and the astral world with its visible stars, _rule_ no one, determine no one. Each man's "star" is in his own breast. It lies in his own power to "theologize his astrologie," to turn his universe into spiritual forces. By "a new nativity," initiated by obedient response to the inward Light--the spiritual Star, not of earth and not of the astral universe, but of God the indwelling Spirit--he may put on the new man, created after the likeness of God, and become the recipient of heavenly Wisdom springing up within him from the Life of the Spirit.[33] There can be no question in the mind of any one who is familiar with the literature and religious thought of seventeenth-century England, that the ideas set forth in this chapter exerted a wide and profound influence, and were a part of the psychological climate of the middle decades of that century. The channel here indicated was only one of the ways through which these ideas came in. In due time we shall discover other channels of this spiritual message. [1] Ficino is dealt with at greater length in Chapter XIII. [2] The Cabala was, as I have tried to make clear, only one of the influences which produced this new intellectual climate. The rediscovered "Hermes Trismegistus," the mystically coloured Platonism, as it came from Italy, the awakened interest in Nature and in man, and the powerful message of the German Mystics all played an important part toward the formation of the new _Weltanschauung_. [3] _Three Books of Occult Philosophy_, translated by J. F. (London, 1651). [4] Stoddart's Life of Paracelsus (London, 1911), p. 76. [5] Browning, _Paracelsus_, B. i. This passage fairly represents Paracelsus' general position. "There is," he says in his _Philosophia sagax_, "a Light in the spirit of man which illuminates everything. . . . The quality of each thing created by God, whether it be visible or invisible to the senses, may be perceived and known. If man knows the essence of things, their attributes, their attractions, and the elements of which they consist, he will be a Master of nature, of the elements, and of the spirits." [6] _Christliches Gespraech_, chap. iii. [7] There is an excellent critical study of Weigel's writings by A. Israel, entitled, _Weigels Leben und Schriften nach den Quellen dargestellt_ (Zschopau, 1888). [8] "Of the Life of Christ, That is, Of True Faith which is the Rule, Square, Levell or Measuring Line of the Holy City of God and of the Inhabitants thereof here on Earth. Written in the German Language by Valentine Weigelus." (London, Giles Calvert, 1648.) [9] Quoted from Israel, _op. cit._ p. 107. [10] _On the Life of Christ_, part i. chap. ii. [11] _On the Life of Christ_, part i. chap. iii. [12] _Ibid._ part i. chap. viii. [13] _On the Life of Christ_, part i. chap. ix. [14] _Ibid._ part ii. chap. ix.; part i. chap. x.; part ii. chap. x.; and part. i. chap. xiv. [15] _Ibid._ part ii. chaps. iii. and iv.