27. And do but understand the ground aright: In the birth of this world two kingdoms lie manifest, viz. God's Love-kingdom in Christ, and the kingdom of God's anger in Lucifer: these two kingdoms are in contest and strife in all creatures, for the original of all spirits is in the contest, and in the combat of the fire the light is made manifest. The fire is a cause of the light: God's anger is a cause that God did yet once move himself in his deepest love in the name Jesus, and thereby vanquish the anger.
28. Now what can the love do, if the free will espouses itself to the anger? Or what can the anger do against it, if the free will conceives in the love, and destroys the anger? Must it not hold still and suffer it to be done; and though it does oppose and rage against it, yet the love pierces quite through it, and changes it into joy. The anger is the root of love, as the fire is the root of the light; but in the free will is the understanding, which makes itself to what it pleases.
29. Do you not see this in the earth, that the free will in the ens of the Word has made itself stones, metals and earth. The stones and earth are not the free will; but the free will has introduced itself into such an ens, and by its lubet and motion introduced the ens into a compaction or coagulation; there was no other maker there but the free will in the formed and manifested Word: you mayest indeed see wonders enough.
30. Behold the irrational creatures, as worms, toads, spiders and other wild venomous and horrible beasts, and you shall see somewhat in very deed, if you are not dead. But you say, God has created it so. Yea, right! his desire in love and anger has amassed the ens with the motion, and compacted each ens according to the free will into a form. There was no other maker there, but the free will in the Word.
31. The desire in the Word was the Fiat, which introduced the free will into an ens. Thus the same manifested Word is yet in all things, and has the Fiat, viz. the desire in itself: As the free will in every thing introduces itself into a spirit, even so the Fiat forms and signs each thing. Every root brings forth from itself a branch of its own likeness; but when the branch or sprout is to be born and receive its beginning in the ens of the root, the ens does then form itself to such a twig as the root at that time is apprehended in its power and free will, both by the superior and inferior constellation.
32. The like is also to be understood in man. As the will is, in the seed, that is, as the desire of the father and mother are, at the time (together with other influences from the stars and elements), yea, oftentimes from the devil's assaults and insinuations, even such a spirit is formed in the ens of the seed; sometimes an angel, if the parents be in holy desire [or in the true faith of the engrafted Word] ; sometimes also a beast, a serpent and image of the devil, both according to the ens of the soul and of the outward flesh.
33. The power of the manifested Word does give in itself into all things, into everything according to its will, according to the desire in the ens; for the desire in the ens is that which forms the word, viz. the sound of life ;
as it is written, such as the people is, such a God they also have, with the holy you are holy, and with the perverse you are perverse. This is wholly to be understood concerning the expressed Word in the Fiat, viz. in the desire of nature. And therefore God has espoused and betrothed another Word out of the centre of his love to the image of man, that, although he be arisen out of an evil property, yet the free will has power and information to disclaim its selfhood, and die to its self in this holy incorporated Word;
and then the Fiat begets and forms another new creature in the free will out of the ens.
27. And do but understand the ground aright: In the birth of this world two kingdoms lie manifest, viz. God's Love-kingdom in Christ, and the kingdom of God's anger in Lucifer: these two kingdoms are in contest and strife in all creatures, for the original of all spirits is in the contest, and in the combat of the fire the light is made manifest. The fire is a cause of the light: God's anger is a cause that God did yet once move himself in his deepest love in the name Jesus, and thereby vanquish the anger.
28. Now what can the love do, if the free will espouses itself to the anger? Or what can the anger do against it, if the free will conceives in the love, and destroys the anger? Must it not hold still and suffer it to be done; and though it does oppose and rage against it, yet the love pierces quite through it, and changes it into joy. The anger is the root of love, as the fire is the root of the light; but in the free will is the understanding, which makes itself to what it pleases.
29. Do you not see this in the earth, that the free will in the ens of the Word has made itself stones, metals and earth. The stones and earth are not the free will; but the free will has introduced itself into such an ens, and by its lubet and motion introduced the ens into a compaction or coagulation; there was no other maker there but the free will in the formed and manifested Word: you may indeed see wonders enough.
30. Behold the irrational creatures, as worms, toads, spiders and other wild venomous and horrible beasts, and you shall see somewhat in very deed, if you are not dead. But you say, God has created it so. Yea, right! his desire in love and anger has amassed the ens with the motion, and compacted each ens according to the free will into a form. There was no other maker there, but the free will in the Word.
31. The desire in the Word was the Fiat, which introduced the free will into an ens. Thus the same manifested Word is yet in all things, and has the Fiat, viz. the desire in itself: As the free will in every thing introduces itself into a spirit, even so the Fiat forms and signs each thing. Every root brings forth from itself a branch of its own likeness; but when the branch or sprout is to be born and receive its beginning in the ens of the root, the ens does then form itself to such a twig as the root at that time is apprehended in its power and free will, both by the superior and inferior constellation.
32. The like is also to be understood in man. As the will is, in the seed, that is, as the desire of the father and mother are, at the time (together with other influences from the stars and elements), yea, oftentimes from the devil's assaults and insinuations, even such a spirit is formed in the ens of the seed; sometimes an angel, if the parents be in holy desire [or in the true faith of the engrafted Word] ; sometimes also a beast, a serpent and image of the devil, both according to the ens of the soul and of the outward flesh.
33. The power of the manifested Word does give in itself into all things, into everything according to its will, according to the desire in the ens; for the desire in the ens is that which forms the word, viz. the sound of life ;
as it is written, such as the people is, such a God they also have, with the holy you are holy, and with the perverse you are perverse. This is wholly to be understood concerning the expressed Word in the Fiat, viz. in the desire of nature. And therefore God has espoused and betrothed another Word out of the centre of his love to the image of man, that, although he be arisen out of an evil property, yet the free will has power and information to disclaim its selfhood, and die to its self in this holy incorporated Word;
and then the Fiat begets and forms another new creature in the free will out of the ens.
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