Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence

swine ; but for the children of God; which will be benefited by it, the spirit of God will certainly teach and instruct them in it.

16. Now when the heaven became clear [or pure], and cleansed from the earth and the dark mist [or dust] in the concretion [or driving together], then in the matrix of the heaven there were the three elements, fire, air and water, which are three in one another, in one mother ; and that mother is here called the heaven ; therefore henceforward in my writing, I shall use the word heaven instead of the word matrix.

17. For the heaven is the matrix, and is called heaven because of the separation, because the fifth essence of heaven is severed, and set in the higher heaven, where the matrix is more fiery, as it is properly understood in the language of nature, and is plain before our eyes. But here the quality, birth and property of the heaven ought to be described, because the four elements sprang out of it, as out of their mother ; and because the virtue of every life consisteth therein, therefore the original of the four elements must be described, wherein it will first truly be understood what the heaven is.

THE SEVENTH CHAPTER

Of the Heaven and its etei-nal Birth and Essence, and how the four Elements are generated ; wherein the eternal Band may be the more and the better understood, by meditating and considering tJie material World. The great Depth.

1. IP VERY spirit seeth no further than into its J — J mother, out of which it hath its original, and wherein it standeth ; for it is impossible for any spirit in its own natural power to look into another Principle, and behold it, except it be regenerated therein. But the natural man, who in his fall was captivated by the matrix of this world, whose natural spirit 1moveth between two Principles, viz. 'wavereth. between the divine and the hellish, and he standeth in both the gates, into which Principle he falleth, there he cometh to be regenerated, whether it be as to the kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of hell ; and yet he is not able in this [life] time to see either of them both.

2. He is in his own essence and substance a twofold man. For his soul (in its own substance) is

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out of the first Principle, which from eternity hath no ground nor beginning ; and in the time of the creation of man in paradise, or the kingdom of heaven, the soul was truly l bodified by the Fiat in a spiritual manner ; but with the first virtue [or power] which is from eternity, in its own first virtue or power it hath remained inseparably in its first root, and was illustrated [or made shining bright] by the second Principle, viz. by the Heart of God ; and therewith standing in paradise, was there, by the moving spirit of God, breathed into the matrix of the third Principle, into the starry and elementary man. And now therefore he may understand the ground of heaven, as also of the elements and of hell, as far as the light of God shineth in him ; for if that light be in him, he is born in all the three Principles ; but yet he is only a spark risen from thence, and not the great source, or fountain, which is God himself.

3. And therefore it is that Christ saith : If you had faith as a grain of mustard-seed, you might say to the mountain, Cast thyself into the sea, and it shall be done. And 2in this power men have raised the dead, and healed the sick, by the word, and the virtue and power of the spirit, or else they could not have been able to have done such things, if they had not stood in the power of all the three Principles.

4. For the created spirit of man, which is out of the matrix of this world, that ruleth (by the virtue