(1) We may, however, beginning from another hypothesis, demonstrate the same thing. We must admit that the corporeal parts of the universe are neither sluggish nor destitute of power, but as much as they excel our concerns in perfection, beauty, and magnitude, by so much also is the power which is present with them greater. Each, likewise, by itself is capable of effecting different things, and produces certain different energies. They are also capable of effecting things much more numerous on each other. And besides this, a certain multiform production extends to parts from wholes; partly from sympathy, through similitude of powers, and partly from the aptitude of the agent to the patient. If, therefore, certain evils and destructions happen to parts, they are salutary and good as with reference to wholes and the harmony of the universe, but to parts they introduce a necessary corruption, either from not being able to bear the energies of wholes, or from a certain other commixture and temperament of their own imbecility, or, in the third place, from the privation of symmetry in the parts to each other.

(90) He that does not know nor understand this, he does not at all know the birth of the stars, for all, concreted together, is one body. When once life is generated in any creature, the creature's life stands or subsisteth afterwards in the creature's own body, as the birth or geniture of the natural body of this world stands or subsisteth in its own body; for every life must be generated according to the right, law or ordinance of the Deity, as the Deity generateth itself continually.

(48) The stars are only the kindling of the great house; for the whole house is benumbed in death, as the earth is; for the outermost birth or geniture is dead and benumbed, as the rind, shell or bark of a tree. But the astral birth is the body in which the life riseth up.

(29) But that the birth, or the body of the stars in their seat, does not change or alter (but do as they did from eternity), signifieth that there shall be a constant, continued birth or geniture, whereby, in one uniform operation, which yet stands in the infiniteness, the benumbed body of the earth should continually and constantly be kindled again, and generate itself anew, and so also should the house of darkness of the deep above the earth; whereby the new body might continually and constantly be generated out of death, till time should be accomplished, and the whole newborn body [perfected]. Now thou wilt object and say, Then sure the stars are God, and they must be honoured and worshipped as God.

(28) But that there are so many stars of so manifold different effects and operations is from the infiniteness, which is in the efficiency [infection or affecting] of the seven spirits of God, in one another, which generate themselves infinitely.

(70) Nevertheless the quality of the stars reigneth in the spirit; yet the spirit can and may raise or demerse itself in its own qualities, or may live in the influences of the stars, as it pleaseth: It is free, for it has got for its own the qualities which it has in itself.

(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.

(29) Every star has a several peculiar property, which thou may perceive by the curious ornament of the budding, blossoming earth. And the Creator has therefore rebuilt and revived again the old kindled body into so many and various powers, that through this old life, in the wrath, such a new life might generate itself therein, through the closure of heaven, that that new life might have all the powers and operations that ever the old had before the times of wrath, that it might qualify, mix or unite with the pure Deity, distinct from this world, and that it might be one holy God, together with the Deity without, distinct from this world.

(13) This now is the sum or the contents of the astral birth or geniture, of which I here intend to write. Now it may be asked, What are the stars? or out of what are they come to be?

(89) If we would rightly search into the original of the birth and geniture of the stars, or into their beginning, then we must exactly know the birth or geniture of the life, viz. how the life generateth itself in a body; for all these are one kind of birth or geniture.

(69) But now the spirit, after its compaction, is a severed distinct thing, and has a substance of its own, as all the stars have; and the stars also are and remain severed and distinct things, each of them is free to itself.

(63) This description sheweth that the first writer did not know what the stars are, though he was capable of understanding the right or law of God, and has taken hold on the Deity at the heart, and looked upon or had respect to the heart, to consider what the heart and kernel of this creation is; though the spirit kept the astral and outermost dead birth or geniture hidden from him, and did only drive him in faith to the heart of the Deity.

(8) But. up to this point, our utmost power of mental energy carries us, namely, that all divine paternity and sonship have been bequeathed from the Source of paternity and Source of sonship--pre-eminent above all--both to us and to the supercelestial powers, from which the godlike become both gods, and sons of gods, and fathers of gods, and are named Minds, such a paternity and sonship being of course accomplished spiritually, i.e. incorporeally, immaterially, intellectually,-- since the supremely Divine Spirit is seated above all intellectual immateriality, and deification, and the Father and the Son are pre-eminently elevated above all divine paternity and sonship. For there is no strict likeness, between the caused and the causes. The caused indeed possess the accepted likenesses of the causes, but the causes themselves are elevated and established above the caused, according to the ratio of their proper origin. And, to use illustrations suitable to ourselves, pleasures and pains are said to be productive of pleasure and pain, but these themselves feel neither pleasure nor pain. And fire, whilst heating and burning, is not said to be burnt and heated. And, if any one should say that the self-existent Life lives, or that the self-existent Light is enlightened, in my view he will not speak correctly, unless, perhaps, he should say this after another fashion, that the properties of the caused are abundantly and essentially pre-existent in the causes.

(25) Now if we consider rightly of the sun and stars, with their corpus or body, operations and qualities, then the very divine being may be found therein, and we may find that the virtues of the stars are nature itself.

(38) Where then the King (viz. the Light of the Sun) is so very joyful in the Spirit, and does so highly triumph, exult, and rejoice, that he moves all the Essences of the Stars, and brings them into their highest Degree, to generate her; where then all Centers of the Stars fly open, and the loving Virgin beholds herself in them. Where then the Essences of the Soul (in the Light of the Virgin) can see in the Centers of the Stars, what is in its Original and Source.

(27) That this new birth or geniture might be accomplished, whether the devil will or no, the Creator has therefore, in the body of this world, generated himself, as it were creaturely, in his qualifying or fountain spirits; and all the stars are nothing else but God's powers, and the whole body of this world consisteth in the seven qualifying or fountain spirits.

(23) But now in the Tincture only is the Understanding, which governs the Mind, and makes the [Thoughts or] Senses; therefore all is as it were dead, and the Constellation now only rules in the Root of the first Principle, where the Deity, like a Glance, [Luster,] or Virtue, works in all Things: There the starry Spirit in the Glance of the Glass of the divine Virtue in the Element of Fire looks into the Matrix of the Water, and sets its Jaws open after the Tincture, but that is void of Power; and therefore he takes the Virtue of the Tincture, (viz. the Mind,) and mingles, [or qualifies] with it, and then the Mind seals the Elements, and works therein Dreams and Visions, all according to the Virtue of the Stars; for it stands in the Working and quality of the Stars; and these are the Dreams and Visions of the Night in the Sleep. The Gate of the highest Depth of the Life of the Tincture.

(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.

(2) With respect to the powers, therefore, which remain in the heavens in the divine bodies themselves, there can be no doubt that all of them are similar. Hence, it remains that we should discuss those powers which are thence transmitted to us, and are mingled with generation. These, therefore, descend with invariable sameness for the salvation of the universe, and connectedly contain the whole of generation after the same manner. They are likewise impassive and immutable, though they proceed into that which is mutable and passive. For generation being multiform, and consisting of different things, receives the one of the Gods, and that in them which is without difference, with hostility and partibility, conformably to its own contrariety and division. It also receives that which is impassive, passively; and, in short, participates of them according to its own proper nature, and not according to their power. As, therefore, that which is generated [or has a subsistence in becoming to be,] participates of being generatively, and body participates of the incorporeal, corporeally; thus, also, the physical and material substances which are in generation, participate of the immaterial and etherial bodies, which are above nature and generation, in a confused and disorderly manner. Hence they are absurd who attribute colour, figure, and contact to intelligible forms, because the participants of them are things of this kind; as likewise are those who ascribe depravity to the celestial bodies, because their participants sometimes produce evils.

(38) For the instant or innate wheel of the stars and planets is no otherwise than as the birth of the seventh spirit of nature, before the time of the world rose up, wherein were formed images and figures, forms, shapes or ideas, as also heavenly fruits, according to the eternal right, law or order of the Deity.