BY the seven Planets as it were by instruments all powers are diffused into man from the Supream fountain of good: by Saturn a sublime contemplation & profound understanding, solidity of judgement, firm speculatiom, stability and an immoveable resolution: by Jupiter, an unshaken prudence, temperance, benignity, piety, modesty, Justice, Faith, Grace, Religion, equity, clemency, royalty; by Mars, truth; not to be terrified, constant courage and fortitude, a fervent desire of animosity, the power of acting and the practice, and an inconvertible vehemency of the mind. By the Sun, nobility of mind, persp•cuity of imagination, the nature of knowledge and opinion, maturity, counsell, zeal, light of justice, reason and judgement distinguishing right from wrong purging light from the darkness of ignorance, the glory of truth found out, and charity the Queen of all vertues: by Venus a fervent love, most sweet hope, the motion of desire, order, concupiscence, beauty, sweetness, desire of encreasing and propagation of it self; by Mercury a piercing faith and belief, clear reasoning, the vigour of interpreting and pronouncing, gravity of speech, acuteness of wit, discourse of reason, and the swift motions of the senses: by the Moon a peace making consonancy, fecundity, the power of generating and of growing greater, of increasing and decreasing, and a moderate temperance, and faith which being conversant in manifest and occult things, yeeldeth direction to all; also motion to the tilling of the earth for the manner of life and giving growth to it-self and others; but these influences are principally drawn from those seven intelligences, who stand before the face of God, who dispose the soul the seat of these vertues: but the planets dispose the body only giving a tractable complexion proportionated and tempered for every good thing, and they are as it were the instruments of the Intelligences; but God as the primary cause doth yeeld both the influence & increase to all they therefore who have sought out the vertues and diverse dispositions of the soul, do judge, that they obtain diverse natures, by reason of the diversity of means, by the which they have a passage to us, and that these souls are not joyned with the bodies themselves unless they be proportioned by these Stars; So in a body brought to a temperament by Jupiter, they think that the soul infused is temperated by the power and intelligence of Jupiter, and so of the rest. According to which disposition if the soul work well in this body, when its purged and expiated, it returneth to that divine power and Mansion, from whence it descended. Furthermore from the Angelicall orders man is strengthened with wonderfull vertues, viz. from the angels, that he may be a messenger of the divine will and an interpreter of the mind of God; from the Archangels, that he may rule over all beasts of the field, fish of the sea, and fowls of the air, over the which command is given him; from the Principalities, that all things may be subdued to him, he comprehending the powers of all, and drawing all powers to himself by a certain force most secret and supercelestiall; From the Vertues, it receiveth power, by the which it constantly fighting is strengthened against the enemies of truth, for the reward of which we run a race in this life; from the powers against the enemies of this earthly Tabernacle: from the Dominations, it hath help by the which we can subject any domestick enemy we carry along with us, and can obtain our desired end. From the Thrones, we are knit together, and being collected into our selves, we fix our memory on those eternall visions: From the Cherubins, is light of mind, power of wisdom, very high plantasies and figures, by the which we are able to contemplate even the divine things; From the Seraphins, that by the perfect flame of love we may at length inhere in them: These are the degrees, these the ladders, by the which men easily ascend to all kinds of powers by a certain naturall connexion and chariot, according to the diverse disposition of body and mind, and by the favour of the Stars, in the disposing of the body, and of the Intelligences ruling them, the nature of which the soul in its descense putteth on, even as light the colour of the glasse, through which it passeth; the supream power of the Creator favouring, from whom is all good, and without which no good nor perfect thing can be obtained; Therefore all those do labour in vain, who trusting only on the course of nature, and the power and favour of inferiour things, do think to attain to divine things; and those who faining to have a foot in the heavens, do endeavour to receive those things from the favour of the heavens, which ought to be received from God alone; for these inferiours have, I mean animals, Herbs, stones, metals, their power subservient to the heaven; but the heaven from the Intelligences; but these from God, in whom all things pre-exist in the greatest power; as in man the little world there is not a member which hath not correspondence with some element, plant, intelligence, and with some measure and numeration in the Archetype: as we have shewen before.
Book III, Chap. XXXVIII. What Divine gifts man receiveth from above, from the severall Orders of the Intelligences and the heavens.
From Three Books of Occult Philosophy (Henry Cornelius Agrippa, translated by J. F. (probably John French), 1651), p. 466.