3. Much more is reason incapable to search out the cry which came up before him. And hereupon the creatural reason thinks, that God dwells only on high above the stars, in a heaven, alone, and looks down here beneath, as the lustre of the sun looks and shines from its body upon the earth. So far reason reaches, and further it knows not what God is, or where he dwells: it knows not that he is every essence, 4 and dwells through every essence or being, and possesses no locality, also needs no place or space for his habitation; and yet that he (so far as he is called God) is no essence, 5 but is as a nothing in reference to the essence; and yet he is even through all things, and gives in himself in an energetical working manner, to [every] essence, as the powerful influence of the sun [gives itself] to the fruit; but [he] works with the creature and its life, not from without into it, but from within out of it, to his own manifestation; and that the nature and creature is his manifestation. If reason did but understand this aright, it would here make no further question [but be undoubtedly satisfied in itself what God is].
1 Gen. xviii.
2 Comprehensible or measurable.
3 Concluded in a place severed and apart, by himself.
4 The whole Being, Substance, or Essence.
5 Substance, thing, or being.
4. Now, understand the sum of all briefly thus: God dwells in himself both according to the love, and according to the anger; each property sees only into itself and is not manifest in the other with its own property; as you have a similitude of this in the day and night, viz. in the light and darkness. The light dwells in the darkness, and sees it not; also the darkness sees not the light; and as the light dwells in its great meekness in the fire, and yet receives not the source and pain of the fire to itself but remains only good, without any feeling life of the fire, and yet it arises through the consuming of the fire, viz. through the dying of the essence: 1 in like manner also understand the being of God.
1 Material substance.
5. God's love-eye does not see essentially into the wicked rebellious apostate soul; neither also into the devil, but his anger-eye sees thereinto; that is, God, according to the property of the anger or fire of wrath, sees in the devil, and in the false soul.
6. Therefore God said, There was a cry come up before him. There he understood, before his manifested Word, viz. before the voice in the divine revealed ens of these three men. It was come before the ens, and before the hearing which had now in the promised ens represented itself; in three persons, unto man, concerning the humanity of Christ.
7. For the judgement over all the devils and wicked men was given unto this Word or hearing; for it was the moveable 2 Hearing whereby God the Father heard in the humanity, and whereby he would separate the evil from the good.
2 Affective, or effective.
8. Now this Hearing, viz. the Hearing which would manifest itself in Christ's person in the humanity, heard the voice of the Sodomites in itself; viz. of the children of Ham; that is, according to the property of the anger; and brought the hearing before the infinite Hearing into the first Principle, viz. into the original of nature and creature. For the Sodomites, viz. the children of the flesh, do all live in the hearing of this world, viz. in the expressed formed Word, in the figure of the Deity, where evil and good are manifest together in one essence.
9. Now understand us here very punctually and acutely. The angelical world is called 1 above, and the formed outward is called 1 below, in manner as we may say when a fire is enkindled, then the light is above, and the substance [or matter] below. When we speak of God's [being] above, then we mean and understand within, for the [being] within, without the substance, 2 is the [being] above; for without the substance [or matter] there is all above, no below; that which is under the substance is also above.
1 Or, is said to be. 2 Extra substantiam.
3. Much more is reason incapable to search out the cry which came up before him. And hereupon the creatural reason thinks, that God dwells only on high above the stars, in a heaven, alone, and looks down here beneath, as the lustre of the sun looks and shines from its body upon the earth. So far reason reaches, and further it knows not what God is, or where he dwells: it knows not that he is every essence, 4 and dwells through every essence or being, and possesses no locality, also needs no place or space for his habitation; and yet that he (so far as he is called God) is no essence, 5 but is as a nothing in reference to the essence; and yet he is even through all things, and gives in himself in an energetical working manner, to [every] essence, as the powerful influence of the sun [gives itself] to the fruit; but [he] works with the creature and its life, not from without into it, but from within out of it, to his own manifestation; and that the nature and creature is his manifestation. If reason did but understand this aright, it would here make no further question [but be undoubtedly satisfied in itself what God is].
1 Gen. xviii.
2 Comprehensible or measurable.
3 Concluded in a place severed and apart, by himself.
4 The whole Being, Substance, or Essence.
5 Substance, thing, or being.
4. Now, understand the sum of all briefly thus: God dwells in himself both according to the love, and according to the anger; each property sees only into itself and is not manifest in the other with its own property; as you have a similitude of this in the day and night, viz. in the light and darkness. The light dwells in the darkness, and sees it not; also the darkness sees not the light; and as the light dwells in its great meekness in the fire, and yet receives not the source and pain of the fire to itself but remains only good, without any feeling life of the fire, and yet it arises through the consuming of the fire, viz. through the dying of the essence: 1 in like manner also understand the being of God.
1 Material substance.
5. God's love-eye does not see essentially into the wicked rebellious apostate soul; neither also into the devil, but his anger-eye sees thereinto; that is, God, according to the property of the anger or fire of wrath, sees in the devil, and in the false soul.
6. Therefore God said, There was a cry come up before him. There he understood, before his manifested Word, viz. before the voice in the divine revealed ens of these three men. It was come before the ens, and before the hearing which had now in the promised ens represented itself; in three persons, unto man, concerning the humanity of Christ.
7. For the judgement over all the devils and wicked men was given unto this Word or hearing; for it was the moveable 2 Hearing whereby God the Father heard in the humanity, and whereby he would separate the evil from the good.
2 Affective, or effective.
8. Now this Hearing, viz. the Hearing which would manifest itself in Christ's person in the humanity, heard the voice of the Sodomites in itself; viz. of the children of Ham; that is, according to the property of the anger; and brought the hearing before the infinite Hearing into the first Principle, viz. into the original of nature and creature. For the Sodomites, viz. the children of the flesh, do all live in the hearing of this world, viz. in the expressed formed Word, in the figure of the Deity, where evil and good are manifest together in one essence.
9. Now understand us here very punctually and acutely. The angelical world is called 1 above, and the formed outward is called 1 below, in manner as we may say when a fire is enkindled, then the light is above, and the substance [or matter] below. When we speak of God's [being] above, then we mean and understand within, for the [being] within, without the substance, 2 is the [being] above; for without the substance [or matter] there is all above, no below; that which is under the substance is also above.
1 Or, is said to be. 2 Extra substantiam.
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