Stars, those great powers of God in the heavens above.  And hereby men will come to know the secrets of Nature and Creation, within which all true knowledge is wrapped up, and the light in man must arise to search it out.

“Thirdly, Speeches may be made sometimes of the nature of mankind, of his darkness and of his light, of his weakness and of his strength, of his love and of his envy, of his inward and outward bondages, of his inward and outward freedoms, etc.  And this is that at which the ministry of Churches generally aim; but only that they confound their knowledge by imaginary study....  And thus to speak, or thus to read the Law of Nature (or God) as He hath written His name in every body, is to speak a pure language, and this is to speak the truth as Jesus Christ spake it, giving to everything its own weight and measure.  By this means in time men shall attain to the practical knowledge of God truly, that they may serve Him in spirit and in truth:  and this knowledge will not deceive a man.”

HIS ANSWER TO OBJECTIONS.

Then follows a passage which even to-day would bring down the wrath of “zealous but ignorant professors” upon the head of any author acknowledging it, if within their sphere of influence.  He continues: 

“‘I,’ but saith the zealous but ignorant Professor, ’this is a low and carnal Ministry indeed; this leads men to know nothing but the knowledge of the earth and the secrets of nature; but we are to look after spiritual and heavenly things.’

“I answer:  ’To know the secrets of nature is to know the works of God; and to know the works of God within the Creation, is to know God himself; for God dwells in every visible work or body.  Indeed, if you would know spiritual things, it is to know how the Spirit or Power of Wisdom and Life, causing motion or growth, dwells within and governs both the several bodies of the stars and planets in the heavens above, and the several bodies of the earth below, as grass, plants, fishes, beasts, birds and mankind.  For to reach God beyond the Creation, or to know what he will be to a man after the man is dead, if any otherwise than to scatter him into his essences of fire, water, earth and air, of which he is composed, is a knowledge beyond the line or capacity of man to attain to while he lives in his compounded body.  And if a man should go to imagine what God is beyond the Creation, or what he will be in a spiritual demonstration after a man is dead, he doth, as the proverb saith, but build castles in the air, or tells us of a world beyond the Moon or beyond the Sun, merely to blind the reason of man.

“’I’ll appeal to yourself in this question, What other knowledge have you of God but what you have within the circle of the Creation?  For if the Creation in all its dimensions be the fullness of Him that fills all with Himself; and if you yourself be part of this