most approved Philosophers Deut. 4.19 Thou shalt not Worship the Sun Moon and Stars which God hath Distributed to all Nations under Heaven Deut. 28.12 God shall open unto thee his good Treasure the Heaven c. Deut. 33.13 Concerning Joseph Thy Blessing shall be of the Precious things of the Sun and of the Precious things of the Moon But above all let us consider those thingâ— which are in Levit. 26.19 I will make saith God your Heaven as Iron and your Earth as Brass The same is repeated Deut. 28.23 And also in Hosea 2.21 And I will hear the Heavens and they shall hear the Earth and the Earth shall hear the Corn and the Wine and the Oyl and they shall hear Israel Therefore we hereby see that God doth set the Root of Worldly Benedictions in Heaven as it were in the Soul of the Universe so that the Beginning of Blessings is from Heaven as the Beginning of Motion from our Soul which are of themselves perspicuous enough To this also belongs that in Job 38.33 Knowest thou the Course of Heaven or canst thou dispose the Rule thereof in the Earth The Rule of Heaven proceeds through Terrestrial and all Inferiour things as the Rule of an Emperour or King throughout his Empire and Kingdom As therefore a King is the Soul of his Kingdom so the Heaven and the Stars are the Soul of the World Likewise that of Job 26.13 His spirit hath garnished the Heavens Psal. 33.16 By the Word of the Lord the Heavens were made and by the spirit of his Mouth the whole Army thereof In whatsoever Body the Spirit of God dwelleth and shineth that Body without doubt shall be Animate and Intellectual Psal. 19. God hath set his Tabernacle in the Sun One Day telleth another and one Night teacheth another knowledge There is no Speech nor Language in those Heavens yet understandeth he their Voice Their Line is gone forth through all the Earth and their words unto the ends of the World in them hath he set a Tabernacle for the Sun Psal. 89.5 O Lord even the Hâ—avens shall confess thy wonderful Works John 3. Our Saviour saith to Nicodemus I have told you
things she hopeth and sustaineth all things Charity Buildeth up knowledge puffeth up Charity is greater then Prophesies Sciences Tongues Prophesies shall be abolished Tongues shall be Silent Sciences Perish Charity remaineth for ever He that remaineth in Charity remaineth in GOD and GOD in him Now we must know there is a Two-fold Man One Astral External or Carnal which is called Animal nor perceiveth he the things which are of the Vivifying Spirit The other Spiritual or Internal busied in Renewing the Corrupted Image of God Rom. 7. In like manner there shall be a Two-fold Wisdom One Worldly or Astral the Wisdom of Arts Sciences Dignities Possessions and of Curruptible things wherein the Gentiles are alone Busied Mat. 6. The other Celestial consisting in the knowledge of GOD in the consideration of his Ineffable Mercy in the desire of Eternal Happiness This Wisdom acknowledges no other Governour than the Holy Spirit Operating by the Word of GOD That the Heavens and Celestial Influences Both which may be joyned in a Man that pleaseth GOD. But in whom the Celestial Wisdom Reigneth that other is only a Hand-maid she seeks for nothing at all but the Glory of GOD and the welfare of her Neighbour which indeed is as much as is granted in this Life to the Elect or those whom the Father hath given unto Christ. Now where the Astral Reigneth suppose that alone There are Dogs and Swine unto whom we are forbidden to cast Pearls or that which is Holy Lastly where the Celestial and Astral do Conjunctly Rule that is when we endeavour to serve Two Masters There is true Hyprocrisie very displeasing unto GOD. No Man can serve Two Masters Such were the Pharisees in the time of Christ whose Righteousness if ours exceed not we shall not enter into the Kingdom of God Christ himself hath spoken it It was but requisite that we a little touched upon those things lest Ignorant Detractors who are either far out of the way or abhor this True manner of Philosophizing should take occasion to mingle Holy things with Profane or Profane with Holy whilst perhaps they might take upon them to Disprove these Realities Furthermore as hitherto we have Treated of the Soul and Spirit of the Universe and of the Sydereal Governour in Man So now we may possibly be informed concerning Four Senses in the Universe accommodating themselves to the Four-fold Vertue or Power of the Soul of the World There are Four Elements which contribute Matter to the Body of the World And there are also Four Powers in the Soul of the World The first is the Intellect of it self Immovable the Mover or Governour of the Sphere Instituted by the Author of all things Governing the Spheres The second is the Soul of the Sphere A Mover indeed that is Movable yet so of it self The third a certain Intelligence excellently placed in this Soul by GOD and the superiour Intellect The fourth is Nature that is to say A Seminary and Vital vertue every way infus'd into the Matter by the Soul The Intellect and Soul are indeed Substances But the Intelligence and Nature are Qualities Those of the Soul these of the Matter The Four Images of these are the Four Elements For Fire resembles the Intellect Earth the Water Air the Intelligence And lastly Water the Soul And as there are three things proper to Fire three things also opposite to Earth and that the Mediums agree with Mediums by a certain Proportion so there are three things proper to the Intellect and their Opposites are proper to Nature The Mediums also to the Mediums For the Intellect is Individual Uniform Eternal Nature Dividual Multiform Temporal The Soul amongst these Mediums looks indeed through the Intelligence more participating of the Intellect it self than of Nature But through the Animal Power the rather agrees with Nature than the Intellect Wherefore it is called partly Individual partly Dividual Partly also Uniform and partly Multiform Again partly Eternal and partly Temporal From Substance Vertue Action Fire Subtile Acute Movable Air Subtile Obtuse Movable Water Gross Obtuse Movable Earth Gross Obtuse Immovable The Intellect Individual Uniform Eternal The Soul by the Intelligence Individual Uniform Eternal The Soul by the Animal Power Dividual Multiform Temporal By Nature Dividual Multiform Temporal Hence also are the Four Lives Delivered and Believed of Plato The Life of Saturn admiring in the Intellect Heaven the Father thereof that is God the Father of Heaven The Jovial in the â—ntelligence declining to Action yet Movable The Venereal in the Animal Vertue yet Affecting Matter And the Dionysiacal as if Drunk in Nature that is of a Drench'd or Drown'd Matter And by a like Reason there are Four Senses in the Universe The First in the Soul of the World Commune I say and one Sense That is a certain Imaginary Vertue so accompanying its Intelligence and touching the Particular Forms of things as the Intelligence doth the Universal Touching I say Intrinsecally and therefore it wants no Instruments neither proceeds or suffers it any where without The second is in the Souls of the Spheres and Stars Commune indeed and Impatible also but proceeding without The third in Particular Souls distributed through all the Instruments beyond Common strength and spreading it self without but ending in the Judgment The Fourth and last Sense is according to the Pythagoreans allowed to Plants yea a certain Image of Sense and that indeed Stupid having no Judgment of Quality but Posited only in the Passion of some Pleasure or Grief The First Sense represents the Intellect The Second the Intelligence The Third the Animal Vertue and the Fourth the Natural Wherein we must remember that the Matter of the World doth not otherwise enter the Soul than by Nature nor otherwise the Intelligence than by the Soul nor otherwise the Intellect than by the Intelligence Even as it receiveth Water by the Earth by the Water Air and by the Air Fire But at length to come to our Matter we must know that the Lines of the Hands are not otherwise produced giving GOD in the first place His Due than from the Imagination of the Greater World thus or so Affected in the Generation of Man yet performing its Authority and Office by the Stars It is hardly perceptible to our Humane Wit how such an Operation should be made in our Hands by Lines shadowing out the Fate of every Man This Imagination of the Soul of the World is otherwise called Predestination Science Fate And she it is that performs her Power in the Conception and Birth by the Influence of that Star which then predominateth in the Heavens and thence poureth out that Peculiar Genius upon every Man If many Stars be to do the Work the proper and accustomed Signatures are by them distributed and Engraven Fortunate or Infortunate according to the Affection of the Planets and other Stars in their respective Signs and Quarters of Heaven Those Conjunctions and other Aspects of the Planets which but
For it admitteth some Comets to be generated below the Moon by the breathings of the Terrestrial Globe either inflamed or illuminated Yet that some are above the Moon and of a Coelestial Matter For my own part in regard of the incertainty of all other Opinions I willingly incline to that which attributes the Generation and Government of Comets to God or the Intelligences Or to such as reckon them among the Arcana of the World and the most hidden Miracles of Nature In which Number are Messabala Hagecius Rhodius Regiomontanus Tycho and many others For the Dotages of Bodin and some others who suppose Comets were the Souls of Illustrious Men triumphing in Heaven Or of those that thought them to be Fires conveyed to and fro by Spirits I shall not trouble the Reader with such Phantasms Having now declared to you the Name Genus and Species of Comets their Number time of Appearance and Continuance the Apparent and true Magnitude of their Head and Tail their Situation Inclination Motion Way Quantity Swiftness Distance Shape Colour Smell Diaphaniety Matter Place and Efficient Cause It now remains that I give you 17. Their Final Cause IT has been a received Opinion in all Ages that Comets are certain Funebrious Appearances secret Fires and Torches of Death rather than of Life and were ever look'd upon as the threatning Eyes of Divine Vengeance and the Tongue of an Ireful Deity portending the Death of Princes Plague of the People Famine and Earthquakes with horrid and terrible Tempests Aristotle lib. 1. Meteor Cap. 7. acknowledges Cometas significare Tempestatem ventorum intemperantiam atque imbrium That Comets signifie Tempests Intemperance of Winds and Showers Cicero lib. 2. de nat Deor. That Comets or as he calls them Sidera concinnata curl'd or crisped Stars Bella Octaviano Magnarum fuerunt calamitatum praenunciae were the Fore-runners or Messengers of the great Calamities that ensued by means of the Octavian War The great Naturalist Pliny tells us no less in these words Cometes terrificum magna ex parte Sydus ac non leviter piatum ut Civili motu Octavio Consule iterumque Pompeii ac Caesaris bello in nostro vero aevo circa venificium quo Claudius Caesar Imperium reliquit Domitio Neroni ac deinde Principatu ejus assiduum prope ac saevum A Comet is a terrible Star for the most part and not easily purged away by Sacrifice as in the Civil War whilst Octavius was Consul And again in the War betwixt Pompey and Caesar but in our Age saith he it was in a manner assiduous and cruel about the Feat of Poysoning whereby Claudius Caesar left the Empire to Domitius Nero and no less afterwards by his Sovereignty So likewise Suetonius writing on Claudius cap. 26. Praesagia mortis ejus praecipua fuerunt exortus Stellae Crinitae quam Cometem vocant The chief Presages of his Death were the arisings of the Hairy Star they call a Comet Nor are the Poets silent in this particular For thus Virgil Prince of Latine Poets enumerating the Prodigies that preceded the Civil War after Caesar's Death Non alià s Caelo ceciderunt plura sereno Fulgura nec diri toties arsere Cometae Not from clear Skies ever more Lightning came Nor such Dire Comets oft'ner seen to flame And Lucan Ignota obscurae viderunt sidera noctes Ardentemque Polum flammis Coeloque volantes Obliquas per inane faces crinemque timendi Sideris Terris mutantem Regna Cometen Unheard-of Stars by Night possess'd the Skies Heaven seems to flame and through the Welkin fire Obliquely flies States changing Comets dire Display to us their Blood-portending Hair Neither were the Holy Fathers of other Opinion For S. Damascen lib. 2. Orthodox fid tells us Aggignuntur autem frequenter Cometae signa quaedam interitus Regum qui quidem non sunt ex iis Astris quae à rerum initio facta sunt sed jussu divino certis temporibus conflantur ac rursus dissolvuntur There are Comets saith he frequently generated that be signs of the Death of Kings which indeed be not of those Stars that were at first created but which are gathered by the will of God at certain times and afterwards dissolved And Tertullian ad scap cap. 3. after a long Discourse thereof thus concludes Omnia haec signa sunt imminentis irae Dei They are all Signs saith he of the imminent wrath of God But because I would not be over-tedious take the Testimony of S. Augustine for all lib. de urbis excid Tom. 9. where speaking of a great Comet that impended over Constantinople about the Year 396. according to a Revelation first made thereof to a Souldier and by him to a Bishop who thereupon exhorted the People to Repentance and to receive the Sacraments he hath these very words Volens siquidem Deus terrere civitatem terrendo emendare terrendo convertere terrendo mundare terrendo mutare servo suo fideli viro ut dicitur militari c. God being pleased to terrifie the City and by terrifying convert it by terrifying cleanse it by terrifying change it he revealed as 't is reported to a Souldier his faithful Servant c. And a little after Noctis initio tenebrante jam mundo visa est ignea nubes ab Oriente primo parva deinde paulatim ut accedebat super Civitatem a crescebat donec toti urbi ingens terribiliter immineret Videbatur horrenda flamma pendere nec odor Sulphurus deerat Omnes ad Ecclesiam confugiebant non capiebat multitudinem locus Baptismum Extorquebat quisque à quo poterat Non solum in Ecclesia sed etiam per Domos per vicos plateas salus Sacramenti exigebatur ut fugaretur ira non praesâ—ns utique sed futura In the beginning of the Night whilst darkness cover'd the Earth there appeared a fiery Cloud in the East at first but a little one afterward by degrees as it approach'd the City it so increased till being mighty big it hover'd terribly over all the Ciâ—y There was seen a horrible flame which descended from it neither was there a Sulphurous smell wanting All the People fled to the Church the place contained not the Multitude Every one wrested Baptism from whom he could the health of the Sacrament was extorted not only in the Church but also throughout the Houses Lanes and Streets to avoid as well the present as future wrath of God Thus far S. Augustine Of Meteorologers Let us hear Fromundus lib. 1. Meteor cap. 3. who after a long Discourse thereon concludes with Fienus Cometem non esse Physicam causam calamitatum sed signum potius ad placitum Dei utentis Cometa licet effectu naturali ad terrendos emendandos alicubi mortales quo modo usus est ad foedus cum genere nostro significandum licet aliquibus fausti quidam Cometae fuerint aut visi sint non in hunc tamen finem sed ad tristiora
of Earthly things and you believe not how would you believe if I should tell you of Heavenly things As if he had said I now propound the Comparison of the Generation of Earthly things to Spiritual which are obvious to you all and yet you believe not much less therefore would you believe if I should dispute of Heavenly things which are not so obvious to your senses Christ is called by the Prophet The Sun of Righteousness How far we might hence Philosophize concerning the Sun and Celestial Fires can hardly be expressed Very notable is that place of Gen. 37. in the Dream of Joseph who saw himself Worshipped of the Sun the Moon and eleven Stars therefore his Father Jacob expounding this Dream Magickly saith Shall I and thy Mother and thy Brethren come and Worship thee Therefore that Holy Father knew that he had the Sun instead of his Father the Moon instead of his Mother in the World and Worldly Generations and 12 Stars for Joseph was as the 12 th Star in that he was the 12 th of the Brethren to stand in stead of the 12 begotten Sons You may understand by those 12 Stars of Heaven the twelve Signs constituting the 12 Moneths by 12 Conjunctions of the Sun and Moon in them by whose Congresses the Year is compleated and its Annual Generations finished There are other things to be seen among the Cabalists notwithstanding we have perspicuously enough enucleated the present matter We write not these things to vain Men that is such as are Ignorant and Proud but to the truly Honest and Ingenious who constantly love the Knowledge of God and his Works and such as have Learned That Divinity is True Philosophy and True Philosophy Divinity to wit Mystically which is that we may yet be more plain By the Workmanship of the Heavens and the Earth touching which all approved Philosophy teacheth and the Inscrutable System thereof to know God himself as in a Glass that he is the most Wise Ineffable and Eternal Goodness The other Authority is that of the Great Philosophers Plato Aristotle Pythagoras Orpheus Trismegistus Theophrastus Avicenne and the like But we will here follow Plato especially a Philosopher most full of Piety and the knowledge of God and his Interpreter the never to be too much Praised Marsil Ficinus of Florence than whom whether Italy ever afforded a greater I shall not easily determine If any man doubt saith Theophrastus the Periâ—atetick whether the Heavens live or not let him not be accounted a Philosopher And he that denies Heaven to be Animate so as that the Mover of it is not the Form thereof destroys the Foundations of Philosophy Neither are the most Noble Poets to be Despised of us M. Manilius in his Proem WHen every species of the glittering Sphere The Stars returning Ranked did appear In their own Seats and by the Fates Decree Each had restor'd its Formal Potency Experience framed Art by various Use Example Guiding where it was Abstruse And though at a vast distance plainly saw The Stars All-Ruling by a Tacit Law The whole World Mov'd by REASON Alternate The same Manilius Cap. 2. GOD and the Vertue of the Divine Soul Do by a Tacit Law and Sacred Course Inspire Turn Round Guide Govern and Controul This Immense Structure of the Universe And all its Natural Parts which Framed be In Different shapes of Air Fire Earth and Sea Lucan also HE that sustains the Earth Pois'd up with Air Is a Great Part of Jove And Boetius THou in consenting Parts disposed hast Th' All-moving Soul ' midst threefold Nature plac'd Which cut in Parts that run a different Race Into it self returns and doth embrace The highest Mind and Heaven doth wheel about With like Proportion And Virgil not the last of the most Excellent Philosophers 6. Aen. By Mr. J.O. AT first the Heaven and Earth the liquid Plain The Moons Bright Globe and Stars Titanian A spirit fed within spread through the whole And with the huge heap mix'd infus'd a scrowl Hence Man and Beasts and Birds derive their strain And Monsters-floating in the Marbled Main These Seeds have Fiery Vigour and a Birth Of Heavenly Race but clogg'd with heavy Earth But enough of the Soul of the World And now seeing it is manifest the World hath a Soul it will be no less apparent That the same World shall consist also of a Spirit which is called the Spirit of the Universe Where the Soul is there also is the Spirit The Soul groans in the Spirit the Intelligence in the Soul The Spirit also of the Universe is the vigour of Divine vertues dilated through all things whose continual Excitation resides in the Soul of the World and the Celestial Bodies Democritus Pythagoras Orpheus and such others called these Vertues Gods Zoroaster Divine Allurements Synecius Symbolical Inticements But some called them Lives others also Souls Nor that indeed undeservedly For seeing the Soul is the Primum Mobile and truly of its own accord or by it self movable but the Body or Matter of it self Ineffectual for Motion and much degenerating from the Soul Therefore we have need of some more Excellent Medium that is to say such a Medium that may be as it were not a Body but yet as if it were a Soul Or as no Soul and yet as it were a Body whereby the Soul may be united to the Body For such a Medium is the Spirit of the Universe it self which otherwise we call the Fifth Essence because it is not wholly subsisting of the Four Elements but a certain Fifth over and beside them Therefore such a Spirit is necessarily requisite as a Medium by whose Intervening the Celestial Soul may be in a Grosser Body And this Spirit is of such a Form in the Body of the World as is ours in the Humane Body Because that as the Powers of our Soule are by the Spirit communicated to the Members So the vertue of the Soul of the World is dilated by that Fifth Essence throughout all things So that nothing can be found in the whole World which wants a vivifying spark thereof Through this Spirit every occult Propriety is propagated unto Herbs Stones Metals and to all living Creatures by the Sun and Moon by the Planets and other Stars of the Eighth Orb. And those things that contain a more plentiful and excellent Spirit of that Nature shall perfect a more manifest and swifter Operation in our Bodies if so be it be duly separated from the Body and Feces for the Feces profit nothing yea they plainly Impede and oppress the Penetrating vertue of the Spirit And indeed all Physicians should have a special Regard that they Artificially segregate the Medicinal vertues of things from the Body and the Elementated Impurities thereof and not so Foolishly hasten to their Patients the Medicines and Feces together But the most part either wholly omit that Labour or account it in a manner Dishonest Leaving that separating Art to