Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence

27. It was from eternity in God, and therefore it is eternally in God. But when God would create a similitude of his essence, and that it should be generated out of the darkness, then it stood in the flash of fire that went forth, in the place where the fifth form of the birth of love generateth itself in the similitude. For it was generated out of the fountain of the will, out of the Heart of God, and therefore its shadow continueth in the will of God eternally ; and for the sake thereof also the shadow of all creatures, and of every [essence] substance [or thing], which was ever generatedCh. 12] OPENING OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURE 209 in the similitude, remaineth eternally ; for it is the similitude of God, which is generated out of the eternal will ; yet its spirit continueth not eternally in the third Principle of this world ; that ceaseth, or passeth away with the ceasing of the springing, or the ceasing of the life.

28. For all whatsoever liveth in the third Principle, corrupteth [or passeth away], and goeth into its ether and end, till [it cometh] to the figure of the tincture ; and that continueth standing eternally as a shadow or will, without spirit or mobility : But in the second Principle the tincture continueth eternally standing in the spirit, and in the substance [or essence], all very powerfully, viz. in angels and men, as also in the beginning [or first springing] of every substance ; for their centre to the birth is eternally fixed [or stedfast].

Of its [the Tinctures'] Essences and Property.
The deep Gate of Life.

29. Its essence is the flash in the circle [or circumference] of the springing of the life, which in the water maketh the glance and shining ; and its root is the fire ; and the stock is the [sour] harshness. Now the flash separateth the bitterness and harshness from the water ; so that the water becometh soft [fluid], and clear, wherein then the

1 sight of all creatures doth consist, so that the » or faculty spirit in the flash in the matrix of the water doth ° see ; and the flash standeth therein like a glance

p. 14

p. 210

1 fuifiiieth or ("or lustre], and l filleth the spirit of the essences :

satisfieth.

from which the essence draweth vehemently to itself ; for it is the [sour] harshness, and the flash continually separateth the darkness from the light, and the impure from the pure ; and there now standeth the divine virtue [or power] : And the divine glance continually imagineth [or imprinteth] itself in the pure, from which the [sour] strong [property] is separated out from nature ; and the divine glance maketh the pure sweet ; for it mingleth itself [or infecteth] there.

30. But the sweetness is like oil or fire, wherein the flash continually kindleth itself, so that it shineth : But the oil being sweet, and mingled with the matrix of the water, therefore the shining

8 pleasant. light is steady [constant and fixed] and 2 sweet : But being it cannot, in the nature of the water, continue to be an oil only (because of the infection of the water) therefore it becometh thick ; and the [nature or] kind of the fire coloureth it red ; and this is the blood and the tincture in a creature, wherein the noble life standeth.

Of the Death and of the Dying.
The Gate of Affliction and of Misery.

31. Thus the noble life in the tincture standeth in great danger, and hath hourly to expect the [corruption, or destruction, breaking, or] dissolution ; for as soon as the blood (wherein the spirit liveth) floweth out [or passeth away] the essence

Ch. 12] OPENING OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURE 211