That the Inward man by the Light
of Grace, through possession and practice of a holy life, is to be
acknowledged and live in us: which is the only means to keep the true
Sabbath in inward holinesse." {149} The anonymous translator ascribes
the book to Weigel. It is, in fact. Part Two of [Greek] _Gnothi
Seauton_, but it is uncertain whether it was written by Weigel himself.
But whether written by Weigel or later by one of his school, it is a
good illustration of the way in which mystically inclined Christians of
that period endeavoured to make spiritual conquest of the prevailing
Astrology and, through its help, to discover the nature of the inner,
hidden universe. Astrology, this little book declares, is "conversant
with the secrets of God which are hidden in the natural things of
creation." It is the science of reading the unseen through the seen,
for, according to the teaching of this book, everything visible is an
unveiling of something invisible. Man--who is a centre of the whole
universe, who has in himself elements of all the worlds, inner and
outer--"is created to be a visible Paradise, Garden, Tabernacle,
Mansion, House, Temple and Jerusalem of God." All the wisdom, power,
virtue, and glory of God are hidden and are slumbering in man. There
is nothing so near to man as God is--"He is nearer to us than we are to
ourselves"[31]--and the only reason we do not find Him and know Him and
open out our life _interiorly_, so that the true Sabbath comes to the
soul, is due to our "vagabond and unquiet ways of keeping busy with our
own will, outside our internal country." If I could desist from the
things with which I vex and worry myself, and study to be at rest in my
God who dwells with me; if I could accustom my mind to spiritual
tranquillity and cease to wander in a maze of thoughts, cares, and
affections; if I could be at leisure from the external things and
creatures of this world, and chiefly from myself; if, in short, I might
"come into a plenary dereliction of myself," I should at once "begin to
see and know of the most present habitation of God in me and so I
should eat of the Tree of Life in the midst of the Paradise, _which
Paradise I myself am_, and be a Guest of God."[32] Adam, who was "the
Protoplast" and begetter of all men, and who, like everything else in
the universe, was "double," {150} allowed himself to live toward the
outward instead of toward the inward, permitted the seed of the serpent
to