12 breathe forth out of pride in the original of the2 Or work in
fire, knowing itself [shall] so [become] powerful ; nerating : AS
i i i-i T-» iMi -I the breath
it so becometh a devil: .bor the devils also with goeth in and
their legions had this original, and they out of ally forth*
pride would live in the 8 fierce wrath of the fire, Ufo?1"
and so they perished, and remained devils. J Or str°ng.
40 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 4
\0rexer- 22. Yet if the soul elevate its Imagination
thoughts and forward into the light, in meekness and comeliness
reSgnlTion. or humility, and doth not (as Lucifer did) use the
strong power of its fire, in its qualification [or
2 rerbwn breathing], then it will be fed by the 2 Word of the
Domini, , .
Lord, and get virtue, power, life, and strength, in
the 2 Word of the Lord, which is the Heart of God ;
and its own original strong [fierce wrathful] source
of the birth of the eternal life becometh paradisical,
exceeding pleasant, friendly, humble, and sweet,
'laughing wherein the 3 rejoicing and the fountain of the
for joy. . . , .
4 Or Haiidu- eternal songs of praise spring up : and in this
imagination it is an angel and a child of God, and
6 Note, what it beholdeth the eternal generating of the 6 indisis possible to 1111 i 11 » • i i i «i«
be spoken of, soluble band ; and thereof it hath ability to speak
and what not. lf , . r. . ..
2(lor it is its own essence or substance), but [it is]
not [able to speak] of the infinite generating, for
that hath neither beginning nor end.
23. But if it undertaketh to speak of the unmeasurable space [or infinite geniture], then it
becometh full of lies, and is troubled and confounded : For it belieth the unmeasurable Deity ;
as Antichrist doth, which will have the Deity to be
only above the starry heaven, that thereby himself
may remain to be God upon earth, riding upon the
great beast, which yet must shortly go into the
8 Or dominion original lake of brimstone, into the "kingdom of kinsr
of the anger .
of God. Lucifer; for the time is come that the beast shall
be revealed and spewed out ; concerning which we
may be well enough understood here by the children
Ch. 4] OF THE TRUE ETERNAL NATURE 41
of hope ; but there is a wall and seal before the
servants or ministers of * Antichrist, till the wrath 1 the whore of
be executed upon her whoredom, and that she
hath received her full wages, and that the 2 crown 2 Or ornament
of her
of their dominion which they have worn be their kingdom,
shame, and till the eyes of the blind be opened ;
and then she will sit as a scorned whore, which
every one will adjudge to damnation.
The very sublime Gate of the Holy Trinity, for
the Children of God.
324. If you lift up your thoughts and minds, and
ride upon the chariot of the soul, as is before
mentioned, and look upon yourself, and all creatures,
and consider how the birth of life in you taketh its
original, and the light of your life, whereby you
can behold the shining of the sun ; and also look
with your imagination, without the light of the
sun, into a huge vast space, to which the eyes of
your body cannot reach, and then consider what
the cause might be that you are more rational than
the other creatures, seeing you can search what is
in every thing ; and consider farther, from whence
the elements fire and air take their original, and
how the fire cometh to be in the water, and
generateth itself in the water ; and how the light
of your body generateth itself in the water; and
then if you be born of God, you attain to what
God and the eternal birth is.
25. For you see, feel, and find, that all these
42 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 4
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.