Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence

not only of his Deity, from which he . prophesied (for that was however with him, and in the power and knowledge of the same he spake) but he prophesied of his eternal humanity. For that was not a king, who only sat there in the spirit, we could neither see him, nor converse with him ; but that is a king who sitteth in the humanity.

16. Now this king was promised of God, that he should possess the gates of his enemies, and should lead his enemies captive ; and the devils are these enemies. Now how dost thou conceive, that when this creature bound the devils at Jerusalem, and as a confined creature that did reach no further, did lead them captive, who then did bind them at Rome ? Thou sayest ; his Deity. 0 no ! that was not its office ; the devils are however in the Father's most internal root ; in his auger. A creature must only do it, who was so great as could be everywhere with the devils.

17. Therefore must Christ in his temptation overcome the kingdom of the anger, and this extern birth ; and by his entrance into death, he brake the head of the serpent, viz. the devil, and all devils, and took them captive. Thou must understand it thus ; That the inward element (which compriseth the whole body of this world) became Christ's eternal body ; for the whole Deity, in the Word and Heart of God, entered there1 uniteth or into, and * espoused itself to remain therein to all eternity ; and this same Deity became a creature,

Ch. 23] THE PRECIOUS TESTAMENTS OF CHRIST 641

even such a creature as can be everywhere, as the Deity itself ; and this same creature hath captivated all devils in the kingdom of this world. And all men who with their mind draw near to this Christ, and desire him in right earnest, they are drawn by the spirit of the Father, (viz. of the clear and pure Deity) into the humanity of Christ, that is, into the pure element l before the Trinity. l wherein the

, . -, , . , „ , . presence of

And if they continue steadfast, and do not again the Trinity is i » ,-N -i • i r» 1 i M i everywhere depart from God into the desire of the devil, then manifest, the precious Pearl, viz. the light of God, is sown in their soul, which [light] attracteth to itself the precious body of Jesus Christ, with paradise, and the kingdom of heaven. And thus the right new man ( Christus) groweth on the soul in the heavenly virgin of God's wisdom, in the holy Ternary, in the kingdom of heaven. And thus such a man is, according to the new man in heaven, in the body of Jesus Christ, and as to the old earthly man, which hangeth unto the holy [man], he is in this world in the house of sin, and the Deity acteth the new humanity, and the spirit of this world the old, until he puts him off in death ; for he is a man in heaven, born in the 2 mercy of God in the body oi^BarmhertzT igkeit, merciJeSUS Christ. fulness.

18. I set you a deep consideration ; behold, how the angelical thrones and principalities 8 were in 3 sparkled,

, beheld, or the beginning beheld [apprehended or aspectedj by appeared, the wisdom of God ; which aspect [manifestation or idea] the Fiat took to create ; and in the

p. 41

p. 642

THE THREE PRINCIPLES

[Ch. 23 angelical throne the infinite multiplicity, according to the eternal wisdom in the wonders of God. All which was so created in the Fiat of God, according

1 Or extract, to all the essences of the eternal l limbus of God, so that all angels, in every throne, gave their will unto the angelical throne or archangel ; as it is sufficiently to be known by the fall of Lucifer ; and also may be discerned in the regions of the kingly governments of this world ; if the devil did not so

2 agreement, destroy the right 2 union, as is very clearly to be or compact. J ° j j