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CHAP. XXXII.

OF THE SUN AND MOON, AND THEIR MAGICAL CONSIDERATIONS.

THE Sun and Moon have obtained the administration of ruling the heavens, and all bodies under the heavens. The Sun is the lord of all elementary virtues; and the Moon, by virtue of the Sun, is mistress of generation, increase or decrease. Albumsar says, that by the Sun and Moon, life is infused into all things; which Orpheus calls the enlivening eyes of Heaven. The Sun giveth light to all things of itself, and gives it plentifully, not only to all things in heaven and air, but earth and deep. Whatever good we have, Jamblicus says, we have it from the Sun alone; or from it through other things. Heraclitus calls the Sun, the fountain of celestial light; and many of the Platonists placed the soul of the world chiefly in the Sun, as that which, filling the whole globe of the Sun, doth send forth its rays on all sides, as it were a spirit through all things, distributing life, sense, and motion to the universe. Hence the antient naturalists called the Sun the very heart of Heaven; and the Chaldeans put it as the middle of the Planets. The Egyptians also placed it in the middle of the world, viz. between the two fives of the world; i. e. above the Sun they place five planets, and under him, the Moon and four elements. For it is, amongst the other stars, the image and statue of the great Prince of both worlds, viz. terrestrial and celestial; the true light, and the most exact image of God himself: whose essence resembles the Father--light, the Son--heat, the Holy Ghost. So that the Platonists have nothing to hold forth the divine essence more manifestly by than this. The Sun disposes even the very spirit and mind of man, which Homer says, and is approved by Aristotle, that there are in the mind such like motions as the Sun, the prince and moderator of the planets, brings to us every day; but the Moon, the nearest to the earth, the receptacle of all the heavenly influences, by the swiftness of her course, is joined to the Sun, and the other planets and stars, every month; and receiving the beams and influences of all the other planets and stars, as a conception, bringing them forth to the inferior world, as being next to itself; for all the

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stars have influence on it, being the last receiver, which afterwards communicates the influence of all the superiors to these inferiors, and pours them forth on the earth; and it more manifestly disposes these inferiors than others. Therefore her motion is to be observed before the others, as the parent of all conceptions, which it diversely issues forth in these inferiors, according to the diverse complexion, motion, situation, and different aspects to the planets and other stars; and though it receives powers from all the stars, yet especially from the Sun, as oft as it is in conjunction with the same, it is replenished with vivifying virtue; and, according to the aspect thereof, it borrows its complexion. From it the heavenly bodies begin that series of things which Plato calls the golden chain; by which every thing and cause, being linked one to another, do depend on the superior, even until it may be brought unto the supreme cause of all, from which all things depend; hence it is, that, without the Moon intermediating, we cannot at any time attract the power of the superiors; therefore, to obtain the virtue of any star, take the stone and herb of that planet, when the Moon fortunately comes under, or has a good aspect on, that star.