The Threefold Life of Man

plagues and punishments], and there he is the executioner; but he hath the inward dominion of the four forms to the fire-life, these he can possess, as often as the soul plungeth itself thereinto: If he get it there, O how fast he holdeth it, and will quite down with it, for that is his kingdom, [viz. the abyss of the four forms] .

31. And observe it, according to its precious depth: The four forms contain in them the original of nature; where first (in the desiring willing,) the darkness, with the attracting, entereth into a desire;

and so the desiring becometh strong, [sharp, astringent], harsh, hard, and cold; and the desiring maketh an attraction and stirring in the strong harshness, which are two forms, and the third form is the great anguish, in that the desiring would be free, which stirreth the anxious wheel of nature, and in the end

[stirreth up] the flash of fire, which is the fourth form, as is at large mentioned before.

32. And so that harsh attraction maketh in the desiring of the will, in the outward nature of this world, a great covetousness, so that the mind would attract all to itself, and possess it alone; and though it cannot devour it, yet will possess it, and would not willingly afford any thing to any other; and this is one root of the abyss of hell, wherein the devil vehemently assaulteth the soul, that it might not go out, and come to the light of God.

33. The second root is the bitterness of nature, 2which in the harshness is an inimicitious sting, and will not endure to be subdued: The more it is resisted, the greater is its sting: This is the second form, which maketh in the outward nature, an inimicitious, stinging, envious, bitter mind, whereinto also the devil windeth himself, and kindleth the word of the soul, with a despiteful, stinging, envious subject [matter or substance], so that the will continually burneth in envy, and never speaketh any good, but mere vanity and wantonness, which is serviceable to the devil; whence proceed liars, slanderers, backbiters, false hearts: God have mercy upon us in our great misery, into which we are plunged!

34. The third root is the anxious wheel of the mind, whence the senses [or thoughts] arise and are generated, which containeth in it especially the miserable house of sadness, and yet is the house of the springing up of life; this is chiefly the dwelling place of the devil, within which he seateth himself:

It is his seat, and he continually raiseth up that house of sadness, so that the soul groweth timorous and doubteth of the grace of God, and of the light of eternal life: He continually casteth in the two first forms, viz. covetousness and envy, and with that poison windeth the wheel of the mind about, and maketh a hurlyburly in the essences of the thoughts: He continually mixeth covetousness and envy together, that he may retain his seat;

and so when the poor soul would go out aloft and 3be gone, then he barreth it up into the chamber of anguish, and straiteneth it, that it might and should despair; for the chamber of anguish is always in darkness, and there he casteth it down, that it may not get aloft on the wheel, lest it should discover the fire, and so he would be known.

35. The fourth root is the fire-flash; and when the devil cannot detain the soul still in the house of sadness, but that it reacheth after the flash of the light of the liberty of God, then he slips into the flash, and bringeth the thoughts in the word of the soul out aloft above the cross in high-mindedness, [as men that through learning strive after the light of God, and having attained it, little think how the devil slippeth into it, and bringeth them into high-mindedness, to be proud of themselves, esteeming themselves as clergymen to be better than the laity], so that the soul thus flieth out aloft, and elevateth itself above the meekness, as the devil himself did.