1book, and read it not, it will do you harm. For
the l great prince will not forbear to deceive you ; 1 Satan
because he standeth naked in this book before the
children of God, and is exceedingly ashamed, as a
man that is put to open shame before all people
for his misdeeds ; therefore be warned. And if
you love and favour the tender delicate flesh still,
do not read my book ; but if you will not take
warning, and a mischief befall you, I will be
guiltless, blame nobody but yourself; for I write
down what I know at present, for a Memorial
to myself; yet God knoweth well what he will
do [with it], which in some measure is hidden
from me.
44. Seeing now that we can find nothing in all
nature, of which we may say, This is God, or here
is God, from whence we might conclude, that God
might be some strange thing ; and seeing himself
witnesseth, that his is the kingdom and the power
from eternity to eternity ; and that he calleth
himself Father, (and the Son is begotten out of
the loins of his Father), therefore we must seek for
him in the original, 2in the Principle out of which
the world was generated and created in the
beginning ; and we can say no otherwise, but that
the first Principle is God the Father himself.
45. Yet there is found in the original the most
horrible and [fierce or] strong birth, viz. the harshness, bitterness, and fire ; of which we cannot say,
that it is God ; and yet it is the most inward first
4
50 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 4
21 well-spring 1 source of all that is in God the Father ; according
to which, he calleth himself, an angry, zealous [or
jealous] God. And this source (as you find before
in the first three chapters concerning the original
of the eternal birth) is the first Principle, and that
is God the Father in his originality, out of which
this world hath its beginning.
46. But the angels and the devils, as also the
2 AS before, soul of man, are merely and purely 2 out of the
same spirit. The devils and the angels, in the
* their being time of 8 their bodifying, continued therein ; and
made corpo- . « 7 , .
real, con- the soul of man, in the time of the creating of the
tinned in the _. n * * • » i •• r\
spiritual body, [isj breathed in from the spirit 01 God, in
substance. 1 /• i i • i w» • • i i
4 Or one *ne ro°t of the third Principle, and now continueth therein, in eternity, inseparably and immovably in the eternal substance or essence of God.
And as little as the pure eternal birth and the
indissoluble band of the Father endeth or vanisheth,
so little also will such a spirit have an end.
347. Yet in this Principle there is nothing else
but the most horrible begetting, the greatest
anguish and hostile quickening, like a brimstonespirit, and is ever the gate of hell, and the abyss
wherein prince Lucifer (at the extinguishing of
his light) continued ; and wherein (viz. in the
same abyss of hell) the soul continueth, which
is separated from the second Principle, and whose
light ([which shineth] from the Heart of God) is
extinguished, and for which cause also, at the end
of this time, there will be a separation or parting
Ch. 4] OF THE TRUE ETERNAL NATURE 51
asunder of the saints of light from the damned,
whose * source will be without the light of God. l Or working
. fountain of
48. Now we have shewn you the first Principle, their condi-
/• i • i 11 i • 1*1-1 . •• i tions as a boilOUt oi which all things take their beginning ; and ing springing
must speak so of it, as if there were a place, or a
separable essence, where there is such a kind of
source ; to the end that the first Principle might
be understood, so that the eternity, as also the
anger of God, sin, eternal death, the darkness
(which is so called in respect of the extinguishment of the light), also hell-fire, and the devil,
might be known and understood [what they are].
49. So I will now write of the second Principle,
of the clear pure Deity, of the 2 Heart of God. In 2 That is, the
the first Principle (as I have mentioned above) or lustre of
,11 . . T r> i i the Father.
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.