Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence

71. For he is always shut up in the first Principle (as in the eternal death), and yet he raises himself up continually, thinking to reach the Heart of God, and to domineer over it ; for his bitter sting in the birth climbs up thus eternally in the 2 source of 2 Or root, the fire, and affords him a proud will to have all

62 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 4

[at his pleasure], but he attains nothing ; his food of is the * source of water, viz. the brimstone-spirit, which is the most aching mother, from which the indissoluble band is fed and nourished ; his refresh- « vit the cold ing is the eternal 2fire, and eternal freezing in the harsh mother, and eternal hunger in the bitterness, an eternal thirst in the source of the fire ; his climbing up is his fall, the more he climbs up in his will, the greater is his fall ; like one that standing upon a high clift, would cast himself down into a bottomless pit, he looks still further, and he falls in further and further, and yet can find no ground.

72. Thus he is an eternal enemy to the Heart of God, and all the holy angels ; and he cannot frame any other will in himself. His angels and devils are of very many several sorts, all according to the eternal birth. For at the time of his creation he stood (in the kingdom of heaven) in the point, locus, or place (where the Holy Ghost in the birth of the Heart of God, in paradise, did open infinite and innumerable centres), in the eternal birth ; in » Or created, this seat or place, he was 8 bodified, and has his 4 in the open- beginning 4 in the opening of the centres in the ing of the .

ground, as a eternal nature.

building from ,_, /• / • .

the earth. 73. Ihereiore (as is mentioned before in the third chapter) when the birth of life sprang up, every essence had again a centre in itself, according to its own property or quality, and figures a life according to its essences, viz. harshness, bitterness,

Ch. 4] OP THE TRUE ETERNAL NATURE 63 fire, and sound ; and all further according to the ability of the eternal birth, which is l confirmed in 1 Or eatabthe kingdom of heaven.

O

74. Seeing then that they stood in heaven in the time of their creation, therefore their quality was also manifold ; and all should have been and continued angels, if the great fountain Lucifer (from whence they proceeded) had not destroyed them. And so now also every one in his fall continues in his own essences, only the second Principle is extinguished in them ; and so it is also with the soul of man, when the light of God goes out in it ; but so long as that shines therein, it is in paradise, and eats of the Word of the Lord, of which shall be clearly spoken in its due place.

B

THE FIFTH CHAPTER

Of ike third Principle, or creation of the material World, with the Stars and Elements ; wherein the first and second Principles are more clearly understood.

IECAUSE I may happen not to be understood clearly enough by the desirous Reader, and shall be as one that is altogether dumb to the unenlightened (for the eternal and indissoluble band, wherein the essence of all essences stands, is not easily nor in haste to be understood), therefore it is necessary that the desirous Reader do the more earnestly consider himself what

1 inward he is, and from whence his reason and l senses do thoughts. proceed, wherein he finds the similitude of God, especially if he consider and meditate what his soul is, which is an eternal incorruptible spirit.

2 Or be in true 2. But if the Reader be 2 born of God, there is