Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence

32. As fire, air, water, and earth, lie in one case [or chest], and they four are but one thing, and

104 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 7 yet of four distinct differences, and none of them can comprehend, nor retain the other, and someOr predomi. what of one of the four being l fixed in every creature, that creature cannot bind itself as to that, but is manifested therein, and according to that spirit is comprehensible and perceptible, and yet is incomprehensible to the spirits 'of the other elements.

33. For all things are come to be something out of nothing : And every creature has the centre, or the circle of the birth of life in itself ; and as the elements lie hidden in one another in one only mother, and none of them comprehends the other, though they are members one of another, so the created creatures are hidden and invisible to one another. For every creature looks but into its mother that is fixed [or predominant] in it. The material creature sees a material substance, but an immaterial substance (as the spirits in the fire and in the air) it sees not ; as the body sees not the soul, which yet dwells in it ; or as the third Principle does not comprehend, nor apprehend the second Principle wherein God is ; though indeed

> Prin- itself is in God, yet there is a 2 birth between : As it is with the spirit of the soul of man, and the elementary spirit in man, the one being the case [chest] or receptacle of the other ; as you shall find about the creation of man.

THE EIGHTH CHAPTER

Of the Creation of the Creatures, and of the

Springing up of every l growing Thing ; as a vegetable, or also of the Stars and Elements, and of the Original of the 2 Substance of this World. 2 Or essence.

1. ~T~N the beginning of the last preceding chapter, -L it is mentioned that it is not strange for a man to write, speak, and teach of the creation of the world, though he was not present when it was doing, if he have but the knowledge in the spirit. For there he sees in the mother, as in a glass, the genetrix of every thing ; for one thing always lies in another, and the more is sought, the more is found, and there is no need to cast the mind beyond this world ; for all is to be found in this world, yea in every thing that lives and moves. Whatsoever any looks upon, and searches into, he shall find the spirit with the Fiat therein ; and the divine virtue [or power discovers, or] 3 beholds itself in all things, as it is written, The word is near you, even in your heart and lips. For when the light of God dawns, or breaks forth in the centre of the spirit of the soul, then the spirit of

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106 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 8

Or creating, the soul sees very well the l creation of this world, as in a clear glass, and nothing is afar off.

2. Therefore now I direct the Eeader to the creatures, that he may search into them, and so he shall find all things, and that more wonderfully than any man can write or speak, if we be born of

Or funda- God. We must not 2 think with our understanding eive* ' and skill, of God's making or creating, as of a man that makes somewhat, as a potter makes a vessel of a lump of clay, or a stone-cutter or carver makes an image after his pleasure ; and if it does not please him, then he breaks it again : No, the works of God, in the creation of the world, were altogether fixed and steadfast, good and perfect, as Moses writes : And God saw all that he had made, and behold it was very good.

3. For he took not one lump after another, or many lumps together, and made beasts of them, that is not likely ; and it is much more a bestial than a human thought. But, as is mentioned before, after that the devil was fallen with his in loco. legions, (who had his throne 3 in the place of this world, standing bodily after the manner of a spirit,