The Forty Questions of the Soul

THE TWENTY-FOURTH QUESTION Whether do Men's Wishes profit them anything, or sensibly 1 avail them, or no?

1. MY beloved Friend, look upon the rich man and poor Lazarus; so you shall find that there is a great 2 space between them and us, so that those that would reach them with their prayers and their will, cannot, neither can they come to us; there is a Principle between.

2. The prayer and wish of the righteous penetrateth into heaven, and not into hell: the Scripture also telleth you, out of hell there is no 3 redemption; they lie in hell as dead bones, they call, and no man heareth them, no praying availeth them.

3. And though many men should pray for the damned souls, yet their prayers remain in their own Principle, and pass into heaven, and not into hell; there is no calling back again out of hell, saith the Scripture.

4. You know what Christ said to his seventy disciples, 4 When ye enter into an house, greet the house, and if the child of peace be in that house, then your greeting and wish shall rest upon it; if not, your wish returneth to you again: and so it is also here.

1 help or do them good.

2 Or gulf. Luke xvi. 26.

3 Or deliverance.

4 Matt. x. 12.

5. No good wish entereth into hell: But if the wicked leave behind him much falsehood and deceit, so that the hellish torment is wished to him in the grave, such wishes come to the wicked soul, those wishes come where they are; for that soul must swallow down its abominations which it committed here, and that is its food which the living send after it.

6. But it is altogether wrong, and doth not become the children of God at all; for thereby they sow into hell, into the anger of God: they had need beware, lest they also reap that which they sow; most certainly, if they do not recall themselves and repent, it will fall out no otherwise.

7. Furthermore, we give you to understand, according to our knowledge in the spirit (not according to the weening and conceit of the outward man, but according to our gift), that those souls which, as it were, hang by a 1 thread, and but at last enter into repentance, and so lay hold of the kingdom of heaven, as it were, by a thread, so that doubting and faith are mixed, are in such a condition that a hearty prayer and wish redoundeth to their profit, and pierceth into the poor captive soul, into its 2 source, if it be made with all earnestness.

8. For it is neither in hell, nor in heaven, but in the gate, in the midst, in the source of the Principle where fire and light sever themselves, and is held by its turba, that always seeketh the 3 fire: But then this small twig which it hath

4 conceived, viz. the weak faith, deeply demerseth itself, and earnestly reacheth after the mercy of God, and yieldeth itself patiently into the death of that sinking down; and so getteth out from the anguish, and sinketh down from the 5 pain into the meekness of heaven.

1 The thread of faith, small which is and weak.

2 condition, or property, or misery.

3 Or to devour it.

4 Or comprehended.

5 Or source.

9. And although many a soul is held a l sufficient while, yet the anger cannot devour that small faith, but must at last let it go.

10. But I leave it to him, to try what this is, who wilfully persisteth in sin till his end, and then first desireth to be saved: and then the 2 priest, forsooth, must save him: he shall find it by woeful experience.

11. We say that a man's hearty fervent prayer stands such a one in stead; for a zealous, earnest, faithful prayer hath power to break open the gates of the deep, it breaketh open a whole Principle, and seeketh; and if there be anything there that is capable of its will, that taketh hold of it, viz. the poor soul in its source of sin receiveth the earnest divine will of its loving brother, and so is strengthened; and in its brother's spirit and will is able to sink down out of the anguish, through death, and attain the kingdom of God.