Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence

into great consideration, and weigh it well, it is a most serious matter, and we see the whole terrible earnest [severity], that when the soul of Christ brake off from the earthly body, when it passed into the anger of the Father, viz. into hell, then the earth trembled, and the stony rocks cleft in sunder, also the sun lost its light ; and this we see clearly, and understand it from the mouth of Christ.

39. When he now had undergone all the reproach and sufferings, he said on the cross, It is finished ; while he yet lived in the earthly body, he said it was finished ; understand, all that should have remained upon us eternally, and should have sprung up in us, with all the ignominy in which we stood before hell and the kingdom of heaven, he had all that laid upon him ; concerning which, Isaiah saith, Surely, he bare our infirmities, and took upon him our transgressions ; yet we held him as one smitten of God, tormented, and afflicted, but he took upon him our diseases, and all our miseries were laid upon him, and through his wounds we are healed ; we all went astray like sheep, every one hath looked upon his own way ; and yet we could not help ourselves, but we went as miserable half-slain sheep, and we must let the devil (in the anger of God) do with us what he will ; for we bear on us a monstrous garment, and stand in great ignominy before heaven and hell. 1 Or scorned. 40. Even as God * reproached Adam in the

Ch. 25] CHRIST'S DEATH AND RESURRECTION 695

Garden of Eden, when he had put the outward garment upon him, saying, Behold, Adam is become as one ofus^ All this reproach [and scorn] must the man Christ take upon him ; also all torment and misery into which Adam was fallen this Champion in the battle must bear upon him before his heavenly Father, and there was the Lamb of God, and he hung upon the cross as a patient lamb in our stead ; for we should have been afflicted eternally in our cross-birth, and therefore there hung in great patience (as an obedient lamb for the slaughter) the Prince of the Eternal Life, and set himself before his Father, as if he himself were the * transgressor. ' Or guilty.

The Gate of the Great z Secret. 2 or hidden

Mystery.

41. Here, my beloved Reader, if thou art born of God, open the eyes of thy spirit wide, that the King of Glory may enter into thee, and open thy understanding ; consider every syllable ; for they are of great moment, they are not s mute, neither Or dumb, are they from a blind centre brought forth into the light. Behold, here hung on the cross God and man ; there was the Holy Trinity ; there were all the three Principles; and the Champion stood in the battle.

42. Now which was the Champion in the battle? Behold, when Christ had finished, he said, Father, I commend my spirit into thy hands, and he inclined his head, and departed. Behold,

p. 696

THE THREE PRINCIPLES

[Ch. 25

1 qu left.

his Father is the kingdom, power, and glory, and in him is all ; and all is his ; the love is his Heart ; and the anger is his eternal strength ; the love is his light ; and the anger is the eternal darkness, and maketh another Principle, wherein the devils are.

43. Now it was the love that became man, and had put on our human soul ; and the soul was enlightened from the love, and stood with its root in the anger, as in the strong might of the Father ; and now the new man in the love commended the uitted or soul to the Father into his might, and l yielded up the earthly life, [which proceeded] from the constellations and elements, viz. the kingdom of this world ; and so the soul now stood no more in the kingdom of this world, in the 2 source of life, but it stood in death ; for the kingdom of this world, the blower up [of life], the air, was gone.