for the divine desire does amass [betake] itself into God's grace and mercy, and brings itself into a centre of a working life, and penetrates through the earthly false lustful life, and strikes the false lust [and imagination] down; and then the false imagination falls into great sadness, when as it contemplates and beholds the voluptuous, pompous, stately, brave, glistering course of this world, and finds itselfso mean and foolish that it must forsake and forego that wherein it might have its chief joy, pleasure and delight.
37. Also the devil he comes forthwith with his temptation, and brings his desire into the false imagination; and shows him the fair kingdom of the world, and rebukes his intent as a false fancy and mere conjecture;
stirs up the crew of the wicked against him, who scorn, jeer, reproach and contemn him; and then sometimes the sprackling glimpse, and divine desire, does even lose itself; for Christ, viz. the virgin's child in the spirit of Christ, is lead into the wilderness, and is tempted of the devil and of the anger of God, and also of the carnal world's spirit, and of tentimes the spirit of Christ does hide itself; as if the virgin's child were quite gone, and past hopes, also the devil makes his address thereto, and brings him into doubt as if the virgin's child were not born.
38. For the virgin's child is hidden in the desert, and then the poor captivated soul is in great sorrow and lamentation, sighs and cries to God; also it cannot love, nor away with, the bestial image, but it does stir up itself as a great assaulting storm in the body, and seeks the gates of the deep in its original;
and forces with might [or holy violence] into that Word which has formed it to be a creature, and dives itself thereinto, as an impotent, will-less child, and desires its first mother, whence the first soul was born, for its nurse; and makes itselfwholly will-less in this mother, and lies only at her breasts, and sucks her love and grace into it; the mother may do with it what she please. This is the true meaning, and the right manner, of dying to selfhood and self-full imagination and lust in oneself, and becoming, as to the will of the soul, as a child in oneself; as Christ says, Unless ye he converted, and become as children, ye can in no wise see the kingdom of God; self; and self-full reason in the lust of the flesh, can neither taste nor see it.
39. From this mortification of the self-full will, and earnest resignation into God's mercy, the virgin's child does again spring forth out of the desert, with its fair and glorious pearl-blooming tree, with very excellent and new fruit; for so it must be tried in the fire of God's anger, that the abomination of the introduced earthly will may die in it.
40. For the fire-soul, viz. the first Principle, hangs upon the band of the outward world, and continually and eagerly introduces something of vanity into it, whereby the virgin-child of the angelical world's essence, viz. of Christ's essentiality, is defiled, obscured and darkened, therefore it must be so refined, purified and purged again; and many a cold, piercing, rautish wind of tribulation, anguish and great perplexity blows upon this child. It must be continually as an off-scouring of the world, for its kingdom is not of this world; as Christ said, My kingdom is not of this world.
41. But the effect is this: when the fair Morning- Star does dawn and arise in the virgin-child, then the outward life is even illuminated in this time [or while it lives here] ; and it gives itself up unto the obedience of the internal [life], as an instrument and servant of the internal.
42. And then the holy spirit of God shines forth through the virgin-child, and preaches Christ crucified, and reproves the world for its sins and wicked malicious doings, and shows them their false hypocritical erroneous way, that they will needs be the children of God in the outward kingdom, in their self-contrived and devised ways, and will seek an external forgiveness of sin in their own conceited and received ways;
for the divine desire does amass [betake] itself into God's grace and mercy, and brings itself into a centre of a working life, and penetrates through the earthly false lustful life, and strikes the false lust [and imagination] down; and then the false imagination falls into great sadness, when as it contemplates and beholds the voluptuous, pompous, stately, brave, glistering course of this world, and finds itselfso mean and foolish that it must forsake and forego that wherein it might have its chief joy, pleasure and delight.
37. Also the devil he comes forthwith with his temptation, and brings his desire into the false imagination; and shows him the fair kingdom of the world, and rebukes his intent as a false fancy and mere conjecture;
stirs up the crew of the wicked against him, who scorn, jeer, reproach and contemn him; and then sometimes the sprackling glimpse, and divine desire, does even lose itself; for Christ, viz. the virgin's child in the spirit of Christ, is lead into the wilderness, and is tempted of the devil and of the anger of God, and also of the carnal world's spirit, and of tentimes the spirit of Christ does hide itself; as if the virgin's child were quite gone, and past hopes, also the devil makes his address thereto, and brings him into doubt as if the virgin's child were not born.
38. For the virgin's child is hidden in the desert, and then the poor captivated soul is in great sorrow and lamentation, sighs and cries to God; also it cannot love, nor away with, the bestial image, but it does stir up itself as a great assaulting storm in the body, and seeks the gates of the deep in its original;
and forces with might [or holy violence] into that Word which has formed it to be a creature, and dives itself thereinto, as an impotent, will-less child, and desires its first mother, whence the first soul was born, for its nurse; and makes itselfwholly will-less in this mother, and lies only at her breasts, and sucks her love and grace into it; the mother may do with it what she please. This is the true meaning, and the right manner, of dying to selfhood and self-full imagination and lust in oneself, and becoming, as to the will of the soul, as a child in oneself; as Christ says, Unless you he converted, and become as children, you can in no wise see the kingdom of God; self; and self-full reason in the lust of the flesh, can neither taste nor see it.
39. From this mortification of the self-full will, and earnest resignation into God's mercy, the virgin's child does again spring forth out of the desert, with its fair and glorious pearl-blooming tree, with very excellent and new fruit; for so it must be tried in the fire of God's anger, that the abomination of the introduced earthly will may die in it.
40. For the fire-soul, viz. the first Principle, hangs upon the band of the outward world, and continually and eagerly introduces something of vanity into it, whereby the virgin-child of the angelical world's essence, viz. of Christ's essentiality, is defiled, obscured and darkened, therefore it must be so refined, purified and purged again; and many a cold, piercing, rautish wind of tribulation, anguish and great perplexity blows upon this child. It must be continually as an off-scouring of the world, for its kingdom is not of this world; as Christ said, My kingdom is not of this world.
41. But the effect is this: when the fair Morning- Star does dawn and arise in the virgin-child, then the outward life is even illuminated in this time [or while it lives here] ; and it gives itself up unto the obedience of the internal [life], as an instrument and servant of the internal.
42. And then the holy spirit of God shines forth through the virgin-child, and preaches Christ crucified, and reproves the world for its sins and wicked malicious doings, and shows them their false hypocritical erroneous way, that they will needs be the children of God in the outward kingdom, in their self-contrived and devised ways, and will seek an external forgiveness of sin in their own conceited and received ways;
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