Chap. xxxii. Of the Sun, and Moon, and their Magicall considerations.

The Sun, and Moon have obtained the administration or ruling of the Heavens, and all bodies under the

heavens. The Sun is the Lord of all Elementary vertues, and the Moon by vertue of the Sun is the mistress of

generation, increase, or decrease. Hence Albumasar saith, that by the Sun and Moon life is infused into all

things, which therefore Orpheus cals the enlivening eyes of the heaven. The Sun giveth light to all things of

it self, and gives it plentifully to all things not only in the Heaven, Aire, but Earth and Deep: whatsoever

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good we have, as Iamblichus saith, we have it from the Sun alone, or from it through other things.

Heraclitus cals the Sun the fountain of Celestiall 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 rayes on all

sides as it were a spirit through all things, distributing life, sense and motion to the very Universe. Hence the

ancient Naturalists called the Sun the very heart of heaven; and the Caldeans [Chaldaeans] put it as the

middle of the Planets. The Egyptians also placed it in the middle of the world, viz. betwixt the two fives of

the world, i.e. above the Sun they place five Planets, and under the Sun, the Moon and four Elements. For it

is amongst the other Stars the image and statue of the great Prince of both worlds, viz. Terrestiall, and

Celestiall; 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, then this. So great is the consonancy of it to God, that Plato cals it the conspicuous Son

of God, and Iamblicus [Iamblichus] cals it the divine image of divine intelligence. And our Dionysius cals it

the perspicuous statue of God. It fits as King in the middle of other Planets, excelling all in light, greatness,

fairness, enlightning [enlightening] all, distributing vertue to them to dispose inferior bodies, and regulating

and disposing of their motions, so that from thence their motions are called daily, or nightly, Southern, or

Northern, Orientall, or Occidentiall, direct, or retrograde; and as it doth by its light drive away all the

darkness of the night, so also all powers of darkness, which we read of in Job; Assoon as morning appears,

they think of the shadow of death: And the Psalmist speaking of the Lyons [lion's] whelps seeking leave of

God to devour, saith, The Sun is risen, and they are gathered together, and shall be placed in their dens;

which being put to flight, it followes, Man shall go forth to his labor. The Sun therefore as it possesseth the

middle Region of the world, and as the heart is in Animals to the whole body, So the Sun is over the heaven,

and the world, ruling over the whole Universe, and those things which are in it, the very author of seasons,

from whence day and year, cold and heat, and all other qualities of seasons; and as saith Ptolomy, when it

comes unto the place of any Star, it stirs up the power thereof which it hath in the Aire. So as with Mars,

heat; with Saturn, cold; and it disposeth even the very spirit and mind of man, from hence it is said by

Homer, and approved by Aristotle, that there are in the mind such like motions, as the Sun the Prince and

moderator of the Planets every day bringeth to us; but the Moon, the nighest to the Earth, the receptacle of

all the heavenly Influences, by the swiftness of her course is joyned to the Sun, and the other Planets and

Stars, every month, and being made as it were the wife of all the Stars, is the most fruitful of the Stars, 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 it self; for all the Stars have influence on it being the last receiver, which

afterwards communicateth the influences ot all the superiors to these inferiors, and pours them forth on the

Earth; and it more manifestly disposeth these inferiors then the others, and its motion is more sensible by the

familiarity and propinquity which it hath with us; and as a medium betwixt both, superiors and inferiors,

communicateth them to them all; Therefore her motion is to be observed before the others, as the parent of

all conceptions, which it diversely issueth forth in these Inferiors, according to the diverse complexion,

motion, situation, and different aspects to the planets and others Stars; and though it receiveth 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 vertue, and according to the aspect thereof it borroweth its complexion; for in the first quarter, as

the Peripatetickes deliver, it is hot and moist; in the second hot and dry; in the third, cold and dry; in the

fourth cold and moist; and although it is the lowest of the stars, yet it bringeth forth all the conceptions of

the superiors; for from it in the heavenly bodies beginneth that series of things which Plato calleth the

Golden Chain, by the which every thing and cause being linked one to an other, do depend on the superior,

even untill it may be brought to the supreme cause of all, from which all things depend; from hence is it,

that without the Moon intermediating, we cannot at any time attract the power of the superiors. Therefore

Thebit adviseth vs, for the taking of the vertue of any Star, to take the stone and herb of that plant, when the

Moon doth either fortunately get under or hath a good aspect on that Star.

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