Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence

"ting. man (who is in strife with the earthly) doth many times overcome, but cannot swallow up the earthly ; for the earthly getteth up again, as we see by our anger ; for if my new man have the upper hand, heCh. 25] CHRIST'S DEATH AND RESURRECTION 681 will have no anger, nor any evil desire ; but if this world's driver assaulteth him, then the fire of anger riseth up in the old man, and his desire is often kindled to do what he rejected and reproved a little before.

5. Now we cannot say, that the spirit of this world alone consenteth to, and doth that which is evil and wrathful ; for the whole man oftentimes runneth with all his thoughts, and his whole will after it And here we l find our great misery, for i or know, the poor soul (which lieth yet tied in the bands of anger) is often kindled, that it burneth like a fire, and runneth after [evil] ; for it is in the band of eternity, in the Father, and reacheth (in its most inward root) the anger of God ; and that is even the birth of its life, and its originality ; and the noble grain of mustard-seed (that was the new garment of the soul, which was new put upon it in its repentance) is many times destroyed ; therefore none should be secure, though he doth once attain the Garland of Pearl, he may lose it again ; for when the soul consenteth to sin, then it goeth forth from Christ into falsehood, and into the anger of God.

6. Now therefore as we know, that Christ (by his entrance into the incarnation) hath opened a door into heaven, into his holy body, so that we (through a true repentance and confidence) may come to him and put the new white garment of his innocency, in his love, upon our souls, so we

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THE THREE PRINCIPLES

[Ch. 25 know also that the soul standeth yet fast bound with two chains. One is the birth of its own life, whose most inward root is poison and wrathfulness ; and so the soul being [sprung] out of the eternal source, and having its originality out of the 1 Or bring it eternity, none can 1 redeem it in its own root of bâck.

eternity, or bring it out of the auger, except there come One who is the love in itself, and be born in its own very birth, that so he may bring it out of the anger, and set it in the love in himself, as it was done in Christ.

7. The other gate or chain is the flesh and blood, with the region [or dominion] of the stars ; there the soul is fast bound, and swimmeth therein, as in a great sea, which daily so 2stirreth up the soul, that it is kindled.

8. Concerning these two chains, we know in our deep knowledge, and see them in the ground of the originality, and know very exactly, that we could not be redeemed, except the Deity did go

Or regener- into the soul, and 3 bring forth the will of the soul

&v6.

again out of the fierceness in itself, into the light of the meekness ; for the root of life must remain, or else the whole creature must be dissolved.

9. But because the soul stood with its most inward root in the abyss of hell, and according to the kingdom of this world in the hard [frozen] death, so that (if the flesh and blood, as also the dominion of the stars, should leave it) then it

4 Or stiffness, would continue inwardly in a hardness, wherein

2 infecteth it, that it burneth.

I

Ch. 25] CHRIST'S DEATH AND RESURRECTION 683

there is no source [or active property], and itself, in its own property, would be but in the fierceness, of the originality, in great misery ; therefore it was necessary, not only for God to come into the soul, and generate it to the light (for there was danger, that the soul with its imagination might go forth out of the light again), but also for God to assume a human soul, from our soul, and a new heavenly body, (out of the first glorious body before the fall), and put it on to the soul, with the old earthly body hanging on it, not only as a garment, but really [united as one] in the essences ; so that it must be a creature, that is, the whole God, with all the three Principles.