43. It is to be lamented that we are so blindly led, and the truth withheld in images;4 for, if the divine power in the inward ground of the soul were manifest and working with its lustre, and that men did desire to go forth from their ungodly ways, and give up themselves to God, then is the whole Tri-une God present in the life and will of the soul; and the heaven, wherein God dwells, is opened in the soul;
and there, in the soul, is the place of God, where the Father begets his Son, and where the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son.
44. For God makes use of no circumscribed place, he dwells even in the abyss of the wicked soul, but incomprehensible to it, as to his love; but as to his anger he is manifest and comprehensible in the wicked soul.
1 Or, in. 2 of. 3 Or, determinations and conclusions.
4 Imaginary conceits.
45. For the eternal speaking 1 of the Word, incomprehensible to nature and creature, becomes imaged 2 in the will of the soul; of which the Scripture says, With the holy you are holy, and with the perverse you are perverse (Ps. xviii. 25, 26). Also, such as the people is, such a God they have.
46. For in the thrones of the holy angels God is manifest in his love; and in the thrones of the devils he is manifest with his wrath, viz. according to the darkness and torment; and yet there is but one only God, and not two. According to the tormentive nature he wills torment, and according to the love he wills love: as a burning fire desires hard brimstone like itself, and the light of the fire desires only an open place where it may shine: It takes away nothing, but gives itself for the joy of life; it suffers itself to be taken; it has no other will in itself but to give forth itself and work that which is good. So God, as to his holiness, has no other will in himself but to manifest the power of his love and shining lustre, in a creaturely form. 3 As the sun manifests itself in a herb, and tinctures it and makes it wholesome and good: so also is to be understood concerning God.
47. Therefore all is but vain jangling, babbling, and a creaturely imagination^ for men to ask what is God called, or what is God's name. Or for men to talk much and say, God wills this or that evil and good, and know not how to say upon good ground how he wills evil and good, and how a man shall understand the texts 5 of Scripture to that purpose.
48. This contention and strife about the letter is, indeed, the very confused divided tongue or language on the high tower of the children of Nimrod in Babel; for that high tower is a figure of the exercises in the Universities, 6 where the one divine language is divided or confounded and wrested into many speeches ;7 that one people does not understand another, and that men contend about the only God, in whom we live and subsist, and whereby even the kingdom of nature in its wonders is manifested, and brought into figured wonders. 8
1 Or, expression.
2 Conceivable, or perceptible, or gets an idea.
3 Or, manner.
4 Or, imagery.
5 Or, sayings.
6 Disputations in the High Schools.
7 Perverted in phrases and expressions.
8 Fashioned wonderfully. Ps. cxxxix. 14.
49. But the true ground, what God is, and how he is, what the Being of all Beings is, remains as blind to them, as the visibility of this world is to one that is born blind. And though they are called Masters of the Letters, yet they have lost the five vowels, which are the power of all words; which is much to be lamented, that men understand nothing at all more of the Holy Ghost's language, what the spirit of God has spoken in Moses and the Prophets, and how he has in his speech declared and pointed at that which is future, eternal. Men cleave merely to an historical action,l and see not what is signified by this or that action.
1 Act or thing done.
43. It is to be lamented that we are so blindly led, and the truth withheld in images;4 for, if the divine power in the inward ground of the soul were manifest and working with its lustre, and that men did desire to go forth from their ungodly ways, and give up themselves to God, then is the whole Tri-une God present in the life and will of the soul; and the heaven, wherein God dwells, is opened in the soul;
and there, in the soul, is the place of God, where the Father begets his Son, and where the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son.
44. For God makes use of no circumscribed place, he dwells even in the abyss of the wicked soul, but incomprehensible to it, as to his love; but as to his anger he is manifest and comprehensible in the wicked soul.
1 Or, in. 2 of. 3 Or, determinations and conclusions.
4 Imaginary conceits.
45. For the eternal speaking 1 of the Word, incomprehensible to nature and creature, becomes imaged 2 in the will of the soul; of which the Scripture says, With the holy you are holy, and with the perverse you are perverse (Ps. xviii. 25, 26). Also, such as the people is, such a God they have.
46. For in the thrones of the holy angels God is manifest in his love; and in the thrones of the devils he is manifest with his wrath, viz. according to the darkness and torment; and yet there is but one only God, and not two. According to the tormentive nature he wills torment, and according to the love he wills love: as a burning fire desires hard brimstone like itself, and the light of the fire desires only an open place where it may shine: It takes away nothing, but gives itself for the joy of life; it suffers itself to be taken; it has no other will in itself but to give forth itself and work that which is good. So God, as to his holiness, has no other will in himself but to manifest the power of his love and shining lustre, in a creaturely form. 3 As the sun manifests itself in a herb, and tinctures it and makes it wholesome and good: so also is to be understood concerning God.
47. Therefore all is but vain jangling, babbling, and a creaturely imagination^ for men to ask what is God called, or what is God's name. Or for men to talk much and say, God wills this or that evil and good, and know not how to say upon good ground how he wills evil and good, and how a man shall understand the texts 5 of Scripture to that purpose.
48. This contention and strife about the letter is, indeed, the very confused divided tongue or language on the high tower of the children of Nimrod in Babel; for that high tower is a figure of the exercises in the Universities, 6 where the one divine language is divided or confounded and wrested into many speeches ;7 that one people does not understand another, and that men contend about the only God, in whom we live and subsist, and whereby even the kingdom of nature in its wonders is manifested, and brought into figured wonders. 8
1 Or, expression.
2 Conceivable, or perceptible, or gets an idea.
3 Or, manner.
4 Or, imagery.
5 Or, sayings.
6 Disputations in the High Schools.
7 Perverted in phrases and expressions.
8 Fashioned wonderfully. Ps. cxxxix. 14.
49. But the true ground, what God is, and how he is, what the Being of all Beings is, remains as blind to them, as the visibility of this world is to one that is born blind. And though they are called Masters of the Letters, yet they have lost the five vowels, which are the power of all words; which is much to be lamented, that men understand nothing at all more of the Holy Ghost's language, what the spirit of God has spoken in Moses and the Prophets, and how he has in his speech declared and pointed at that which is future, eternal. Men cleave merely to an historical action,l and see not what is signified by this or that action.
1 Act or thing done.
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