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(29) Thus the starry Heaven rules in all Creatures, as in its proper own; it is the [Husband or] Man; and the Matrix, or the watery Form, is its [Wife or] Woman, which it continually impregnates; and the Matrix is the Genetrix, which brings forth the Child which the Heaven begets; and that is the created Heaven in the third Principle, from whence the Elements are proceeded; viz. the watery Matrix, out of which the visible Water generated itself, and still always does generate itself in the Anguish.

(8) For as the Soul of Man moves and swims between the Virtue of the Stars and Elements, so the created Heaven also moves between Paradise and the Kingdom of Hell, and it swims in the eternal Matrix; its Limit reaches as far as the Ethera [Skies or Receptacle] has yielded itself up to the Creation, so far as the Kingdom of Lucifer did reach, where yet no End is to be found: For the Virtue or Power of God is without End, but our Sense reaches only to the fiery Heaven of the Stars, which are a Propagation in the fifth Form of the eternal Mother, (or third Principle, (or in the Beginning of this World,) the Virtue or Power of the Matrix was separated, where now the Separation is thus moved: And then every Essence in the Propagation, in the manifold Centers of the Stars, have a longing Desire one after the other, and a continual Will to infect, [impregnate, or mix Influences;] and the one Essence, or Virtue, is the oMeat and Drink, as also the Chest [Case, or Receptacle] of the other. Or Outbirth, or Offspring.

(27) Thus I must tell you; the Heaven is a Sower, and God gives him Seed, and the Elements are the Ground into which the Seed is sown; now the Heaven has the Constellation, and receives also the Seed of God, and sows all together one among another; now the Essences of the Stars receive the Seed in the Ground, and qualify [or are united] with it, and carry themselves along in the Herb, till a Seed also be in the Herb.

(19) And the Light of the Sun is as it were a God in the Nature of this World, and by its Virtue [and Influence] it continually kindles the Stars [or Constellations] whereby the Stars [or Constellations] (which are of a very terrible and anguishing Essence) continually exult in Triumph very joyfully. For it [the Sun] is an Essence like the Light of God, which kindles and enlightens the dark Mind of the Father, from whence, by the Light, there arises the divine Joy in the Father.

(61) And as we perceive that in this World there are Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, also the Sun and the Stars, and therein consist all the Things of this World, so you may conceive, by Way of Similitude, that the Father is the Fire of the whole [holy] Constellations, and also in the [holy] Element; and that the Son (viz. his Heart) is the Sun, which sets all the Constellations in a light pleasant Habitation; and that the Holy Ghost is the Air of the Life, without which neither Sun nor Constellation would subsist; and then that the concreted Spiritus majoris Mundi [or Spirit of the great World] is the chaste Virgin before God; which Spirit of the great World, in this World, gives to all Creatures, Mind, Sense, and Understanding, through the Influence of the Stars; and so also [does the chaste Virgin] in the Heaven.

(7) So that when the Heaven, and the Birth of the Elements are spoken of, it is not a Thing afar off, or that is distant from us, that is spoken of; but we speak of Things that are done in our Body and Soul; and there is nothing nearer us than this Birth, for we live and move therein, as in the House of our Mother; and when we speak of Heaven, we speak of our native Country, which the enlightened Soul can well see, though indeed such Things are hidden from the Body.

(5) So the Matter of this World, as also the Stars and Elements, must not be looked upon, as if God was not therein. His Eternal Wisdom and Virtue [or Power] has formed itself with the Fiat in all Things, and he Himself is the Master- Workman; and all Things went forth in the Fiat, every Thing in its own Essence, Virtue and Property. For as every Star in the Firmament has a Property different from the other; thus is it with the Mother also, out of which the fifth Essence of the Stars went forth. For when the fiery Form of the Stars was separated from her, she was not presently severed from the first eternal Birth-Right, but she kept her first eternal Virtue. Only the rising Power of the Fire is severed from her, so that she is become a pleasant Refreshment, and a kind Mother to her Children.

(14) And there God manifests himself according to his eternal Will, in his eternal Wisdom of the noble Virgin, in the Element, which in Paradise stands in the Sharpness of the divine Virtue [or Power.] And the Fiat created Man out of the Element in Paradise, for it attracted to it out of the Quintessence of the Sun, Stars, and Elements in Paradise in the Elements of the Originality, from whence the four Elements proceed, and created Man to the Image of God (that is, to the Similitude of God) and breathed into him into the Element of the Body (which yet was nothing else but paradisical Virtue) the Spirit of the eternal Essences out of the eternal Originality; and there Man became a living Soul, and an Image of God in Paradise.

(43) Here observe; Adam was created out of the Element, out of the Attracting of the Heart of God, which is the Will of the Father, and therein is the Virgin of the divine Virtue [or Power,] and the outward Regimen (which in the Kindling parted itself into four Parts) would fain have had the same [Virgin] in itself; that is, the Fierceness of the Devil would fain have dwelt in the Heart of God, and have domineered over it, and have opened a Center there, which the Fierceness without the Light cannot do; for every Center was generated and opened with the Kindling of the Light. Thus the Fierceness would fain be over the Meekness, and therefore has God caused the Sun to come forth, so that it has thus opened four Centers, viz. the going forth out of the Element.

(29) For the Stars themselves are senseless, and have no Knowledge or Perception, yet their soft Operation in the Water makes a seething, flowing forth, or boiling up one of another, and in the Tincture of the Blood, they cause a Rising, Seeing, Feeling, Hearing, and Tasting. Therefore consider from whence the Tincture proceeds, wherein the noble Life springs up, that thus becomes sweet from Harshness, Bitterness, and Fire, and you shall certainly find no other Cause of it than the Light: But whence comes the Light, that it can shine in a dark Body? If you say it comes from the Light of the Sun. Then what shines in the Night, and enlightens your Senses and Understanding so, that though your Eyes are shut, you perceive and know what you do? Here you will say, the noble Mind leads you, and it is true. But whence has the Mind its Original? You will say, the Senses make the Mind stirring; and that is also true. But whence come they both? What is their Birth or Off- spring? Why is it not so with the Beasts?

(70) Although indeed, Nature takes hold of the Child in the Mother's Body [or Womb,] and [shapes, figures, or] images it; yet the Region of the Stars has no other than the Image in the four Elements, and not [that] in the holy Element. And although indeed it images [or frames] a Man in the outward bestial Mind with a little Understanding many Times, yet that is no Matter; the outward Man is the Beast of the Stars, but the inward in the [one] Element is the Image of God; and the divine Framing [Figuring or Imaging] is not performed in the a outward, but in the inward Element.

(1) IF we consider the Separation and the Springing forth in the third Principle of this World, how the starry Heaven should spring up, and how every Star has a peculiar Form and Property in itself, in every of which a several Center is observed, so that every One of them is fixed [or steady] and Master [or Guider] of itself, and that every One of them rules in the Matrix of this World, and works and generates in the Matrix after their Kind; and then afterwards if we consider the Sun, which is their King, Heart, and Life, without whose Light and Virtue, they could neither act nor effect any Thing, but remain in the hard dark Death; and this World would be nothing but a fierce rough Hardness; and further, if we consider the Elements of Fire and Water, [and observe] how they continually generate one in another, and then how the Constellations rule in them, as in their own Propriety; and also consider what the Mother is, from whence all these Things must proceed; then we shall come to see the Separation, and the eternal Mother, the i Genetrix of all Things.

(28) Now the Similitude also has received such a Will out of the Fiat, as the eternal Will is; and it has generated the Virtue [or Power;] and the Virtue is the Heaven; and the Light which is become shining in the Virtue, is the Sun, and that works in the Virtue, so that there is Understanding and Knowledge: Or else all in this World would be an immovable Substance, and all would lie still, and so neither Herb nor Grass would grow.