Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence

9. For as in the paradisical Principle the Holy Ghost in the Trinity of the Deity continually goeth forth, and tioweth very softly, immovably and imperceptibly as to the creature, and yet formeth and fashioneth all in the paradisical matrix, so also doth the third Principle. After that the matrix became visible and material, every virtue in the matrix hath had a great attractive longing towards another, a continual springing, blossoming, and fading again like a bud, or some boiling seething matter, wherein the sourness, coldness, and [eager fierce] strongness, attract without ceasing ; and this attracting, prickle [or sting], stirreth always without ceasing, and striveth [or resisteth], so that the sour matrix (because of the inward, hellish, or most original matrix) standeth continually in anguish, with a great desire of the light, which it espieth in the root of the fire, and is continually affrighted at it, and becometh mild, soft, and material ; whereby the elementary water is continually generated.

p. 92

10. In this manner you must understand the four elements, which yet are not four divided things, or essences, but one only essence : And yet there are four differences, or distinctions in this birth ; and each element lieth in the other, as in a chest, and it is its receptacle, also it is a member therein. Understand and consider the ground

>r astrin- aright, which followeth : The l sourness is the >tofthe matrix, and a cause of all things, which in its own substance is very dark, cold, and as nothing ; but the eternal Deity being there, and speculating or beholding itself in the sourness, therefore the dark sourness is desirous after the divine virtue, and attracteth ; although there is no life or understanding in the sourness, yet it is the ground of the first essence, and the original whence something cometh to be : Here we can search no further into the ground of the Deity, for it troubleth [disturbeth, or confoundeth] us.

11. Now the sourness (in its lust or great longing [or panting] after the light) attracteth continually, and in its own substance it is nothing else but a vehement hunger, very dry, and as [a vacuum or] nothing at all, a desiring will, as the darkness after the light; and its hunger, or attracting, maketh the bitterness, the woe [or lamentation] that it cannot be satiated, or mollified, from whence the anguish ariseth, so that the will, if "^ike*1 °r Prick*e Lor sting] is rubbed, [or 2 struck] in itself, from the lust of the desiring, and it will not

Ch. 7] THE FOUR ELEMENTS 93

yield itself to the dark nothing, or dead will, but setteth its desire and anguish, and also its [eager or] strong will so very hard towards the hidden light of God, that thereby the will becometh a twinkling flash, like a sparkling or l crackling fire, l AS when you whereby the sourness, that is so very aching, is into the fire. continually filled, and as it were deadened, whereby the sour spirit cometh to be soft, sweet, and material, even water.

12. But the bitterness being so very much affrighted at the flash of fire in the sourness, it catcheth its mother (the sourness) which is become material from the crack, and flieth out, and is clouded or 2 swelled from the material sourness, as2 impregnated. if it also were material, and moveth, and strengtheneth itself continually in the mother ; and that is the element called air in this world, which hath its original in the watery mother, and the water hath ' its original from the air, and the fire hath its original from the longing anguish ; and the earth and stones took their beginning in the strong attraction at the fall of Lucifer, when the sourness was so fierce, strong, rising, and attractive, which attraction is stopped again by the light in the third Principle.