Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence

1 worketh according to its kind, it vivifieth and * Or buiM«th. killeth ; what it doth, it doth [not regarding whether it be] evil, crooked, lame, or good, beautiful or potent, it causeth to live and to die, it affordeth power and strength, and destroyeth the same again ; and all this without any premeditated wisdom ; whereby it may be perceived, that it is not the divine providence and wisdom itself, as the heathens supposed, and foolishly relied upon the virtue thereof.

4. But if we would see the ground thereof, we must only look upon the first mother in her birth, and so we shall see and find it all. For as the first mother (considering her in the original without the light) is sour [or harsh], dark, hard, and cold, and yet there is the 2 water- 2 Or spirit of

• *•««.. r i i (* i * 1 spirit in the bringing lortn, thus you may nnd (when the material world sprang up) that God then on the first day created the heaven and the earth.

5. Now the heaven cometh out of the sour matrix, which in the paradisical [heaven] is the water-spirit ; and out of that paradisical [waterspirit or matrix] the material [heaven or matrix] is created ; as Moses writeth, that the heaven was created out of the midst of the waters ; and it is very right. And also in that very hour the earth and the stones, and all metals (the matrix of this world being yet dark) were generated out of the matrix.

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6. For when the matrix was stirred, and that lord Lucifer would domineer in the fire, then the dark matrix attracted all that was wrought in the

1 out-birth. l birth together, from whence earth, stones, metals, brimstone and salt did proceed : Hereby the kingdom of prince Lucifer was shut up, and he remained in the inward centre captivated in the outward.

7. But the virtue which was in the matrix, was that which could effect such things in the matrix ;

2 The original for a stone is nothing else but a water, 2 mercury, ritts. salt, and brimstone, wherein an oil is hidden.

Now the birth of the matrix hath such a form

3 Or continual in its eternal essence, and 8 birth of its life. For first, there is the harshness [or sourness], fierceness [or eager strongness] and hardness, from whence the cold proceedeth. Now the sourness [or harshness] attracteth and sharpeneth the cold ; and in its attracting it maketh the bitter sting [or prickle] which pricketh and rageth, and cannot endure the hard attracting, but vexeth like a furious madness, it riseth up and rageth, and becometh like a brimstone-spirit.

8. And in this form in the wrath [or fierce strongness], in the watery sour mother, the sour bitter earth, brimstone and salt is generated, before the kindling of the sun in the matrix that is void of understanding. But the separation that is in it, is caused from the birth's standing in great anguish, and from its desiring the separation in the birth ; for the bitterness agreeth not with theCh. 6] OF THE SEPARATION IN THE CREATION 83 harshness [or sourness], and yet they are as mother and son, and as members one l of another ; and it1 in. must be so, or else nothing could be, for it is the eternal band, and the original of life.

9. Moreover, when the bitterness rageth, riseth up, and 2vexeth in the [sour] harsh mother, then 2 acheth. it falleth into a glimmering flash most terribly ; in this form the mercurius, or venom, or poison is generated. For when the matrix perceiveth this flash of fire in its dark sour form, then it is terrified, and becometh dead in her hard sour property. And in this place death, poison, 3 withering and 3 failing away, corruption are generated in the matrix, and also anddestrac. the noble life in the mercurius, and in the springing up of the third Principle.