viz. the Wisdom of God the Tincture of the Light Source the original quality or essential property to Love and Anger Light and Darkness both according to time and Eternity Ternarius or number three in the Language of Nature the Divine Birth in the six Forms of Nature which are the six Seals of God Ternary call'd Ternarium Sanctum holy Flesh or holy Substance or Corporizing of Angels and holy Souls Tincture is in Angels and Glorified Saints the Virgin Love-fire In Man that which Adam's Fall caused almost wholly to disappear In Vegetables Animals and Minerals their Vertue Vitality or Life Spirit and Power Turba is taken for a fierce Wrath-fire which destroyeth a corruptible Body Sometimes for horrid Tempests or Hellish Blasts general Contagions awakened by common Sins call'd Turba Magna Sometimes for the Eternal Wrath-fire which swalloweth up an Evil Spirit without a Body and may be called Turba Maxima I. The seven Spirits of God or powers of Nature as they shew and manifest themselves in Love and Anger both in the Heavenly and Hellish Kingdom and also in the Kingdom of this World not Extracted out of the Mysterium Magnum but Transcribed page 22. Love Anger 1. Astringent Desire Heavenly Hellish Hardness Cold Covetousness Earthly Kingdom World Cold Hardness Bone Salt 2. Attraction or Compunction of Sense Compunction Envy Poyson Life Growth Sences 3. Anguish or Mind Enmity Sulphur Perceivance Pain 4. Fire or Spirit Pride Anger Spirit Reason Desire 5. Light or Love desire Love-fire Meekness Venus-sport Lifes Light 6. Sound or Understanding Divine Joy Speaking Crying Distinguishing 7. Body or Effence Heaven Body Wood Stone Earth Metal Herb. This was received from the Author Jacob Behmen in such a Form by Abraham Van Somerveldt II. The Ten Forms of Fire Extracted out of the Answer of the First of the Forty Questions of the Soul THE Eternal Liberty having and being in it self the Will Signified by Sem. The being Desirous Signified by Arphaxad The sharp drawing causing the Opposite Will Signified by Salah The Flash of Lightning caused by the Liberty and causing the Anguish By Eber. The Eternal Nature or great Mystery whence the two Kingdoms proceed Signified by Peleg The two Principles of Fire and Light Regu The Magia making its own Looking glass as Life is of Fire and Water By Serug The Turba that breaketh the outward Life Strength and Omnipotence Nahor The Virgin Tincture Love-fire Life of Angels and Holy Souls Signified by Terah The Entrance into the Holy Ternary Corporising of Angels and Holy Souls III. The Three Principles are THE Spring or Fountain of Darkness The Vertue or Power of Light The Outbirth generated out of the Darkness by the Power of the Light Represented by Similitudes viz. 1. Man's Soul giving Reason and Thoughts signifieth the Father 2. The Light shewing the Power of the Soul and how to direct it representeth the Son 3. The Mind resulting from this Light and governing the Body resembleth the Holy Ghost 1. The Darkness in us which longeth after the Light is the First Principle 2. The Vertue of the Light whereby we see Intellectually is the Second Principle 3. The longing Power proceeding from the Mind and that attracteth or impregnateth it self whence groweth the Material Body is the Third Principle There is an inclosure knot or stop between each Principle See Chap. 7. of the Book call'd The Three Principles Vers. 21 22 23. A Preface to the Book of Extracts AND The following Considerations by way of Enquiry into part of the Scope of the Writings of Jacob Behmen THE Extracts of the Aurora was intended for the particular use of one only without his purpose of proceeding farther in the other Books or imparting that as can hardly escape any ones observation And tho' more be done than was at first designed yet oo little is done and with too many defects The proceedings in it like as of a Traveller through a spacious Territory hath been to comprehend and report the varieties there according to the degree of ability intentness and capacity of the passenger Or as one admitted into exquisite Gardens deckt with plenty of all curious flowers c. fills his hand with a few of those he best knows or most admires according to what skill he hath Or as one at a Royal Feast feeds only on what his appetite most relisheth Where the Writer hath contracted below the sublimity of the subject the Reader may with some ease supply that defect by recourse to and consulting the blessed Authors Books themselves To make them truly conspicuous were the work of a divinely irradiated Expositor not of an abridgement And thereto to adapt the minds of but the Sons of Wisdom is the Prerogative of the God of Wisdom for it would bring down Paradise as near us as mortals could bear so sweet a neighbourhood Prayer might help us to power to see as it were the voice of the Author J. B. or rather of God in him for that voice leads us thro' the creatures to the creating Word convincingly demonstrating not only that God is but what he is what he is not and what of him may be seen in every creature good bad and mixt angelical rational animal vegetative mineral and the dark earth Also in all Kingdoms paradisical astral elementary and the dark abyss And how he may be found in all things good bad and mixt in love and wrath Also whence man fell what and how low his fall and how to be restored by Jesus Christ. And all this not a new Doctrine but that which is substantial orderly firmly and naturally founded on the immovable principles and uncontroulable maxims of confessed Theology and Philosophy both sacred and natural Considerations by way of Inquiry and Search INTO THE Subject Matter and Scope of the Writings of the Divinely instructed JACOB BEHMEN Section or Chapter I. Of the two Principles Darkness and Light whence are come evil and good fierceness and meekness anger and love 1. TO begin with things nearest our outward senses Palpable bodies as Darkness Cold c. They condense croud throng and substantiate contrariwise Light and Heat rariâ—ie attenuate make thin or subtle and actuate bodies adapted thereunto 2. Both whilst in due proportion equally good and amicable but in what time or place soever either be extreamly prevalent and tyrannous they become instantly inimicitious and destructive 3. The consideration whereof and consequences deducible thence might cause J. A. Comenius to be offended with Campanella for founding all productions on the contest of two contrary Principles Backing his disgust on Grotius's Argument against the Manichees that of two contraries destruction might follow but no augmentation 4. But without strife springs no production and without contraries is no strife 5. The two Principles of Light and Darkness cannot be said to have beginning but are coeternal yet one the Light swalloweth up the other as the day doth the night 6. The flagrat or
sour rank bitter fierceness to all Eternity when enkindled in the Heavenly power it is the Spirit of the jealous zealous unquenchable wrath of God as is in Lucifer and his Legions 7. Heat the true beginner of life and of the true spirit of life It kindleth all the qualities generating the Light in them whence exist the senses and thoughts For when the bitter spirit with the heat passeth thorow the astringent and the Sweet mildly yielding passage the two open gates the eyes are made 8. The Holy Gracious Love kindled by the heat in the Sweet Quality Here is all pleasant ravishing sweetness light and glorious the fountain of eternal free immense brightness of love Here all Tongues stammer Hands shake Pens blot and Hearts flame that Taste See Hear and Feel it even so Amen 9. The Tone or Sound of the Divine Word whence is speech and language also the singing of Angels and opening the Divine Kingdom of Joy Here all Colours Beauty and Ornament is seen This Tone or Mercurius originateth in the hard Astringency as the Father and the whole Salitter is the Mother for if the Astringency were both Father and Mother a Stone would sound 10. The Body generated out of the six other Spirits and in which they dwell as their Sabboth wherein all heavenly figures joy c subsist image and form the spirit of Nature wherein Heaven it self and Angels are formed the mansion or body in which the six do rest as the kingdom of divine Glory 11. Now we may see that all the Spirits together are God the Father 12. The life generated by them all and generating the life in them all in triumph is the true Son of God the second Person in the Holy Trinity 13. And the power of the seven Spirits proceeding continually in the splendor of the life forming all things in the seventh Nature-Spirit is the true Holy Ghost the third Person in the Deity CHAP. III. Demonstrations of One or the first Spirit HAving described the seven fountain Spirits now to prosecute the Method propounded in the last precedent Section here follow the Demonstrations of the seven in order Demonstrations of the first fountain Spirit The Astringency Viz. 1. It is not to be said This or That is First or Last being All from Eternity and One in Another but that the Astringency which is call'd the first is truly what it is above defined and described to be is what will be demonstrated 2. The outward Senses of us all inform themselves that there are cold crude tough impenetrable Bodies or a power tending to impenetrability and our Reason consenteth that there must be a Root and This Root cannot but be called the Binding or Astringency 1. As That which causeth Cold to condense Air to Water and Water to Ice 2. That pursues condensed seces of Matter with the help of the bitter quality to Earth or Sand and That agen onward to Stone 3. That also compacteth fluid parts to stalks stems of corn c. the Boles skin and bark of Trees 4. That also incloseth the tender Brains and Marrow in Skulls and concave Bones 5. That contracteth and obdurates the subtle parts of Metals to a continuity and restrains or confines their allected vertues even to Unity Identity by continuity By These and a thousand more doth the Astringent Spirit demonstrate it self to be One Fountain whose outward Agent is confest by Antient and Modern Philosophy to be Saturn CHAP. IV. Demonstrations of the second fountain Spirit the Attraction 1. WE find somthing Breaking the Bonds else would the Astringency hold all as in a dark dry hard Prison all would be stone bone or the like dead concrets no Production no Creation And the stronger this Attractive Power is the stronger the other bindeth also the more Tough and Ponderous the Astringency the more actively vigorous is This As the more you compress Air or Water the greater violence hath the so suppressed body to resist as Wind causing Earthquakes or Gunpowder Pent. 2. We find a contrariety of Sweetness and Bitterness which we cannot but see comes from the cold Astringency That Property being one and to every one the same But This it is That in the Good Part being its Native Original is a Sweetness but in the crude undigested part a Bitterness 3. We find inclinations put into things different from themselves for by This Man's eager harshness is by due ingredients interposing taught and composed to affable Mildness the New Temper becomes in time Connatural and a Habit like as a bitter Apple is matured to a sweet Temperature 4. We find This gives continual opposition and interruption to the piercing Astringency by its own bitter harshness and such fire as is in a Stone and by the penetrating violence is excited and so is a cause of life The outward instrument is Mercury in conjunction with Jupiter CHAP. V. Demonstrations of the third fountain Spirit the Anguish 1. THis is like and no more but like a dying Astringent Torment like that of dying Creatures which our Senses often tast some forerunings of So as the second is a cause of Life This is a cause of Sense feeling perceiving and consequently of the Mind and Senses in all subjects which the Separator hath fitted and exalted thereunto as Angels and Men and in some degree in inferior sensitive Creatures 2. We find there is something that lifteth up the mind to Great Joy even to the excess of gladness This cannot be the first for That depresseth nor the second for That only enliveneth it is therefore This for This is an Elevator to the highest joy and triumph helping on to excess of Laughter 3. We may find it not only in its mean as above but in its extream for in every body wherein it is too much enkindled it is a Raging Poison resulting as well from its own Nature as from the Extremities of the two first Fountains introducing desperation and hellish rage in the Creatures like to the Gall in the body very good in causing and exalting life also a very evil incendiary in disordering the whole frame of Nature The outward instrument of This fountain Spirit is Mars conjunct with Mercury CHAP. VI. Demonstrations of the Spirit producing Heat THe whole Creation is acted by this Spirit as the great Engine of Omnipotence 1. Hence is it that the Celestial fire emitteth its beams to the joy of the Universe so that every leaf and pile of grass hath a tongue to tell it us 2. The Subterranean fire which like the heart in the body of Animals doth officiate in the Work-house of This Ball is applied by the Separator the Father of Nature to generate Metals medicinal Earths efflux of Fountains hot and sanative Baths c. 3. Lastly It is demonstrated by every Man and other living Creature from Youth to giving up the Ghost as also by Vegetables Minerals c. from their dwelling in the
or suffering what he willeth him to obey and suffer 8. Now we are to know that from Eternity is the first second and third Principles according to the Fathers Sons and Holy Ghosts Properties the One living in the Other having all One holy free Omnipotent Will And that the Infinite Abyss wherein Eternally dwell the seven Spirits and in every the least imaginable Circle whereof dwells the whole Holy Trinity Abyss or immeasurable heighth depth length and breadth which Men and Angels can reach no number of nor conceive its immensity is as the Holy Body of God who is its Soveraign Creator Owner and as a Soul and Spirit to it 9. But this pure Abyss is Holy and as one Holy Element the Seventh the Laboratory of the other Six hath in it all Powers and Vertues out of which Heaven Angels and all Inferior Productions come for in it is the Divine Salitter and all Qualities in indissoluble Amity and perfect Harmony due Equality most dearly embracing each other being the Mystery of all the various Powers 10. And from the two first Principles therein by the Exit of the Holy Ghost were Throne Angels created according to the several Properties of the seven Fountains Spirits with their Hosts respectively having the great Might of the first Principle Glorified with the Majestick light of the second the Son of God 11. But Lucifer and his Angels extinguish'd in themselves the glorious Sweetness of the second by giving up their Will into the first four Forms which without the second are at Eternal Enmity 12. Also out of the Holy Element were created the two active Elements of Fire after the Property of the Father and Air wherein is Light after the Property of the Son Out of which two after dividing of the Properties in the Dark Deep the effect of the Fall of the Angels came the Mortal Water and Dead Earth in both which by the prevalence of the Astringency came Rocks and Stones 13. To cease that immoderate Coagulation the Word commanded Light expelling Lucifer at which the Holy Angels rejoyced Where wast thou when the Morning Stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy for then was the Out-birth or third Principle founded by the Exit of the Holy Ghost 14. Then also out of the Holy Element and the divided Properties which Lucifer had brought into a confused Chaos or Dark Deep the Word spake the Astral Heavens the Seven Planets after the Properties of the Seven Fountains and all the other Stars and the Terrestial Ball after the infinite variety of the Properties 15. Also out of the Holy Element and the Astral Birth came the four Elements and out of the Elements the Transitory Creatures Some bare the Figure of the first four Forms separated from the Light as venomous Creatures Toads Torpedo's c. from the Anguish Scorpions Spiders Basilisks c. from the Fire for every Property would be Creaturely Some also figur'd the second Principle in Innocency Meekness and Love as Lambs Doves c. 16. Then in the Throne of secluded Lucifer and his Angels the Word spake Man such an Image of God as might not only be the second Race of Intellectualâ— but a compleat Image of all the three Principles That is his Soul out of the first Principle or Dark-Power-World his Spirit out of the second the Holy-Light World his Body out of the one Holy Element the Root of the four Elements so that he might by his Divine Holy Principle of Love and Meekness illustrate and sweetly use his first as the fallen Angels should have done He was also furnished with the third Principle which the Angels were not and in that respect a more compleat Image of God than they over which third Principle he might also beaâ— Rule by the Power of the Divine second Principle 17. And by his third in subordination to the second might Rule over the Astral Birth and Elementary not only as He was the Natural Lord in that Principle but ennobled also with the Light or Angelical Principle and therefore able and adapted to Rule over the Creation knowing what they were whence they sprung and whither they tended for all Properties were open in him therefore Adam could name them knowing their Parentage and Use. Thus the manifold Wisdom of God appeareth in every thing and summarily to be observed in these following 18. First from the first Principle glorified with the second according to the seven Fountains were created the Throne Angels Arch-Angels and their Hosts 19. The Creatures that derive immediately from the One Holy Element as the Paradisical Body of Adam that was more pure than seven times refined Gold and to have remained eternally 20. The Astral Birth of the Visible Heavens and their Invisible Powers Of Alliance Dependance and Affinity with which is Man's Astral Spirit called his Prophetick Evester which ordinarily predicts by Dreams a kind of Intuitive Impulses of approaching Good or Evil small also important natural Events c. 21. Out of the Astral seem to be born Those Mortal yet to the outward Eye mostly invisible Creatures in all the four Elements called Aerial Spirits prodigious Predicters of Wars by Armies in the Clouds Others also of the Fire Some Aquastrish and Those of our Horoscope Terrestrial and Subterranean that are about Minerals of which This Discourse is not sollicitous 22. Out of the Holy Element proceeded the two Elements and consequently the four more Pure and Paradifical than after the Curse 23. Hence by the steddy Conduct of the Separator or Father of Nature substituted by the Great Creators word and by the Spirit of the Tincture have sprung the Animal Vegetative and Mineral Kingdoms to the composition of every of which Naturalists find the Principles of Sal Sulphur and Mercury more or less pure according to the Body which it composeth and the Tincture wherewith it is more or less sublimed and ennobled 24. But Lucifer by his renting from the total Unity thereby making the Properties separate prophane and unclean there proceeded out of the first four Forms hellish immortal fierce horrible poisonous Creatures to whom Death and Darkness the fierceness of the Properties is no woe or torment for it is their Life But Hell is therefore an intolerable Hell to Angels and Men because they were created to â—nother State in another Principle for another End 25. From all the three Principles with the Potence of the first Love fire of the second and moving Life of the third was Man created And as such with the Light of God which is not quite extinguished in him for when once awakened by Divine stirring and his hungry desire let none think it impossible he should see into the several Principles that are truly in him for the Child knoweth his Parents better and better as himself groweth to be a Man A breath of Air is like the whole Element a drop like the whole Ocean a
third Principle Will it be said the Tempter should have been character'd and here is only the Temptation 5. It 's answered we may know the Evil Tree by the corrupt fruit Again the Tempter is dangerous to us for the sake of the Temptation What could the Fisher do without his Net or Bait Again tho' Eve were but little and Adam less propense to the sugar'd potion yet we have abundant thirst like one in an inflaming Fever desires drink 6. 'T was therefore necessary our Second Adam should be able to say the Tempter cometh but findeth nothing in me To prevent Ruine we must imprison our domestick Foes to avoid their betraying us to the common Enemy 7. Every man is tempted when he is drawn aside of his own lust and enticed which saith not only that our own lusts are our Temptations but that it is what every man is obnoxious to 8. It is of sad consideration that many who abandon the Wit Craft and Subtilty of the Fox in great measure may yet betray themselves to the curious Art Contemplative Ingenuity and Innate Wisdom of the Serpent falling also far below the Divine especially in This. 9. That the Wisdom from above is not only good-natur'd as peaceable gentle easie to be entreated full of mercy and good fruits but is also high-born viz. pure humble self-emptying denying annihilating mortifying judging condemning leaving loathing witnessing for God against it self and all others Adding to Faith Patience to Experience Hope with which Faith Patience and Hope enduring all things waiting in extremity with quiet resolution 10. True it is that much penetrating speculation and knowledge natural and acquired for advance of reputation with improvement of Property and Self-pleasing is the Serpents Dust and Meat but the former are bits he cannot rellish they are his bane poison and death Q. 68. Why did the Serpent perswade Eve and not Adam to lust after the fruit What was the fruit on which they both did eat death A. 1. Whether an envenomed Shaft pierce the heart through the breast or through the side it is equally mortal Such was the Serpents Temptation and Eve might more easily be seduced because the breach was begun in her very Structure and Constitution by the separation of the Female Tincture Again the Woman was as a scattered party who are more suddenly made a prey of than the Body of any Army 2. The Temptation might take hold of her most readily being her self a kind of Temptation having drawn Adam from his pure chast precious dear Virgin-state therefore the Tempter awaited her and prevailed by a kind of assimilation 3. Naturalists observe Assimilation effects much in motion as in the hastening of Bodies to their several Centres not only in rarity and density and the version of the Needle but in velocity and penetration that the Arrow headed with Wood and the Woodden Wedge shall pierce and cleave Wood by more ready insinuation than Iron 4. And This squares most with the Apostles humbling charge on that Sex that the Woman was first in the Transgression c. not barely with respect to the Serpent or Temptation it self but her declension inclination and propinquity to curiosity which still is found amongst them preparing her to swallow the Bait. 5. But I spare them for the above hints pondered may suffice rather adding that men should be the more compassionate and assistant knowing they are Man's weaker part and of his own Essences 6. To say farther what was the fruit on which they did both eat Death little is enough but refer to the 7th 8th and 9th verses of the 57th Answer concerning the Tree of Good and Evil which shews it to be of the third Principle no better nor worse than That we eat of yet mortal Poison to their Paradisical Life 7. And a little to digress let it be considered that the Lord's blessing the Meat when he did eat with his Disciples teacheth us to know and remember the peril lest the Evil Properties in the Creation should so steal themselves into our Meat or Drink as to associate with heighten and strengthen the Evil Properties in us 8. Therefore we find some character'd who make provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof and of the Rich Man that fared deliciously every day and of others feeding themselves without fear A sin prevailing by Assimilation with our voracious licencious wanton Appetites willingly indulging our selves to forget that the Provisions for our Lord and his Disciples were a few Loaves and a few little Fishes and those he multiplied or augmented by Miracle yet the Loaves were but of Barley in a Country abounding with Wheat Milk Honey c. Q. 69. What was the sin and how it is become a sin that the same is an Enmity of God A. 1. What the Tree of Good and Evil was and why forbidden the 7th 8th and 9th verses of the 57th Answer explaineth How excellent Adam's first State was is somewhat distinctly in the whole 52 Answer How he fell and how low is touched in the 51 Answer a review of all which will be eminently assistant to the searcher and a large contribution to the Answer of this Yet farther 't is answered 2. That as Lucifer and his Angels by imaging in their Bodies the Forms of the first Principle left the glorious holy 2d Principle whereby their Tincture became not only impure â—separate and unclean but falshood and filthiness in the abstract 3. So Adam being Ruler by Creation right in the third Principle imaged in the Spirit of his Will Mind and Soul a hunger of the same third Principle grasping the shadow as painted Food instead of the substantial Quintessence and Bread of Eternal Life departed out of the Unity wherein he possessed all and every good perfectly at once for ever into a few little parcels of fading good blended and interlaced with Volumes of multiform exquisite real steddy permanent Evils 4. What the Will is the Man is Thus the Will of Lots Wife 's captivating her by the Accommodations of their late opulent Seat she is by the Astringent Property fixed a Pillar of Salt Also Nebuchadnezzar placing his chief Glory in such stuff as must be rubbish becomes a Beast or Fowl for the Magical Will hath as even in Witches appears the over-match to the Forms of Elementary and Astral Concretes because the Magia is the Power of the Will or Hand of the Mind having its Root in the Potence of the first Principle or Eternal Band. 5. Thus our first Parents by impressing in their Originally Noble Breasts the Good and Evil Properties could not retain the Divine Image As the Eye looketh not at once upward and downward therefore the pure Love Delight Joy and Heavenly Man disappeared and the Dead Form resigned The Apostle saith Death reigned As Iron when the Lustre of the Fire is gone or a Lamp extinguished so no more could he be Divine and Sensual Earthy and Heavenly 6. This departure was his
tâ—e Humane Soul as it was deriv'd from Mary was finite yet as he was conceived by the seminal substance of the Holy Ghost it was Infinite being wholly so united to the Infinity 7. Behold and sink down and drown thy self Oh my Soul in the sweet Ocean of this free Master piece of Matchless love see the heighth depth length and breadth Know what passeth knowledge Conception Comprehension Make thy Heart the Footstool of it thy Soul a Sacrifice to it thy Spirit the amazed Witness of it thy Mind and Thoughts the Waiters on it thy Tongue and Pen the Trumpet of it Let Heaven and Earth adore it let Time and Eternity record it let Hell and the Children of Pride tremble at it but let the humble Man and broken Bones Inherit Inhabit and Rejoice in it for ever Q. 128. Why did some convert and turn again when they saw what was done at the dying of Christ And the High-Priests not Why must they be blind and hardened as to this Work A. 1. By the High-Priests are meant him that was such and those Rulers of most Eminence assisting and concurring with him This Question is double viz. Why some did convert And why such as the High Priests c. did not That some did as the Centurion c. Matth. 27. â—4 seeing that which was done feared greatly saying Truely this was the Son of God Luke 2â— 47. 4â— And Luke records That the Centurion and all the people seeing c. Glorified God and all the people smote their Breasts and departed 2. For their dark Centre was terrified the stirred by remorse and compassion with and unto so patient and innocent a Lamb and that stirring moving on by conviction to great grief sorrow and mourning begat love and the love enkindled the holy Light of the second Divine principle of which number it 's said Longinus was who with his Spear pierced the Lords blessed side 3. But in the High-Priests c. The dark Zeal had like Fire drunk up the meek Water of Tenderness and Compassion so that the Light could not enkindle but they remain'd a dark Fire For it is manifest they by their impetuous Lusting proud grasping for Grandeur and Rule and their griping after heaping up abundance of the outward principle had by Covetousness like greedy Dogs or Swine formed their very Souls according to the four Auguishes of the first dark Hellish Impression 4. As Antichrist also whose Forerunners and Antitype these were hath done and still doth Therefore to distinguish a resolv'd hardened Persecutor from the Creaturely Devils is thus to be done that the persecuting Man hath on him the Bestial part of the Out-birth for mitigation which is a Door through which it is possible Grace may enter unless the impardonable sin hath judicially wholly shut him up 5. But the mitigating third principle excepted viz. the worst part of it the Antichristian Spirited-Man having shut out the second principle the Evil Angels and he are in one and the self-same principle 6. It is also certain that the Antichrist sometimes call'd the Whore sometimes Babylon sometimes the Mystery of Iniquity and Man of Sin is as such incureable and irrecoverable for it is an Enmity against Love and Meekness The Art of Physick gives that Disease for Incureable which is grounded on the Constitution the Disease of Antichrist is such and therefore Incureable for he is compos'd of the Enmity of the four forms of the first principle and is Enmity in the Abstract against the Divine Kingdom of Humility Meekness Love Peace and Divine Light and Joy Q. 129. What was Christs going to Hell where he overcame Death and the Devil A. 1. Great is Mans Misery on Earth by reason of wilful blindness When we hear of Christs going to Hell or overcoming Death and the Devil there we blindly grope with our Conceits imagining in our Reason a local motion to a place far off But that it may be plainly told what Christs going to Hell was it must first be orderly said 1. What Hell is and where Which is referr'd to the 17th Answer the 19 20 21 22 23 verses 2. What the Conquering Captain Christ is that Vanquished all the Devils every where It is answered It was Christ as he had made himself a Creature for his Body as a Creature is the whole holy pure Element which comprizeth this whole World The holy Body hath Heavenly Flesh and Blood and Water of Eternal Life which feedeth the Faithful Soul at the Lords Table 2. Anâ— tho' it comprizeth this World Heaven Paradise and the Angelical World yet is a Creature but such a Creature as can be every where in the Deity for unto this Creature of Heavenly substantiality hath the Almighty Son of God espoused himself as a Body to remain in Eternity as in the time the Sun doth unto the Moon as in his own Body In every part of which Body the Trinity is always manifest Objection 3. But this crosseth the received Divinity which assigns ubiquity to be the peculiar distinction of the Creator from the Creature Also an imposing upon the Senses that one Creature is at London and at Quinsay at the same moment of time a thing denied to be in the Sphere of an Angel whose Wings are only illustrations of his almost instantaneous local motion implying he cannot be in two places at once Answer 4. The least divisible Body requires place and space and magnitude is the uniting of two or more divisibles 1. My Foot is not where my Head is but I am where either of them is 2. If my Head only is in the Air my Body only in the Water my Feet only in the Earth under Water yet I am in every of these at once 3. My Hand is at the Heâ—m my Eye on the Star my Heart with my God then am I at once in two Worlds 4. Again my Elementary and Sensual Man is in pain my Siderial Man in care the unmortified properties of my Eternal first Principle or old Man or Root of the Soul in much stubbornness anxiety and frowardness my regenerate new Man or humble meekened Spirit is rejoicing under the Cross in hope of Eternal Blessedness Yet am I but one little poor Creature tho' I am at once in one Visible and three Invisible Worlds 5. Now tho' what the new Man sees or feels hath or hopes for meets with resistance in the unmortified part of the first principle or earthy Vessel yet is it not so in Divine Bodies of Angels or perfected Spirits Who all by prevalence of their consonance and uninterrupted holy will have their Heterogeneous parts swallow'd up by their lustrous Harmony 6. All these things penetrated and pondered shall our straitned Souls confine the Immense Heavenly Humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ For his becoming Man or Incarnation wherein he assumed our darkened Souls uniting them with the Divine Virgin of Wisdom as one Creature in himself did not straâ—ten lessen
troublesom sleep he prodigally lavisheth 3. Come dwell here or hereabouts my Soul 't is not vain to behold and consider what Vanities Incircle thee What fierce or desperate Men madly venture on which they can try but once and what Men overwhelm'd with the painted present pleasures do with a Transport of Consternation undergo that do thou neither Court nor Fly Man here is like Jerusalem when Besieged by Titus the Devil and his Engines the Snares of the World like the Roman Legions begirt him waiting at all his Avenues And his Domestick disorders like the three Sects within are at Mortal Enmity God hath sent thee my Soul a voice warning hence and directing whither hear and obey and the outward death shall land thee at Jerusalem which is from above learn thy general and thine own particular Business find thy Constitution Sin do thy Days Work studiously calmly and cheerfully dwell at home that is within and the vigorous eager Maxims of the Worldly-wise and their Storms as well as the flattering shews abroad and other Mens Opinion of thee will be to thee as Tragedies and Comedies in the Antipodes On the 41st Question and Answer The Idea or Express Reflex Image of God in Man wherein God worketh and dwelleth 1. This Image was figur'd by the Tabernacle Temple Jerusalem and Mount Sion their Holiness Exquisiteness and Impregnableness a glance of it shone in Moses Face This when Adam fell into the outward Worlds Principle withdrew and had not the same been reimplanted he had remained part Devil and part Beast and but that it continueth striving in Man he should still be so and where final resistance is that Man is a Devil and a Beast Everlastingly for Men without Humane Intellect are Brutes and without the Divine Image Devilish for this Seal differenceth the Sheep from the Goats Mans rejecting this is Gods rejecting of Man for tho' the want of it makes the Devils miserable yet Mans despising the tenders of it is an Aggravation to the opposition the Devils make against it This is the Light that cannot be hid why should it What were Men without Eyes or this deep without the Sun What Business hath Mortal Man here but to get it Blessed is he that hath part of this first Resurrection and that so shineth as to lead any other into the knowing and love of it and living in it 2. Contrariwise wretched are those who sit down with the Image Shadow or Similitude of it this is every where in reputation Antichrist adorns it self therewith the Politick Statesman pretends to it to ratifie his Magistracy over the Persons of his Subjects as Antichrist over Mens Consciences while the real pure Image of God in Man is every where decry'd and persecuted Thus did the Jews kill the Prophets and Men of the same Spirit garnish their Sepulchres Men deal in matters of this vast import as if that glorious Spiritual Image were like the Wooden Gods of the Blind Heathen or as if it were as some Flowers Beautiful to the Eye but without Smell or Taste Thus while the holy Souls of Christs Followers went for the perishing Loaves the Souldiers had his Garment and the Relick-Mongers pretend to some of the Wood of the supposed Cross. Therefore is the outer Court given to be trodden down of the Gentiles EXTRACTS Of several of the WORKS OF Jacob Behmen Beginning with his first Book CALLED AURORA OR Morning Redness CHAP. I. Page 33. v. 1. Of searching out the Divine Being in Nature of both the Qualities of Good and Bad. 1. THough Flesh and Blood cannot conceive the Being of God the Spirit when enlightened from God may By considering the Powers in Nature the Outward Heavens and Earth Holy Angels Men Devils Heaven and Hell By considering all which are found the two Qualities Good and Bad one in the other in all the Outward World 2. A Quality is the Mobility boiling springing or driving of a thing 3. The seven Qualities are call'd sometimes seven Sources Species Kinds Manners Cirâ—â—â—stanâ—â—s â—â—nditioâ—â— Poweâ—â— Oâ—erationâ— of Faculâ—â—es also the 〈◊〉 Spirits which give Model or Frame the Power Vertue Constitution Substance Esâ—â—nce Being â—â—â—ure Shape Coâ—ouâ— Taste and Distinction to all things which ever were are shall or can be in from or to Eternity in all Creatures Heaven Hell or this World Also the Forms or Properties of Nature which is the Salitter or Power of God and 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 Spirits of God in the Revelations four times 4. Heat consumeth expelleth or hardeneth Light in it is its heart and joy making all things living and moving â—â—erceneâ— maketh the Light moveable the Light subsisteth in God without Hâ—â—t out not â—o in Nature 5. Cold is the allâ—â— of the fierceness of Heat making all things pleasant but hath a fierceness which is the House of Death from Heat proceedeth Air which temper'd with Cold doth in the bitter quality become dewy from Cold comes Water which temper'd with Heat would else as Earth c. be congeal'd Heat consumeth the Water Cold crowdeth the Air in the Meekness of the Air reigneth the Holy Ghost but Air in its fierce Elevation destroyeth in the fierceness of the Water is a deadly Spring in which all living things rot 6. The Bitter quality is the Mother of Life for it a tracteth the Water and dissipateth it and becomes separable from this quality have Leaves and Grass their green Colour where it dwelleth meekly it is the Heart and Joy a gsimpse of Heavenly Joy the Holy Ghost moveth in it but in its fierce Elevation it is the very House of Dâ—ath for it kindlein the Blâ—ment of Fire 7. The Sweet quality is a Joy of the Life the Mâ—â—sion of the Holy Ghost 't is Love and Mercy Fragrant good Taste giveth Fair Yellow White and Ruddy Colour but in the fierce source its Death and Corruption if kindled in the Water Bitterness it breeds the botchy Plague or Pestilence if in the Heat Bitterness it ingendereth a spreading Plague infecting the Air. 8. The Sour quality cooleth is a still joy to the Spirit But in its evil source it beginneth sadness 9. The Astringent or Saltish quality is a good Temper to bitter sweet and sour But in its fierceness in the Fire begets the Stone or Gravel if in the Water Scabs Pox Leprosie CHAP. II. The Visible Heavens and Earth and all Creatures have a good and evil Source or Will except the Holy Angels and Devils 1. THE Sun is the Heart King and Joy of the Stars and all Creatures The whole Creation is the Body of God being enlightened by the Holy Ghost which they only are who relye not on themselves but set their desires on him Man comes to know God by the Creation for as Mans Spirit informs and replenisheth his Body so doth the Holy Ghost dwell in the good qualities of every thing 2. We are to conceive that in the Body of the Stars is the Triumphing Holy Trinity
which is the Light Holy Eternal Fountain of Joy but is infinite Nor must we conceive God not in the Body of the Stars and this World but is all and in all So Man his similitude whose inward hollowness signifieth the whole deep The whole Man Heaven and Earth The Flesh Earth the Blood Water the Breath Air the Windpipe and Arteries the deep from Stars to us wherein Fire Water and Air qualifie the Veins the Astral Influence the Guts the consuming power of the Stars the Heart the Element of Fire The Liver Water the Hands Gods Omnipotence the â—â—eet near and far off the whole Body to the Neck all within the Sphere of the Stars the Head Heaven with its Imperial Orâ—â—â—s and all the Sâ—â—â—â—s in a soft â—â—â—k power as the Brain is Heaven gives to the Stars they to all Creatures Life and Spirit 3. When we nominate the whole Creation Heaven Angels Men Visibles and all above Heaven is nominated the total God which hath made himself creaâ—â—â—ely tho' God in Prinity is unchangeable Obj. Will you say is not good and evil in nature and is evil come from God 4. â— There is a Gall in Mans Body without which he cannot live it making the Astral Spirits moveable and joyous but when it over-floweth and runneth to the Heart it kindleth the Element of Fire and the Fire kindleth the Astral Spirits which reign in the Blood in the Veins in the Element of Water and then the whole Body trembleth by the Wrath and Poyson of the Gall. The bitter quality is in God but not as in Man but is an Everlasting Power and Triumphing Joy wâ—â—â—h springing up maketh Heaven out of Heaven the Stars out of the Stars the Elements out of the Elements the Earth and Creatures moveable Whence also were Created Angels before the Creation of the Heavens CHAP. III. Of the Property of the FATHER c. 1. WHen Christ prayeth Matth. 6. to his Father which is in Heaven he doth not mean that Heaven can contain him but distinguisheth him thereby from the Father of Nature which the Stars and Elements is and because in â—eaâ—en the Fathers Luâ—â—â—e is very bright and pure God is the immediate Father of the Soul which thereforei hungereth after him The Father of Nature is the Father of our Bodies and â—henâ—e comes their nourishment All Powers and Properties in Heaven and Earth proceed from God the Father who if he may be likened to any thing it may be to the Globe of Heaven as by the Wheels in Eâ—eâ—ieâ— 1. for all the Powers are in the Father â—â—e in another as one Power in 〈◊〉 Clarity and Glory â—â—s 〈◊〉 and Iâ—finity no Creature nor Angel can search into â— Of God the Son he is not another and yet his Property is other than that of the â—â—â—her for he is the Heart and Cause of springing joy in all the Powers of the â—athâ—â— a fâ—â—ilitude whereof is the Sun which enlighteneth the whole deep Heaven Stars and Earth moving in the midâ—â—is the King and Heart of all the Stars 〈◊〉 the Son in the whole Father being a self subâ—â—â—ting Person The Father from 〈◊〉 to 〈◊〉 â—â—asâ—â—h not to generate the Son and the Son ceaseth â—ot to enlighten the Powers of the Father but the Son is not so mixt in the Father that his Person cannot be known nor seen if so it were but one Person but is another Person not another God 3. Of God the Holy Ghost He proceedeth from both is the holy Fountain of Joy a meek pleasunt Breath or still Voice which must be shewn by a fimilitude As the innumerable Stars and Sun created out of the Stars resemble the Father and the Son so the three Elements Fire Air and Water proceed from one Body viz. The Fire swells from the Sun and Stars the Air expands and 〈◊〉 alost from the Heat and the Water from the Air and in this motion is the Life of all Creatures that can be named and signifieth the Holy Ghost who câ—useth the living motion in all the Powers of the Father The Son and Holy 〈◊〉 nothing less or greater than the Father The Trinity 4. This Ternary is manifest in Man's Body and all Creatures also in Wood and Vegetables and in Stone and Minerals In Man's Heart Veins and Brain is a Spirit and all the Powers which move in the Heart Veins and Brain signifie the Father thence springeth up a Light of Understanding in the Power of which Knowledge the whole Body moveth signifying the Son which shineth back into the Heart Veins and Brain as the Son into the Father and from both Powers proceedeth forth Reason Skill and Wisdom to govern the whole Man and distinguish all that is extra corpus which is thy Spirit wherein thou excellest the Beast and wherein the Holy Spirit rules if thou be not a Child of Darkness v. 97. The Father is signified by the Power of thy whole Mind the Son by the Light in thy Mind the Holy Ghost by the Spirit of thy Mind The Soul containeth the first Principle the Spirit of the Soul the second the Astral or outward Spirit the third So in a Beast only Man is made by God himself out of the best Pith or Kernel of Nature to be his Angel and Similitude The Beast is made out of the wild Nature of this World through the Motion of the Stars and Elements In all Creatures are 1. The Power out of which the Body comes 2. The Sap or Heart 3. The flowing springing Spirit CHAP. IV. Of the Creation of Angels And first Of the Divine Quality 1. ALL the Powers are so in God as no Man can reach but by the Creation it may be clearly known Though all Powers are in the Father as the Astringent or harsh soft or gentle heat cold bitter sour sweet light sound or noise one in another as one Power yet not in the manner as in Nature for Lucifer's Elevation made the Powers impure separate and unclean but in God all are mild soft triumphing if he may be likened to any thing it must be to the Soul of Man enflamed by the Holy Ghost as a glimpse but in God all is Spirit The Light and Glory of the Son goeth into all the Powers of the Father and the Holy Ghost is a glimpse but in God all is Spirit 2. The Light and Glory of the Son goeth into all the Powers of the Father and the Holy Ghost moveth Eternally in all which in the Deep of the Father is like a Divine Salitter or Salnitrum to be likened to the Earth which before its Corruption was such not hard cold dark c. but like the clear pure Heaven in it all the Powers were fair and heavenly till Lucifer spoil'd it But the Fathers heavenly Salitter doth generate all manner of Divine Trees and Plants bearing Fruits of Life with heavenly colours smells tastes different every quality bearing his own Fruit as
Nature doth endeavour to produce in this dark Dungeon or Den of this World hard dark dead Trees and Fruits and precious Stones Gold Silver which are all but dark shadows of the Divine Being mixed with hellish qualities and smells but the Trees meant here are Heavenly and Spiritual and yet truly and properly such In which Holy Kingdom are two things mainly to be consider'd 3. The Salitter which are moving springing Powers 2. Mercurius or the sound which is the voice and sound of all Creatures and that in the Earth which causeth the growing of Gold and all other Metals shadows out All the exquisite Musick of this World compar'd with the Harmony of that Sound is as the howling of Dogs 4. For though Nature hath always from her beginning used highest diligence to produce heavenly Forms in Power in all Creatures and Productions also in all Delicacies and Arts for it would fâ—in be delivered from this Vanity that it might procreate Holy Forms in Power but Death hath entered and doth and must hinder it for Man's infectious Lust to Eat of both the Qualities of Evil and Good spoil'd the Salitter and stopt his Ears against the Sacred sound whereas the Divine Salitter and Mercurius is the Food of Angels 5. Of the Creation of Angels Philosophers who supposed Angels were created only out of the Light have erred for they were made out of all the Powers of God The total Holy Trinity made by its moving a Body like a little God out of the Salitter and Mercurius that is out of the Exit and Excrescence and being made are a distinct Substance As while a Mother hath a Seed in her self it is hers but when it is become a Child it is its proper own though cannot live but by the Mothers Food but the quality External without the Child's Body is not the Child's Propriety the Mother nor the Mothers Food but what the Mother out of love gives thus are the Angels And the Mother may well thrust from her the rebellious Child and with-hold her Food from it Thus was it with Lucifer God withdrew his Divine Food when he elevated himself then must a Spirit faint and can no more subsist as before than a Man without Air nor can the Angels without their Mother CHAP. V. Of the Corporeal Substance Being and Property of an Angel 1. TO answer what their Figure Body or Shape is They and Man bear the like Image how else must we be like them in the Resurrection And Moses and Elias were in their own Form on Mount Tabor and Elias was taken up alive And Jesus shall come again as they saw him go As in God we observe 1. The Salitter or Divine Powers out of which the Body or Corporeity is 2. The Mercurius Tone or Sound so is it in an Angel who have as Men the five Doors of that we call Senses CHAP. VI. How an Angel and a Man is the Similitude of God 1. AS is the Being and Divine Body of God so is the Being and Body of an Angel and a Man with this only difference that the Angel and Man is but a Creature not the whole Being whom if he resist the Father may justly cast him out 2. The whole Father speaketh out of all the Powers of the Godhead the Word that is the Son of God this Word is the Father's Glance and Majesty proceeding out of his Salitter and Mercurius which being spoken turneth back and ever is in all the Powers of the Father as a glorious Eternal splendor Now that Word hath so swift a sharpness that instantly it goeth through the whole deep of the Father and the sharpness is the Holy Ghost 3. Now in an Angel and a Man the Head is the Council-seat signifying the Father whither all the Powers rise for higher they cannot and the five Senses as Counsellors agree and what they decree is concreted into a Judge as a word in its Centre the Heart as a self-subsisting Person signifying the Son of God And that goeth from the Heart to the Mouth and Tongue with its Mercurial sharpness to distinction and that signifieth the Holy Ghost 4. The Mouth sheweth an Angel and a Man not to be Almighty for through that both must drâ—w in the Powers of the Father or cannot live an Angel as well as a Man only theirs is the Spirit whence the Air of this World existeth which he must do or cannot be a moveable Creature he Eats as men do the Heavenly Fruit and hath a Body in the same Form as Man with all the Members except those of Generation Guâ—s and Fundament but all spiritual and heavenly Man had need of those only by his Fall 5. Out of the Divine Salitter and Mercurius are produced Trees Plants Fruits Flowers and all sorts not a shadow of such but really substantial yet as the Angels are such is the Vegetation but not in the two Qualities of Evil and Good but only in one the Good Those Fruits the Angels pluck with their hands and eat but need no Teeth for they are Divine Powers and whatsoever they have Externally or without them is not their corporeal Propriety but God's Gift to them CHAP. VII 1. GOD at the first made three Kingdoms of Angels their Kings were Michael Lucifer and Uriel The whole Deep betwixt the Stars is one the other two are without and above it according to the Trinity in the midst of all which is the Son of God yet no part of either further or nearer to him 〈◊〉 are the three Kingdoms circular about him In all which the Father is Power and Kingdom The Son Light and Splendor The Holy Ghost Moâ—ing or Exitâ— Seen in the whole Creation in a Gold-stone the Salitter and Mercurius signifieth the Father the Gold the Son the Virtue the Holy Ghost CHAP. VIII 1. THE Angelical Kingdoms are formed according to the Divine Being only their Bodies are Creatures and their Kingdom Court or Locality is not theirs for a natural right as their Bodies are but belongeth to God the Father out of whose Powers it was made 2. And as the Father generateth the Son and as the Holy Ghost goeth forth from both So do the Angels in their Power generate the Light and Knowledge in them and by them the Spirit goeth forth from their Heart Light and all their Powers 3. The Corporeal Body of 〈…〉 Angel is as it were one Kingdom or as the Holy Trinity All Power is in God the Father he is in his Deep the Fountain of Light and Darkness Air Water Heat Cold Hard Soft Thick Thin Astringent Bitter Sweet Sour Sound or Tone all which are in Angels and Man but Man hath corrupted i◠〈◊〉 us the Light of the Sun is intolerable so is our unqualified Heat Cold 〈…〉 4. And when the Creature willeth to elevate it self in the Light above the Humility of Love 〈◊〉 kindleth a Fire which extinguisheth the Light and falls into Darkness which as
the snuff of a Candle is â—id in the Centre of the Light as is appâ—râ—nt iâ— Lucifer â— Now how we may conceiue that God is an â—â—gry zealous God and a gracious merciful God the seven Species or Circumstance must be 〈…〉 to win The 1. Astringent 2. Sweet 3. Bitter 4. Heat 5. 〈◊〉 6. Tone or Sound 7. The Body generated out of the other six Spirits 6. The sweet Quality flâ—eth from the bitter which is the cause of the growth of Fruit in Vegetables and the Astringent and bitter eagerly pursue it cloaths it and is the cause of a stalk and when it overtakes it strives to hinder its farther flight and so comes the knot in the stalks through which is a small Orifice the sweet Quality gets through that and then comes more stalk leaves and blossoms which by the external heat and light gets colours but the sweet Water is not a Mother strong enough to produce Fruit but the blossoms being fallen off the outward Heat with the united aid of all the Qualities bringeth the Fruit. 7. The Light riseth up only in the sweet Quality no thing can be kindled but that in which the sweet Quality is predominant for the Spirit riseth up only in the Water A Stone or Earth cannot be kindled because the Astringent and bitter Qualities are predominant in them only The Earth when the earthy quality is boyl'd out is brought as in Gun-powder to give a flash of Terror wherein the Devil in the anger of God representeth himself 8. But that the Water will not burn is because it is not the sweet Water but Elementary only Else Water were not Mortal Flesh shineth not but fat doth the sweet quality prevailing therefore lean Creatures are not merry Q. Where are the seven Spirits 9. A. All Heaven and this World and all the Creatures in Heaven and Earth are comprehended in them Q. Seeing God is every where and is himself all How comes heat cold wrath and fierceness among the Creatures 10. A. The first four Forms are at Enmity with each other without the Light and yet are the cause of the Life 11. Know that all within the Stars was a holy Salitter and the place of Lucifer whose proud Elevation kindled the seven qualifying and Fountain-Spirits all was burning The Astringent compacted so vigorously that Stones were generated and so Cold that the sweet Water became Ice and part thick stinking and raging Poison 12. Whereupon Lucifer was thrust out and instantly insued the Creation of this World and the hard spoiled corrupt matter which had wrought out it self in the kindling the seven Qualities was driven together whence Earth and Stones came to be and after that all the Creatures were made of the kindled Salitter of the seven Spirits of God their kindling made the fierceness of one Property against another and the Creatures from the same impulse do bite and annoy each other 13. Upon which the Universal God hath Decreed the last Judgment to separate the Good unto the meek Delight which was before the kindling by Lucifer and give that which is fierce and wrathful to be an Habitation for the Devil for ever The Good Men being Eternally with their King Jesus Christ. CHAP. X. 1. THE sixth Fountain Spirit is the Sound Tone or Noise 1. Whence is the singing Melody of the Angels and all Colours and Beauty are from the Tone or Mercurius 2. Hardness is the Father but the whole Salitter is the Mother for if the hardness were both Father and Mother a Stone would sound and ring 3. But where the Light is generated out of the Heat there riseth the sound viz. The Astringent Quality rubbeth it self with the bitter making Heat rise up in the sweet Water the flash of Light distinguisheth there and iâ—pregnâ—teth the bitter and Astringent so that the moving Spirits would speak Then the flash coming from the bitter breaketh open the hard and the Tone goeth forth as it was decreed in the Centre in the middle of the Circle the Council of the seven Spirits 4. Therefore all the Veins and Powers go into the Tongue that the Noise may go forth gently 5. Of the seven Spirits six always generate the seventh without every one there would not be any one 6. But the Author saith his naming of but two or three to the Nativity of a Spirit is though he saw them all seven well yet because of his weakness he could not bear the speculating them all at once in their Perfection but in part 7. Otherwise if a thought through the Centre of Nature could penetrate all the Forms it were free from the Bond of Nature 8. From the flash comes the Light of the Majesty therefore if any one could in his flesh comprehend the flash kindling it self in the central Fountain of the Heart which the Author saith he very well saw how it is that Person could clarifie or transfigure his Body therewith and be like the Angels and no more bestial 9. The Soul hath the first Principle the Spirit of the Soul hath the second the Astral Spirit hath the third in the Elements 10. When a Fire riseth up in one of the Fountain Spirits it is not concealed from the Soul which may awaken the other Spirits and it hath a Prison and if the Fire become too big can shut up the kindled Spirit in the Astringent quality till it be allay'd and extinguished Else the Sap that is in the whole seven will become dry and then thou art a Hellish Firebrand But if thou take the evil Spirit and imprison it and turn a submissive Heart and Will to God contemning Honour Pleasure Riches Wantonness by bearing the Cross and being the Worlds Fools then will not the Fire at the last Judgment Day stick to thy sappy Spirits but after this anxious trouble God will in the Resurrection Crown thee and thou wilt be a Triumphing Angel 11. Q. Is there in God also any contrary Will amongst the Spirits of God 12. A. No tho' the great earnest severity of God may by the former Writings of the Spirit be seen yet in God is no disunion in him all the Spirits Love and Triumph as one Spirit but in the innermost secret geniture not apprehended by any Creature but in the flash it must be so for Life and Omniscience is thus begotten for tho' Lucifer kindled the Spirits of this World and made it all faint and half dead yet this World belongeth to the Body of God the Father as well as Heaven 13. And the whole Trinity is generated in the Heart of all Angels and Men except the Devil and Damned Men and in such a manner is God Almighty All-seeing c. and proveth the Hearts and Reins 14. Thus also all the Devils and Damned must in the Salitter which they have corrupted be his Eternal Priseners in Torment and Reproach 15. 1. The hardness
gives extream cold 2. The sweetness gaspeth and fainteth 3. The bitterness teareth like a hot Plague as Gall. 4. The Fire is as a wrathful Sulphur 5 Love is turn'd into Enmity 6. Sound is as a crackling Fire or Thunder out of a hollow place 7. Their Region a hole of Mourning Their Food is the fierceness of all the Qualities CHAP. XI 1. THE seventh Spirit is the Body wherein Heaven and Earth Beauty and Joy rise up being generated out of the other six in colour Azure or Heaven Blew were it not for this there would be neither Man nor Angel and God would be an unsearchable Power 2. All the seven Spirits without the rising up of the flash were a dark Valley but when the flash riseth up between the Astringent and the Bitter in the Heats shining in the sweet Water it makes all living and the Power which riseth up in the flash is the Love and all the seven Spirits thus enlightened become a palpable Body to speak after an Angelical manner and this is the Body of Nature wherein all heavenly Creatures Idea's Figures or Vegetations are imaged or fashioned 3. The Light is the Life of all the seven Spirits it is their Son and Heart they are its Father him they Eternally generate in him triumph This Light or Majesty is the second Person in the Trinity and is another Person from the seven Spirits and the seven Spirits rise up continually in the Light and are the Father 4. And this splendor of the Light in the seventh Nature-spirit viz. the going forth of the Powers to form and image all in the seventh Spirit this out-going or Exit of the glance is the true Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father and the Son 5. This the Jews Turks and Heathens might find in their own Life and by these three they must rise again 6. But that the Christians boast not and scorn them Know that if the Turks be of an Astringent Quality and the Heathens of a Bitter yet if they stand in the anxious Birth seeking Rest and Grace though not in the right place God is every where And the Christian is generated in the Heat where the Light springeth up in the sweet-water yet take heed by drying up the Water thou extinguish not the Light and be burnt 7. The six Spirits rise up alway in a compleat Birth in the seventh and the corporeal drying of them is called Divine Salitter 8. The Angels are not all of equal Power though every one hath the might of all the Fountain Spirits but in every one there is somewhat of one Quality more predominant than another wherein he is glorified 9. Such as the Salitter was in every place at the time of their Creation in such is the Angel strongest and according to which is he named 10. As Flowers in Meadows receive colours from each ones Quality So the Holy Angels some are strongest in the Astringent quality and are of a brownish dusky grey white light like Twilight and nearest the Quality of Cold and when the Light of the Son of God shineth on them they are of a brownish purple flash of Lightening very bright in their Quality 11. Some are of the Quality of Water-light like the Holy Heaven and when the Light shineth on them they look like a Chrystalline Sea 12. Some are strongest in the Bitter Quality and are like a green precious Stone or Emerald sparkling like a flash of Lightening and when the Light shineth on them they appear as a greenish red as a Carbuncle or as if the Life had its Original there 13. Some are of the Quality of Heat and they are brightest of all yellowish and reddish and when the Light shineth on them they are like the flash or Lightening of the Son of God 14. Some are strongest in the Quality of Love and are a glance of the Heavenly Joyfulness very bright and when the Light shines on them they look like light blew azure lustre 15. Some are strongest in the Quality of the Tone or Sound and are bright also and when the Light shineth on them they look as if something would lift up it self aloft there in the rising of the flash of Lightening 16. Some are of the quality of the total Nature as a general mixture and when the Light shineth on them they look like the Holy Heaven formed out of all the Spirits of God 17. But the King is the Heart of all the qualities and hath his Court Province or Circumference in the Centre as the Sun amongst the other Planets so great is a Cherubim or King of Angels 18. The Author saith this Revelation was given him of God not that he had gone into Heaven and beheld it nor had any told it him for if any yea tho' an Angel he could not have understood or believed it but have doubted whether it had been an Angel sent of God or no but because it is generated in the Centre or Circle of Life as a bright self-evidencing Light like the Heavenly Birth or rising up of the Holy Ghost with a fiery impulse of the Spirit he could not withstand it at which let him that mocketh fear lest he soweth mocking and Eternally reap it 19. Worldly Wisdom is Born Blind therefore must all be Born again which new Birth begets the flash of Life in the sweet Spring or Fountain Water of the Heart and then it seeth 20. And therefore hath Christ ordained the Baptism in the Water because the birth of the Light riseth up in the Water which hath from the beginning of the World been a Mystery till now 21. This World is a Type of Heaven 22. The Stars denote the Angels being unaltered 23. The Elements in the deep between the Stars and Earth by their often alterations of being bright and sometimes louring blew whitish duskish wet and dry signifie the wonderful proportion variety and change of the posture of Heaven yet all according to the rising up of the Spirits of God and the Glory of the Son of God shining Eternally therein 24. The Earth sheweth the Heavenly Nature or the seventh Spirit of Nature in which the Ideas rise up 25. The Birds Fishes Beasts Worms Trees Plants and Flowers set forth the forms in Heaven tho' they are in clarity and brightness who rise there and go away again not being compacted as the Angels are but a figure and if imaged in one Spirit the same by wrestling with another Spirit is divided and altered therefore also the Creatures in this World are created Transitory CHAP. XIII Of the Doleful Terrible Fall of Lucifer and his Kingdom 1. WHen Lucifer saw his own Excellencies then his Heart or Life Spirit exalted it self aspiring to triumph over the Divine Birth the Son or Heart of God 2. For the seven Fountain Spirits who are the Father of the Light were pleased to become creaturely in
innermost Geniture of God and presseth in through the Astral and Fleshly Geniture it is clearly in Heaven 3. But the Out-birth of this World was Lucifer's Kingdom to the Stars and so far is the Wrath of God between which outmost Birth of this and the outmost Birth of that is a great gulph and are one to the other as Death is to Life or a Stone to a Man So that as to the Out-birth we cannot see the Angels nor they dwell with us but in the innermost they dwell with us 4. The second Birth or Geniture viz. the Astral standeth in the seven Fountain Spirits of this World in which the Holy Ghost also ruleth and helpeth to generate the third Holy Birth 5. The which third Holy Birth is the clear Holy Heaven which uniteth with the Heart of God and holdeth the Devil Captive in the Out-birth in the Anger Fire 6. Out of this Heart Jesus Christ in the Womb of the Virgin went into all the three Births that he might with his innermost take the Devil Captive in the Out-birth overcome the Wrath of God as a Victorious Prince and in the Power of his Birth in the Flesh press through all Men whereby he is become Lord and King of our Heaven and Earth over Sin Devil Death and Hell in whom we also press through the sinful corrupted Out-dead-birth of the Flesh through Death and the wrath of God into our Heaven in which Heaven now sitteth our King Jesus Christ as an Almighty Son on the Right Hand of God being present in all the three Births in this World in all corners and places bearing up all ruling in the Throne of the once potent and now expelled Lucifer 7. When Stephen saw Heaven opened and the Lord Jesus at the Right Hand of God his Spirit did not swing it self up into the upper Heaven aloft but penetrated into the innermost Birth Concerning the Constitution and Form of the Earth 8. Every thing must have a Root The Earth is come from the corrupted Salitter of the outmost Birth for in Earth and Stones is Death and in it is also a Life else Gold Silver and Vegetables could not grow therein 9. Three Births are in it the outmost is Death the second is Life pressing through it being in the Wrath Fire and that of Love and the third is the Holy Life 10. In the outmost is Gods Wrath else why engendereth it poysonous venemous Worms and creeping Things 11. The Earth hath more than one kind of Life for Herbs and Wood are not Earth nor is Fruit Wood nor is the vertue of the Fruit God for the outmost Birth containeth him not but he containeth the Out-birth Q. Why is the Earth so Mountany c 12. A. Where the sweet Water was chief much earthy palpable Water came to be 13. The corrupted Salitter was more abounding in one place than another Also 14. Where the Astringent Quality was chief in the bitterness in Mercurius much Earth and Stones were compacted 15. Where the Heat in the Light much Silver and Gold and some clear Stones 16. Where the Love in the Light the most precious Stones and finest Gold 17. Where are great Lakes and Seas over that Zenith there being not much Salitter there came to be a Valley for which resting place the thin Water sought resembling the Spirit of meekness not elevating it self as in the Bitter Fires quality the Devils did On the words the Evening and Morning were the first day is said 18. Evening and Morning reacheth only up from the Earth to the Moon taking its Original from the Light of the Sun which maketh the outward day and the outward Night Not that there was then a twofold Creation of Evening and Morning Query Whether by it be not meant by once turning about of the Earth whereby the Evening and Morning came to be that is by one Revolution 19. A. Man having a Threefold Birth tho' with his inward he uniteth with the Light of God cannot bring it perfectly back to his Astral and less to his outward Birth which tho' Moses did in part when his Face shone but could not see God perfectly and live even as an Apple on a Tree cannot bring its Smell and Taste back into the Tree nor Earth CHAP. XX. On the Creation in the Second Day Let there be a Firmament in the midst of the Waters c. 1. THis Firmament divideth the impalpable inward pure Water from the outward palpable corrupted Water Wherein is Death which lyeth Captive below the Moon and is the House of the Devils Death and Hell where the fierce Wrath of God becometh kindled daily by the Devils through the great Sins of Men which mix with the Astral Birth in the Deep 2. But even those pure Waters have some of the Wrath in them and is that meant where 't is said The Heavens are not pure in his sight 3. The innermost holds the outward Water strongly Captive and the outward Earth also else with the Revolution of the Globe the Water would be divided or dissolved and the Earth crumble away Which Firmament is between the clear Deity and corrupt Nature 4. Yet the Deep above the Earth may be said to be a place where Gods Holiness dwelleth for the whole Holy Trinity dwelleth in the Centre under the Firmament of Heaven tho' that cannot comprehend him but dwelleth not there fully bodily and creaturely as the Angels and Souls of Men do 5. The Third Birth is the Almighty Holy Heart of God wherein Christs Natural Body sitteth for his Natural Body is not as John Calvin thought such as reacheth no farther than a little circumscribed place wherein it is 6. For if every Man in his Astral Spirit comprehendeth the whole Body of this World should not the Fountain Spirits in the Natural Body of Christ being out of the Fountain Spirits of Nature and his Heart out of the inward Birth viz. the Heart of God which comprehendeth all Angels and the Heaven of Heavens viz. the whole Father should not it comprehend the whole World and uphold it as the only Head Heart and King of it in his Hands are his Sheep whom none can pluck out CHAP. XXI 1. MAN is made out of the Seed viz. Matrix of the Earth wherein the Eye is Twofold one in God the other in this World out of the three Principles not out of the Wrath but out of the Birth of the Earth in the Astral Birth in the part of Love but Wrath hung to him which he should have put forth from himself as the Fruit putteth forth from it self the bitterness of the Tree but that he did not but reached back from the Love into the Wrath and lusted after his Dead or Mortal Mother to suck her Breasts and so brought his outermost Birth into Mortality and his Astral Birth or Life into the part of the Wrath. 2. Man's Soul or Spirit is generated out of the
Unctuosity of the Blood of the Heart which Oyl or Sap hath in it the Root of the whole Man as Tinder cast into Straw 6. But if the Light had kindled it self in the Birth of the Soul all the Fountain Spirits according to the right of the Deity had triumphantly United with the Deity and had been a living Angel but because the Wrath had already infected the Salitter that Danger was to be feared which befell Lucifer therefore the Extract whereof Man 's Body was made was not become Earth though it was of the Salitter of the Earth but was held by the Word till the love-Love-Spirit out of the Heart of God glanced on the Salitter of the Mass then did the Salitter become impregnated in the Centre of the Soul and the Light abode in the Centre of the Mass and the Word stood in the Mass in the Sound This Book was Written by J. B. in the Year 1612. Being his first Book It was taken from the Author and not finished but that Defect supplied in his other Writings Aurorae Finis THE Three Principles OF THE Divine Essence CHAP. I. Of the First Principle of the Divine Essence 1. THough God generateth the Essence of all Essences out of Himself for through Him and in Him are all things yet Evil is not God And though the first Principle be the earnest Fountain of Tartness and Cause of all Mobility yet if that be irradiated with Divine Light it is no more Wrath or Tartness but great Joy 2. Though also God hath no Beginning it is here set down as if he had to distinguish the first from the second Principle Although it cannot be said that Bitterness Sorrow or Hell Fire are in God for God made no Devil nor Death yet those things are in Nature and Nature originateth from God according to the first Principle of the Father whose is call'd Angry not in himself but in the Spirit of the Creature which hath enkindled it self and the Wrath of God burneth therein 3. God is the incomprehensible Infinite Spirit A Spirit doth ever nothing but ascend flow move and generate it self in a Threefold Form viz. Bitterness Harshness and Heat neither of which is the first or last for a Spirit is like a Will which rising up beholdeth perfecteth and generateth it self 4. Three things are in the Original whence all things came to be Sulphur Mercurius and Sal. In Sulphur is Soul or Spirit and Matter In Mercury is harshness Bitterness Fire and Water of which four Sal is the Child From harshness bitterness and fire in the first Principle come wo torment trembling and burning yet from those three is also generated Water But in the first Principle God is not called God but a devouring Fire CHAP. II. Of the first and second Principles what God and the Divine Nature is 1. THE Divine Essence cannot be expressed by the Tongue the Spiraculum vitae the Spirit of the Enlighten'd Soul seeth it for every Creature seeth no farther than to its own Mother whence it originated The Soul was breathed out of God's first Principle into the third Principle viz. into the Syderial and Elementary Birth it is not therefore marvellous that it should see the whole depth of the Father in the first Principle it so seeing only it self in its rising The Devils also see and know it they wish also they neither saw nor felt it but themselves shut themselves up from the second Principle 2. The Sydereal Spirit which cloatheth the Soul and the Elementary which ruleth the Foundation of the Blood see only into that whence themselves are But the Spirit of the Soul enlightned by the Holy Spirit of God seeth into the Holy Divine Birth the Heavenly Essence the second Principle This Door can be opened only by Prayer seeking and knocking 3. In the Syllable phur in Sulphur are signified the four Forms of harshness or astringency bitterness or attraction anguish and fire but in the Sul of Sulphur is the Soul or Spirit meant which when it attaineth the Light the fifth Form of Love springeth up the Bridegroom embraceth his sacred Bride 4. Hence by the Water Spirit in Mercurius ariseth the sixth Form or sound so are all in one Heavenly Harmony united in the Divine Nature yet every Form retains its own Property so that here existeth a cross Birth for the fire goeth upward the Water downward the Essences of the harshness sideways as it were East West North and South CHAP. III. Of the endless and innumerable Productions of the Eternal Nature 1. SUch as by reproach forbid a search what God is prosecute the Devil's deceit that it might not be known what the Anger of God is nor what the Devil is and what properly it is which God Abhors Ability is in Man to speak what God our Father is and what the Eternal working 2. Every of the six Forms generateth more for in every of the Fountain Spirits is but one Centre and each generateth more as out of one branch issue many springs and buds and out of one root many threads 3. Out of the harsh Spring proceed five Springs viz. Bitterness Fire Love Sound and Water and in their Co-operating through Anguish the Light and Life arise and the Anguish becomes in the sixfold Form a great Joy in a meer pleasing Tast delighting Sight reviving Smell ravishing Sound the softest Touch all unutterably Excellent So as if one were instantly snatcht out of the bitter Pangs of Death and Torments of Hell into the Triumphant Light of Divine Joy 4. For the Forms of harshness bitterness and fire being perfect in Love become totally Glorious and a Highest Joy and yet their various Properties remain all perfectly irradiated CHAP. IV. Of the Eternal Essence generating Infinity of Existencies 1. THE Eternal generating hath neither Beginning Number End Bottom nor is it Corrupted The Mind of the Sydereal and Elementary Spirit seeth only a glimpse of it which Mind is the Chariot of the Soul without which Mind the Soul were feeble and crâ—â—e in the first Principle but if the Soul be regenerated in the Light of God that Light is its lustre in the second Principle wherein it liveth Eternally 2. Man's Body was made out of the one Element the Quintessence whence also the four Elements Stars and Heaven of the third Principle were created But the Soul was breath'd by the Holy Ghost out of the Father's Light which Light being the Name of God is the Light of Life and enkindled out of the four Anguishes therefore is the Soul God's own Substance 3. If therefore the Soul elevate it self back into the Anguishes of the four Original Form into Priâ—e c. it become a Devil But if it elevate it self forward in the fifth Form of Light Meekâ—ess and lovely Humility it is fed by the Word the Heart of God and its own strong fierce Original becomes Paradisical a sweet Fountain of Eternal Songs of Praise â—t is an Angel a Child of
Virgin of Gods Wisdom discovereth her self infinitely without number oâ— end in Powers Colours and Arts at which the Deity rejoiceth And that Joy is call'd Paradise because of the sharp generating of the infinity of the pleasant Fruit of the Lilly What it is no Earthy Tongue or Pen is sufficient all we can say of it is less than Dross to Gold and our Speech is as a drop or glimpse or sparkle CHAP. XV. Of the Knowledge of the Eternity in the Corruptibility of the Essence of all Essences 1. IN the Original Essence of all Essences we find but one whence is from Eternity generated the other both are in Divine Omnipotence have different Inclinations mix not nor can be dissolved 2. In the Eternal Original is also the Virgin of Wisdom whose longing after a Similitude Created the Angels opening a Fountain to every Essence whence came the Names of Principalities Thrones c. And out of each many thousand thousands 3. But Lucifer and his Servants like a Tree and its Branches moved by the stern Matrix bearing only the guilt of his own Fall kindled the Element whence came the four Elements and out of it came Earth and Stones and became execrated out of Paradise 4. But the Virgin rediscovered in the Out-birth the Similitude which the Fiat made substantial a meer Quinta Essentia And God Created the Sun the Similitude of his own Heart which put all the Out-birth into Meekness that all this after dissolution might in Paradise be a shadow of his substance and not only made the outward Creation but also out of the Quinta Essentia figur'd Spirits 5. And in the room of the fallen Angels made Man of all the three Principles but to live in the second and rule over the other two to whom the Virgin of Gods Wisdom Espoused her self opening â—n him a Centre to many thousand thousands in perfect chast Meekness without rending his Body but the Spirit of the great World so overcame Adam that he became Earthy the Virgin departed 6. But still the Virgin calleth and is ready to return to all that seek her with humble earnestness 'T is a Lie tâ—â—aâ— one is not elected the possibility of humble seeking is in every one Pâ—idâ— enâ—â—iâ—eth one more strongly than another but forceth none There is need of the Trader upon the Serpent in the Womb because all the three Prinâ—iples do there imprâ—nâ— themselves 7. And tho' the Devil dare not â—mage himseâ—f tiâ—â— Mâ—â—s understanding inclines to evil yet let none presume on the Devils Impotency for tho the Child be in Innocence the Seed is not which is of feâ—rful consideration to Parents especially evil ones 8. Dâ—ligently and deeply to be considered Pure Love which reacheth Paradise is wholly modest As in two young people whose Limbus and Matrix have attained the Blossom of the Nâ—â—le Tiâ—cture how hearty faithful pure Love bear they to each other But a 〈…〉 they ake each other the burning Love infecteth and the Ashes of Lust turns â—â—em oftentimes to spiteful Enmity Whence may be seen God willed not the Bestial Copâ—lation but the pure fiery Paradisical Love 9. When all the parts of the Child are formed 't is still so Bestial an Image that if it perish before the enkindling of the Light viz. the Spirit of the Soul nothing of the Figure appears before God at the Restitution but its shape and shadow 10. The Life of the Soul standeth in the three Principles The first discovereth it self in the Fire flash standing over the Heart in the Gall The second is generated of the first and is the pleasant joy Oh happy they who experience the governing power of it The third Principle presseth after the Tincture of the Soul but attaineth only the Light of the Sun and Stars whose qualifying with the Soul brings many Diseases into the Essences as the Plague c. and at last Death The Extracts of the rest of this Excellent Chapter I forbear contenting my self with what hath been done in the Aurora c. on that subject CHAP. XVI Of the Mind Understanding Senses Thoughts Threefold Spirit Tincture Inclination of a Child in the Womb of the Divine Hellish and Earthy Image c. 1. THE Mind standeth in three Kingdoms The first is Eternal the second is Eternally generated the third transitory If the first generateth not the second it goeth into the Abyss The Gate of the second goeth into Paradise 2. So can our Mind being a sparkle breathed in from the Eternal Mind speculate things remote from the Senses and penetrate Wood Stone Bone and Marrow without rending the dark Bodies The third Kingdom that of the Sun Stars and Elements wrestle with the first Kingdom yield themselves to it as to their Father 3. The second standeth between these two Regions from the Rays whereof spring the Gates of the Senses filling all with joy The Tincture whereof causeth all Vegetation And in Animals especially in Man the Blood of the Heart in which the Soul Swimmeth is incomparably sweet therefore God forbiddeth eating Blood for the Bestial Life ought not to be in Man lest the Spirit be infected by it 4. The Consteliations make not a Child an Image of God but at highest a lusty subtle pleasant Beast In some the Image of a dangerous evil Beast in others of a tame merry â—east according as the Constellations stood at the Incarnation and Birth of the Child 5. The first Principle saith Go forth in stern might The second in Love and Wisdom The third in sustaining and adorning the Body to which the Soul obeys of these three his Servant he is 6. If thou desirest the second Birth know thou art here in Prison call to him that hath the Key of the Gate of the Deep and thou wilt break through as the day breaketh and find the chast Virgin waiting for thee who is ever warning thee of evil Whom if thou follow despising the good and evil of the World she will joyfully conduct thy wandered Soul into its true Native Countrey CHAP. XVII Of the Lamentable Fall of Adam and Eve in Paradise 1. ADam stood forty days before his sleep in an Angelical Image yet had a Body out of the one Element out of the which one Element issued also the four Elements and of the Quintessence of the four are the Stars and are as the Husband and the four Elements the Wife The Heart of both is the one Element and of the Essence and Vertue of that one Element is Paradise 2. Adam had the Eternal Essences of the first Principle behind him The Divine Light of the second Principle before him both were as Fire and Light The outward World of Stars and four Elements under him and were impotent as to him his Breath was that of the Holy Ghost Paradisical 3. As long as he set his Heart on the Heart of God the other two Kingdoms as to their divided properties were hidden But in his reflecting on the great hidden
Strength and Meekness the Original Forms and Principle of Light to v. 73. The Stars are a Quintessence or fifth Essence distinct from the four Elements as the Fat in a Creature causeth the Fountain of Life to burn they are not only Fire and Water but have all the Properties of hard soft bitter sweet sour dark and whatever the Earth hath and every Star a several prevalent Property according as in the Eternal Centre of Nature they stood open when the Eternity mov'd it self in the Creation 8. The Air mixeth with all sorts of Forms therefore is unconstant sometimes awakening one Form in the Centre anon another The whole Deep is like the Mind of a Man which beholds some things cursorily some other fixedly bringing it to substance setting Hands and Feet to work as the Will hath conceived and framed it so this Spirit of the Deep though without Divine Understanding formeth by the vigor of the Constellations the Spirit of our Adamical Man also of all Beasts Fowls Herbs Plants Trees Metals Precious Stones Fishes c. and is the cause of Wisdom in Arts Polity Governments among fallen Mankind And this is called the third Principle or awakened Life of God not Eternal but that in which the great Wonders are made visible Substances whose Figures remain as a Picture for the Glory of God and Joy of the Angels and Men but their Essences shall be reduced into the Aether as it was before the Creation of the World yet shall all stand in the Eternal Nature with its colours and figures and there will be a springing blossoming and growing yet without feeling any fire or fierceness for the Essences will then be no more a Substance and therefore it affordeth no fire but the fire is an Eternal Darkness and gnawing call'd the Eternal Death CHAP. VIII How by the outward World is opened the Eternal World How a Man may seek and find himself Whence is his Beginning and what his End 1. AS the enlivening Spirit in the deep animates all Creatures as if they were one Body each according to their Kind so the Light of Eternity within this World incomprehensible to this Worlds Spirit having all the Properties also in it yet with no such inkindled Essences is the Life of the blessed Inhabitants thereof Their Fire though mighty is yet without Pain or Consumption burning in the soft delicate desire of dear Love and highest Joy this Fire maketh Majesty springeth and blossometh for ever in such Earth as is call'd Divine Substantiality or Holy Ternary stored with perfect Goodness exempt from all kind of Evil. 2. And as the whole third Principle of Astral and Elementary Bodies are as one Body so the Infinite Holy God Heaven Angels Men Paradise with all Divine Things and Properties are but one Body call'd God Majesty and Eternity wherein the Majesty is the Light the Holy Ghost the Air and Spirit Every Angel and Man is like the total God and the Holy Ghost proceeds forth in him also As in a flaming piece of Iron the Iron resembleth the Creature its flame of Light the Deity its Heat the Creatures Spirit the Air proceeding from it the Holy Ghost but now we live in Anguish Cares Labour Fear Trembling Affliction and cloathed with fallen Adam's Skin yet also in the Hope of Israel 3. And because the Soul stands between two Eternal Principles and the Body meerly in the Spirit of this Worlds Earthy state caring little for the Soul therefore must the Body be kept under its necessities only not its wanton desires answer'd The Soul also must watch and pray not please it self in its own ability but ever humble it self to the Divine Will and Mercy These things are irksom to the Body and cross to the Self will of the Soul but the view of Eternity must sway all for the Body is an unconstant Neighbour and Death a sudden Guest And as the danger so the power God hath graciously given the Soul is very great As it is written to them he gave power in Christ to be the Sons or Children of God 4. Man finds in himself more than is in the Beast for the Beast hath no higher Will than to fill and nourish it self and multiply according to the property of their Centre and every Life desireth the best that is in its Mother or Centre which shews what the best of the Centre or Mother whence they are is but Man sees into the property and vanity of every thing here and therefore a higher Life above the Elementary Transitory Food The Beast hath a Tincture else the Fire of their Life would devour them but their Fire and Tincture is but Elementary and Astral and consequently fragil but Man hath a desire after an Eternal Life and shews it by his desire to perpetuate his Memory here by his Off-spring or otherwise if he could For tho' he enter community with the Beasts in his third Principle yet he hath a Fire-life out of the Eternity wherein the Forms are in Anguish and that not being the right Life hath a Tincture of Divine substantiality of Meekness which is the Light which quencheth the wrath of his Fire-soul wherein is the Intellect satiating the Anguish which tincture Lucifer caused to disappear as a shadow shutting himself up in Death and Fierceness 5. Is it said why did God suffer Lucifer to fall A. He was a Prince and Throne Angel a Son of the first Creation or Morning and cause of the Out-birth in the third Principle therefore Christ called him the Prince of this World He had also a Free-will like us Men and we often do things contrary to God as making Forts Castles and sumptuous Houses for our state So Lucifer would be as a Creator which in it self was no more his Fall than Adam's imagining which caused the Tree of Temptation to grow which therefore was severely forbidden yet which of it self was not Adam's Fall but Lucifer's Fall was when he awakened the Matrix of the Fire over the Meekness of God that Fire became and now is his Hell which God captivated with Heaven or Water and moved himself to the Creation as the pleasant Sun shuts up the Astringent cold turning Ice into Water making Fish c. to live and grow And the cause of the Sea and unfathom'd deeps is that there the Fire was greatly enkindled as when Sodom c. were a Habitation of the Devil who would have dwelt there in his fiery fierceness God allay'd his stoutness bringing Water on that place 6. The Souls dissatisfaction here shews it in a captivity for its true Rest and Heaven was shut up in it having in Adam put its desire into the Principle of this World great is the perplexity that an Eternal Creature should be Immur'd and Married to another Principle have another Mother and Centre which as soon as it breaks as dissolve it doth leaves the Soul in indigence and darkness This pos'd the understanding non-plust the wisdom of all Creatures
Trinity was to have a total Similitude That longing awakened the Astringent Fiat That Desire hath drawn out of All into One a Similitude of Heaven this World and the Anger-World And as there is no Thing higher than the Soul so nothing can aâ—â—ihilate it being a Child of the Substance of all Substances Q. 4. What the Breathing in of the Soul is and when it is done A. 1. Every Spirit without a Body being unknown to it self desireth one for its Food and Habitation and the third Principle being created before the Soul as a Looking-glass of the Deity and generated materially out of the Eternal Wonders desired a material Similitude on the Soul and there did the outward Fiat Form an Image out of the Earth's Matrix a mixture consisting of Fire and Water 2. The Fiat of the Heavenly Matrix which did Create before the Earthy longed after the Soul and out of the Centre of the Word went forth the Fiat of the Word so was the third Principle created in the second The Virgin Wisdom clothed the Souls Spirit with Divine Flesh and the Heavenly Tincture made Heavenly Blood in the Water 3. Thus the inward Man stood in Heaven his glance in the Inward Eye was Majesty and understood the Language of God and the Angels viz. That of Nature And tho' he stood in the outward also yet knew not the outward by experience 4. Into this twofold Body Created on the sixth hour of the sixth day was the Royal Soul breathed in by the Holy Spirit into the Holy Man like an awakening of the Deity and the outward Spirit of the Stars and Elements breathed its Life through the Nostrils into the outward Heart also the quality of the fierce wrath pressed in with the original of the Soul so that the Soul could not continue to be Gods Image otherwise than in humble obedience Else could he not over-power two Principles the angry and outward which was generated out of the Anger And the Temptation was for Forty days signified by 1. Moses on the Mount Forty days when Israel stood not but made a Calf 2. The Spies Forty days searching the Land 3. Israel's being Forty years in the Wilderness 4. Elias Fasting Forty days 5. Christs being Forty days Tempted in the Wilderness 6. And being Forty hours in the Grave 7. Christs being Forty days on Earth before his Ascention 8. Israel's Forty Journeys in the Wilderness 9. Goliah's Forty days Challenge 10. Esau lived Forty years then took two Evil Wives which grieved Isaac and Rebekah all the days of their Lives Q. 5. How the Soul is peculiarly form'd and fashioned or framed A. 1. A Twig is like the Tree a Child like the Mother The Soul is like a round Globe ☉ ☉ ♓ the right Arm of the Cross signifieth the second Principle the Spirit The Left Arm signifieth the first Principle its Original Might and Power the upper part signifies its sproutinâ— through Anguish in the Fire The lower part its sinking the Water the Humility into Gods Majesty and be dead to its own will 2. The Soul in its first Principle hath the form of an Eye yet twofold wherein the Cross standeth unless it let the Devil into the Will viz. Pride and Covetousness if so it loseth the Cross. 3. In the second Principle it is a Spirit and a total intire Image such a one as the outward Man is 4. And in the third Principle it is a Looking-glass of the whole world the Potentiality of Heaven and Earth and all Properties of Creatures lye in it Q. 6. What the Ability or Potentiality of the Soul is A. The first power of the Soul is That if the will go strongly forward it is Faith And so can form another Image in the Spirit out of the Centre of Nature It can give the Body another form being Lord of the outward but that transmutation is not permanent because Adam did let in the Turba and this kind of power is call'd Nigromancy for the Body is Sulphur the Spirit of the Soul hath the Tincture But the Devil readily mixeth therein for it is the Abysses Wonder whereof he is Lord. 2. The second power of the Souls will is that the earnest will which otherwise is called faith can put the Spirit into another form If the Spirit were an Angel the will can make it a stubborn Devil Also if it be Devilish it can by sinking down in Humility under the Cross cast it self again into Gods Spirit 3. The third power of the Souls will or Spirit is that it hath power to enter into another Mans Marrow and Bones and if he be wicked can introduce the Turba into one who is not armed by Gods Spirit as do Sorcerers c. 4. The fourth power of the Souls will is that it hath power if it be Gods Child to lead Captive the Turba and pour it out on the House of the ungodly As Moses on Pharaoh and Elias did the Fire It can throw down Mountains break Rocks as far as the place is capable of the Turba having made the Anger stirring 5. The fifth power is that it can search out all wonders or works in Nature Arts Sciences c. So Moses commanded the Sea Joshua the Sun And if it be in God it can over-power the Devil Also can heal the Sick raise the Dead But not unless Gods Spirit stir it up having lost the exercise of its power by the Fall yet the Soul in its original is greatly powerful But only in that Principle into which it looketh or in which it standeth is its might Q. 7. Whether the Soul be Corporeal or not Corporeal A. The Soul is a Fire-Globe with a Fire-Eye and a Light-Eye The Tincture is a Spirit existing from the Fire and Light And is its Meekness out of which cometh Water which the Fire draweth to it self to allay its fierce quality turning that Water of Life into Sulphur according to the seven Spirits of Nature And that Mystery changeth it self into red from the Fire and into white from the Tincture the glance is from both so that the Life seeth it self out of which Reason and Thoughts exist The Blood is the House of the Soul The Tincture is its Body The pure Soul is not Corporeal but there groweth a Body in the Tincture not palpable or comprehensible to the outward but a Power Body Gods Body Christs Heavenly Flesh which he gives us in his Supper A Body the Turba cannot touch unfadeable comprized in nothing but in the noble precious Tincture Which being perished in Adam therefore God became Man and brought the Divine Image again into the Souls Tincture and we must now be Born again in Christ if we will see God Q. 8. In what manner the Soul cometh into Man or into the Body A. This Question is understood of propagation the Creation of the first Soul being shown before 'T is answered That Adam when fallen could not generate but in an
Astringent Binding mighty Power the lofty Babilon 2. The second like a Bear viz. the strong cruel Attraction the inflexible unalterable inexorable Empire of the Medes and Persians 3. The third like a Leopard for anguish is compos'd of several ingredients like as are the colours of the sported Leopard as is also the belly of a Toad And the Greek Empire is said to have consisted of about a Hundred and forty sorts of People or Nations 4. The fourth Beast was dreadful and terrible not likened to any Beast but being as fire is said to devour and break in pieces such were the Romans But one like the Son of Man came and to him was given dominion and glory an everlasting kingdom here is the 5th form viz. the enkindling of the light signified Represented also by the 4 Winds of Heaven 4 wings of a Fowl and 4 heads Thus Lazarus having lain in the Grave four days the true light raised him They are figur'd by four Chariots but Horses in three of them of differing colours one from the other but the 4th was of Horses of differing colours among themselves viz. Grizled and Bay expounded by the Angel to be four Spirits of the Heavens which go forth from standing before the God of the whole Earth Will any think it to be without a mystery that Elisha was wroth with Joash King of Israel for smiting on the Ground but three times saying Thou shouldst have smote five or six times then hadst thou smote the Syrians till thou hadst consumed them for the Prophet had promised he should consume them But Joash being held by his wickedness in the first four forms smote but thrice for had he as the Prophet saith smote five times he had enkindled the Light of the Liberty in his forms as an addition had he smote six times he had brought the illustrated forms into Harmony of Love whereby his Enemies the oppressing Assyrian viz. the Enmity had been consumed Will any think it was without a Mystery that the Prophet Amos eight times reciteth For three Transgressions of Damasâ—us of Gaza Tirus Edom Amon Moab Judah Israel and for four I will not turn away the Panishment thereof For 't is apparent that the three or four first forms comprise all Sin But if the vigorous true Light be enkindled it flameth to a Love of God and is Death to Sin by discovering it awakening it and working it out cleansing the Conscience destroying the Enmity of the first four forms and so creating Peace to them that were far off making them nigh But it may be granted there is an Ingredient of Light admitted into and retained by the first four Forms but it is as that the Apostle Paul saith Science falsly so call'd Such is this it is an insinuation of a faint false delusory-Light comprehending the Craft Subtlety Sophistry Serpentine wisdom to abuse the Senses and mis-imploy the out-born Natural Powers to jugling Deceits uniting Earthiness and Sensuality to devilish Designs Of this Wisdom the Lord saith If the Light that is in thee be Darkness how great is that Darkness Very apt and pertinent to this Discourse is it to consider That though the Perfume ascending from us was compounded of very unlike Parts some of them also very Unpleasant yet the Holy Oyl descending on us was compounded of five Kinds all excellent Good Delightful and Pleasant for we understand that the 5th form enkindles the Light which makes the four first from the Discords to be â— Harmony and a rich Concord Such are all Go'ds approaches to us as Joseph's Law in Egypt was That four Parts should be the Peoples and but the 5th Part to be Pharoah's figuring this 5th form's being taken as the Lord's Part only who is meant by Pharoah Divine Love hath its Root in the Centre of the Essence of the first four Spirits but most immediately in the Light and that from the Fire And the Activity of the four first Spirits as a perpetual Rotation causeth that Love can never Cool Thus is it strong as Death for Love is that Name which the God of Life is known to us by whom thus to know is Life Eternal The Instrument in the Out-birth of this Spirit is Venus CHAP. VIII Demonstration being of the Sound Tone Noise or Voice SHall there be need to demonstrate this which Heaven and Earth Ring of And Hell after its capacity hath also some impressions of It may suffice briefly to shew This to be a distinct Fountain for that it is the Result only of the United Operation of the five precedent Spirits meeting in the seventh is no Argument why This also should not be one for any one could not be without every one The Astringency had not what to bind but that the matter is produced by the other properties and so of the rest 1. As the light is the opening of the darkness thro' the fourth Fountain the fire so is the voice of the first four Fountains thro' the opening of the light revealing the Kingdom of Joy with its Beauty Colours and Ornament where-ever it is treasur'd 2. As we see fire sleeping in a Flint awakened by a stroke so doth the tone or sound start up and disperse it self so far as its vigour conquereth the resistance of contrary motions or solids and then expireth 3. As the life lies in a swound in vegetables till revived by the return of the Spring or as odours lie coucht in dead earth till midwif'd by the Sun thro' the stalks of flowers So the varieties of Infinity remain secret and dumb as in the mystery till this Oratory publisheth till this Herald proclaim it who by its continual motion speaks all and shews all The Representer of this sixth Fountain Spirit is in the out-birth Mercurius CHAP. IX Demonstration of the Body generated out of the other six Fountains 1. IF a mighty Prince should in regulating a world of laborious Subjects directed by a Council of men experienced in exquisite Art wanting neither time or other requisite to accomplish some stupendious structure or vast piece of magnificence should after all be able to accomplish only trifles were strange Or rather what could not mens highest prudence served with the confluence of abundance of willing agents sufficient helps and competent time atchieve acquire and bring to effect 2. And see we not what the six overflowing Fountain Spirits ranged by omnipotence conducted by infinite Wisdom exercising from eternity their irresistible Powers have conceived travell'd with brought forth and improved as the Holy One hath willed 3. And can any doubt they who have served to found and lay the Top-stone of infinite numbers of Fabricks in the Astral Elementary and Terrestrial Worlds should be unfurnished with a Royal Palace for themselves 4. This seventh Fountain Spirit is their Body Mansion and Sabbath the eternal Rest eternally generated In This they work their hallowed wonders in this they
spark like the whole Origin a clod like the whole Ball. CHAP. XVI Man's Estate before his Fall 1. MAN being ranged a little lower than the Angels yet with one Principle more hath a Spirit penetrating as theirs if brought into an earnest hunger to search and knock Let none forbid so doing for God delights to be sought and known by such can he be most loved and admired that most discover of him 2. And those his Children who know most clearly what they fell from will strive most to be recovered and those that penetrate deepest into that dismal plight whereinto they have plunged themselves must needs be most profoundly Humbled and Those that find the prosecuting of their own Wills to be a Fighting against God their Restorer will be easiest prevailed with to lay down their Arms Die to their Wills Resign themselves to His Conduct Repair to His School Bear His Yoke at any price Buy the Pearl Fight the Battle of Faith that they may lay hold of Eternal Life Wisdom calls They only are the Sons of Wisdom who will hear I come now to the following most Important Points and Enquiries 1. What Man was before his Fall 2. By what degrees he fell 3. What Fallen Mans Estate was and is 4. What may be his Recovery 1. Concerning Man's Estate before his Fall 3. God made Man in or after His Image as hath been shewn how he was God's Image viz. an Extract out of all the Three Principles The Ignorance whereof befel Audeus in the fourth Century after the Incarnation who said God had Hands and Feet 4. But God's Image was to express in Adam that He had in Harmony His whole First Principle and all things subordinate to It so that the four Forms did mightily establish him and This Harmony stood by the Love-Fire and Holy Light of the Second Principle by which also he could Rule over his Third Principle 5. He was so perfectly God's Image as that he was capable of Eternity without any necessity in his own constitution to make him obnoxious to Mortality Else how is his Death denounced the Penalty of his Disobedience 6. Nor could he be clogg'd before he fell with a Dark Body stuft with the Elements and built upon Bones to bear it up as may appear by four Evidences Evidence 1. The Elemental Fruits are Mortal therefore are proper Food to support the Transitory Creatures that feed on them Evidence 2. Bones proceed as Stones also do from the too hard coagulation of the Astringency producing in the Saline Element the Principle of Mortal Salt Evidence 3. The food from the four Elements requires a gross Elementary Carcass to digest and draught to evacuate their Earthy Part both inconsistent with the Purity and Eternity of Paradise Evidence 4. The Elements themselves pass into their Ethers and cease as to their present Existence when the Mystery shall be fulfilled and the End hath found the Beginning 7. Adam was a Virgin of Purity with both Masculine and Feminine Tinctures as is evident for 't is said when Adam only was made Male and Female created he them so compleat was He as able to Increase and Multiply and Blessed thereunto v. 28. By both Tinctures not by two Persons for Eve's being made is not recorded till Gen. 2. 21. 8. Will any say Adam and Eve were made at once Gen. 1. 27. Gen. 2. 28. but only the Order more at large given 9. It is answered by the Holy Ghost where the Apostle convinceth by One Argument the reasonableness of the Woman's Subjection because of the Priority of Man's Creation 10. This must also be noted the Woman was not given him as were the Females to other Creatures Also that before her being made God said all was Very Good Rested from his Creating work Blessed a Sabbath Planted Eden Watered it caused it to Grow and the Sacred Records name the Rivers and several quarters whitherward their Effluxes directed themselves what Lands they washed c 11. But farther that the Propagation of Adam's Race should have been by Adam alone is demonstrable among many other produceable by the following Arguments 12. There was no Rending of the body to have been for Rending is inconsistent with the Happy Perfect Eternal State of Union dividing the Properties caus'd Enmity as in Heat Cold c. 13. The hanging on him the Bestial Genitals is That whereof Nature it self as depraved as now it is is Ashamed of and Blusheth at The Soul hideth it self all it can from This Monstrous filthy Brutish Deformity which it would not do had it been it self of no higher Extraction This the very Fallen Man well sees to be a New Strange Hateful Image whereto therefore It would not be subjected by the Creation 14. The Law of Circumcision on That Member shews God's displeasure at That New gotten way like the Beastial Propagation 15. The Lord Jesus His preferring the Chast Virgin Life tho' of pity to our Impotence and Infirmity restraining them only to it to whom power is extended thereunto signifieth as himself said in another case not very forreign to this that in the beginning it was not so 16. The sad and affonishing Effect as the first fruit of Copulation after dividing of the Tinctures was when Eve brought forth Cain she said I have got a Man from the Lord more truly rendred I have got a Man The Lord intimating that she thought That Son was the Seed promised should break the Serpent's Head But he prov'd as the Seed of the Serpent the Murtherer of him who bare the Image of the promised Seed which was so great a consternation that she conceived no more till after 70 years 17. The disregard God sheweth towards That Divided Image who also in the Transgression shewed a disregard towards the Inhibition of the Most High God which disregard for Humbling That Sex appears 1. By enjoyning Their Subjection and she to have power on her Head because of the Angels that is to say Those flaming glorious Virgins in whom the Tinctures are in inseparable Union are God's immediate Vicegerents and would not that the separate Tincture should forget its Declension and forgo or surmount its Station but be Modest Submissive and Humble 2. By not admitting them any Token of Resumption into the Covenant under the Law whereas the Males had That of Circumcision 3. By admitting and enjoyning only the Males to Worship at Jerusalem thrice every year and when the Women came they came only into a Court at the Lord's House more remotely scituate than the place for the Males 4. By the little mention of the bringing forth any Woman before the Floud and without Record of the Age of any Woman in the whole Old and New Testament Sarah only excepted 18. The Law of Uncleanness after Child-bearing shews how impure This way of Propagation is for the Woman having brought forth a Man-child was unclean seven days and to
continue without touching any hallowed thing or approaching the Sanctuary 33 days But if she had a Maid-child her Legal Uncleanness was for fourteen days and not to be purified till sixty six days Whereas seven days sufficed for cleansing a Leper or one who had an Issue Those on the eighth day might come into the Tabernacle of the Congregation as before 19. All which evinceth the Human Birth by the Woman to have much more in it than bodily Pollution since separating the Tinctures For the Leprosie was a bodily Pollution in a high degree but the cleansing the Woman being near Five times as much for a Man-child and near Ten times as much for a Maid-child is a too pregnant Testimony that the Impurity of This Propagation is exceeding great which moved David's Confession I was Born in Inquity and in Sin did my Mother Conceive me 20. Man's Propagation after Separating the Tinctures is defiled with much Immodesty and Lust so that it derives Filth Sin and Shame as by a Torrent down a Precipice from one Dark Soul to another For abating the Impetuousness of which Isaac the Son of the Promise was not only of Abraham when Old but of Aged Sarah with whom it was ceased to be after the manner of Women and Lust was withered and the eminent Joseph Samuel and other choice Servants of God were of great Modesty and obtained by Prayer 21. But at once fully to convince us of our Impure Descent from Adam and Eve the Lord Jesus was of the Virgin CHAP. XVII Of a Virgin-Propagation Q. 1. WILL any ask Could a Virgin-Propagation possibly have been A. The Lord speaketh nothing in vain and He it was that said God is able of These Stones to raise Children unto Abraham But 2. It is answered That tho' the above Arguments may challenge the force of Demonstration to enlightened Reason yet because the Senses often make Mutinous Resistance to solid Reason the Senses shall be by what follows gratified as far as the Sublimity of the Subject may expose it self to the view and touch Demonstrations to the Senses of a Virgin-Propagation 3. Light with little loss penetrateth Glass so plentifully as can improve Generation by contraction of its Central and Original Property thro' Burning-glasses by which also it can destroy as 't is said Archimedes did the Roman Navy at Syracusa and we see Light not only walking thro' Christal but Multiplying by the Motion 4. And can any think Adam's Pure Body whilst capable of Eternity had not Less in it obstructive to his Magical Will for Divine Imployment or rather More Assisting Power than Condensed Ponderous Glass or Christal have of opposition or furtherance of the Solar Raies Was not His whole Man fortified by Harmony for Vigorous Operations 5. See we not the subtle Atoms of Fire insinuate thro' the Pores of Gross Iron Pots to the evaporating of Liquor with the ascending Breath whereof the subtle fiery Atoms cloath themselves and take wing till only Dregs uncapable of Light be captiv'd in the Pot and finally the Iron become Lustrous as if it also willed no longer to be Iron but Fire and Light See we not Fiery Atoms as calmly enter the finer Pores of Silver Vessels and with like facility make passage through the most exquisite Pores of Golden Vessels 6. And should not That Glorious Creatures Body a glimpse whereof was Moses Shining Face and Wondrous Works have been more Potent to work His Creators Will in His Own Principle than these Dead Instances Consider we also the Healing Emanations from the Bodies of the Disciples as the Power of Raising the Dead c. 7. See we not the due affection of the Blood drawn out of the Veins with That remaining in the Veins And if That which issued out at one Orifice be kindly treated abroad how it dispatcheth quick Messengers to impart the Vertue thereof not only to that Wound whence it issued but to as many other as the Body hath suffered by 8. And shall we abridge the Magical-Child of the kind Assisting Intercourse of Its natural Parent of what the Absent Man and Cold Blood is privileged with 9. A Woman Great with Child doth often Impress Magically on the Fruit of her Womb Cherries Strawberries c. things She Longed Earnestly for as well as other tokens of â—ll Created by her Passions of Fear others do Mortally Wound by their Anguish Despair c. Others Exalt to expressions of Joy by the raised Serenity of the Mother's Spirit as the Babe in the Womb of Elizabeth leapt at the Salutation of the Virgin Mary 10. If therefore such Vigour remain as the Relique of Languishing Magick-Power in so great a degree Dead and almost forgotten and that in the weaker Sex of the divided Tincture of Mortal Man when Rowsed shall any doubt but That sufficient Virtue and Majesty Sate enthroned in Adam whilst perfectly Enriched and Ennobled with both the Tinctures Who was a Spark of God's Omnipotence Divinely to effect what His Creator blessed him to viz. to Multiply the New Race bearing God's compleat Image instead of the Apostate Angels who by extinguishing the Kingdom of Love implanted in their Creation had let loose awakened and introduced into themselves the Wrath of the first Principle and so perverted God's Holy Work by the Wrath of the first four Spirits 11. We see an Ability of Propagation in the Universal Sperm issuing at the Conduct Pipes of the three Principles The Eye observes it in Shell-fish Trees Flowers Herbs having their various kinds in their respective Seeds with their Tinctures of Male and Female united or Fire and Light in one And though these last the Vegetative Tribe be more remote than the Sensitive yet every one gives Pregnant Testimony to illustrate and lead to the most Noble 12. And shall any think Man whose Original exempted him had he persever'd and fixt and set him on high far above the reach of any the least approach of Mortality as Sorrow Weariness Sickness Sleep could admit the Defect of any thing that might tend to impeach his Perfection Should not he be fully able to perform all the Parts of what might concern the perpetuating his Race by communicating his Heat and Light as the Sun doth his in pure Modesty and highest humble Love that his Divine Offspring might have assisted in that holy Paradisical Imployment 13. It seemed needful to be thus Large to be a High and Powerful Incitement to all the Sons of Wisdom to fix their Souls on noble Divine Objects by the Example of the Sons of Princes who level at Kingdoms 14. Let therefore the Sons of God pity and pray for and never envy gods of clay who covet Crowns of glittering Earth stuft with Thorns washt with Tears and Blood of oppressed Innocents often supported by Fraud and not seldom blown off by the breath of Curses justly caus'd 15. At best the centre of Cares surrounded by ravennous hungry Vultures I say Let not
Transformation of Nebuchadnezzar that his Hairs were as Birds Feathers and his Nails as Claws 14. Such a Subjection hath our Elementary Structure lapsed into by the Fall that it may as really be Transformed as an unburnt Earthen Vessel may And that tho' usually by consent of the Will as in Witches 15. Yet may it also be sometimes without consent and by the Arch Enemy be imposed on as was the Woman at Isenach who in a Conflict of fifteen or sixteen hours was Transformed into That of a Calf her Hands and Feet bent and like Horns or Hoofs her Tongue rough and dry her Body cold and swoln yet her Soul found to be safe and her Body by Prayer Restored to its Human Form 16. Man became vain in his Imagination and his foolish Heart was darkened They were Worshippers of Angels of the Host of Heaven of Devils of Brute Creatures of Garlick as in Egypt of Stocks Things almost incredible to us That Rational Creatures should make Their Hope and Confidence to be in Irrational till we reflect on all Nations in This Age pretending Improved Skill and Knowledge yet still do place Their Confidence in Money CHAP. XX. Of Mans Recovery how he was helped again by Christ and by what wonderful way and method Redemption was is wrought 1. WHO is sufficient to tell This what Vessel may carry This Treasure It was studied by the Holy Angels is the Ornament of Heaven will be the Song in Eternity It is the sum of what the Spirit of God hath been dictating to the Prophets pointing at by the Law and Ceremonies proclaiming by the Apostles and Saints in His Word in the Mouth of all his Servants thro' all Generations 2. Now tho' none can say how high the eighth Sphere is much less the Infinity beyond or without it yet every one can measure his own heighth being really part of it So as far as can be reached by So vile a Nothing some particle of the Abyss of Grace may in Childish Simplicity be stammer'd out and haply some Assistance given to Such Inquirer whose Inward Senses shall be opened in any degree of aptness to the Sublimity of the Matter and whose Spirit shall be Humbled and held back to the lowly manner of exhibiting the same 3. All Knowledge not leading us Humbly towards Jesus Christ is Ignorance and compared with the Light set up in us by Him is Blackness with the Vertue of it is Dung with the Holiness and Purity of it is Filthiness with the Order of it is Confusion and Amusement of Spirit with the Utility of it is meer Loss of precious Time 4. We have in the precedent Discourse beheld the direful shameful State Adam declined into by the Loss of the Divine Virgin of God's Wisdom with whom he should alwaies have lived in Purity Modesty and Perfection of Love Who whilst he stood his Soul was of the Might of Eternity his Spirit of the Pure Majestick Divine Light his Body out of the One Holy Element more Noble than seven times Refined Gold as the Shining Sun and capable to endure in Eternity 5. But Sin marr'd all his Holy Body degenerated as from Celestial Christal to Putrifying Carrion which must know Dissolution and for any Power remaining in him must have returned to the Divided Elements without hope of Recollection and Resurrection Which might cause some of the Antients who better knew what the body is come to be and what Principles and Elements compounded of than what at first it was much less what the Merciful Creator was about for Restoring his Lost Image It might strongly sway some Wise Men in several Ages to laugh at the Novelty of the Resurrection as did the Athenians 6. The Gracious and Merciful Creator pitying His Undone Creature of Love to His Own Precious disappeared Virgin Image having no motive from any want in Him of His Creature nor any worth in the Creature nor any ability remaining in His Creature to help Himself but of His Own Only Meer Free Grace and Goodness His Tender Bowels of Infinite Love wherewith His Compassions were enkindled did set Infinite Power and Wisdom on work to supplant the Serpent in Man by reimplanting again the Dear Bride of Purity and Modesty to whom Adam was at first Married but had adulterously causlesly and foolishly left having treacherously abandoned himself and betaken to the Divided Properties 7. God in-spake again the Ingrafted Word saying The Seed of the Woman shall break the Serpents Head which Word so reimplanted was like a spark of Fire falling into Tinder or like Seed sown or like Leven hid in three measures of Meal for it was a Living Power a Speaking Witness It was call'd the Lamb slain from the Foundation of the World the Powerful Love of Jesus Christ the second Person of the Trinity who by That Power of Love filleth all places in the Heavens and Earth in His Own Holy Principle and This Love is Jesus Christ Himself 8. The second Adam and Holy Seed did not only come in the Fulness of Time into or in the Womb of the Virgin Mary when He took Flesh but then at the instant of Adam's Fall at the Father's in-speaking did implant himself to overthrow the work of the Devil 9. And stood at the Door of Adam and Eve and alwaies standeth at the Door of every Child of Theirs ever since none excepted in the Light of Their Life Preaching Salvation and with the Mighty Power of the Holy Ghost reproveth Sin convinceth of Righteousness judgeth Disobedience and warneth all more or less of the Judgment to come 10. This Living Word or Word of Life hath call'd it self by several names for all names are in it It is the Refiners Fire a Light shining in a Dark place Emmanuel The Saviour The Hope of Israel The Rock of Ages The Redeemer Love Wisdom Righteousness The Holy Thing Life Eternal where-ever and in whomsoever Obedience is yielded It is of invincible Strength will any lay hold on it brings irresistible Arguments will any lay them up in their Hearts uninterrupted Peace will any sit still under its Counsels His Weapons can neither be warded nor blunted His Defensives are impenetrable 11. The Word replanted in Adam and Eve after Their Disobedience is call'd an Ingrafted Word tho' it was carried downward chiefly or most visibly in the direct Line thro' Seth to Enoch who was in the Sabbath as the Seventh Day of whom came Metâ—usalaâ— who as the longest Liver recorded figured Eternity yet was the same in Them as a Priesthood to be Leaders and Stars to Their Brethren The same Principle being with less Brightness in others also for neither is the Sun visible but to Them who have a Receiving Power So nor were the rest of Mankind wholly Blind but had Their Talents entrusted to Them And this Line of the Holy Seed were as the Lord's Candlesticks and Lamps whereat others were to enkindle their weaker Lights 12. It may be noted that the
Meek Love of God lost the Throne of the central Love-fire possessing only that where hot and cold are in strife Being a Centre of the Visible World Q. 5. What was it of which the Angels were made What in the Word of God became Creaturely A. 1. The Substance of the Good Angels is out of the two central Fires of Fire and Light but their Idea Spirit or Powers are out of the Out-flowing Infinite Migâ—ty Holy Names of God 2. They are many and every Throne Angel according to the Peculiar of the various Names and Offices himself and his Legions are illustrated with 3. The prince-Prince-Angels are as the Spirits of the Letters and the other as the joyning of Words and Sentences And as our Alphabet hath our whole understanding of all Substances So is God's Word of all things and the Angels are his Letters in the Divine Alphabet 4. And did not the Curse to prevent our abuse hinder Man having shut up himself in the NO So great is the Authority in what his Mouth carries that he might triumphantly do wonders as the Angels Deut. 30. 14. Rom. 10. 8. 5. If the Creatural Life stood not in an own Will in the Property to the Fire Lucifer could not have separated himself from the Good 6. The Angels are within and without this World yet in another Principle or World viz. in the One Element whereout came and still cometh the Four Elements and are Princes of the Constellations But some are of a more outward Chaos or Kind in the Four Elements call'd Starry Spirits viz. Ascendants Q. 6. What do Angels and why doth God's Power become Image-like A. 1. Out of the Mind come Thoughts and from them Imaginations whence Longing and Delight exist and we rule all things by the distinction of words So God viz. the Eternal Mind by His out-flowing Powers brought out the Angelical Idea and the Holy Angels are as God's Thoughts revealing His Mind as his Work Instruments to manifest the Eternal Powers they are as Strings in the great Harmony as our articulate Words so are they distinct Parts of the Love sport 2. And their great Joy and Knowledge of the Eternal Wisdom humbleth them before such Highness lest they lose that honour Their feeding is an indrawing of the Unity which is the Balsam that their Central Fire awake not the Wrath for the Devil's Fall is their Looking glass 3. The most gross Compaction of the Outward World is the out-flown Inward World in the two Central Fires The most Outward is the four Elements the next Inward is the Astral the third the Quintessence the fourth the Tincture the fifth the Clear God The more inwardly we reach the nearer God And were we awake from Adam's Earthy Love we might very well see Heaven Q. 7. What moved Lucifer to depart from God A 1. The Potence of Forming standing in the Transmutation viz. His Receiving Power therefore the out-flown Will in the Central Fire of the Eternal Nature made him elevate himself to despise the Resignation but would try the Properties of the Eternal Nature and so misused the Holy Name in himself and willed to domineer over the Thrones and brake himself off from the Unity Then instantly the Properties were manifest as hard sharp sour bitter stinging and the tormenting cold and hot fires Q. 8. How could an Angel become a Devil What is a Devil A. 1. He would not be under the speaking of the Unity which was Balsam to his Fire-Life but be his own speaking so his Fire could conceive no glance but the Holy Name and Central Love Fire withdrew 2. If he would be an Angel again his Fire Life must be killed with Love but This the Hellish Foundation neither will nor can do as Fire cannot endure Water 3. Their whole Life is a Despair Venem Dying Stink Sorrow Shame and Torment that he hath triâ—â—ed away the Divine Express Reflex Image and got the Form of Poisonous Venomous Beasts and Worms according to their various Properties of Pride Covetousness Envy c. all contrary to Wisdom Truth Love c. Thus good men have turned evil and fallen into Perdition Q. 9. Why did not the Omnipotent God prevent the Fall of Lucifer A. 1. Whilst Fire and Water are in a Vegetable they lovingly embrace each other but once sundred do never more desire each other but as Mortal Foes whenever they encounter the one dies 2. So Love and Anger where in Harmony bring the first Sweet Delight the other Life and Strength and are two Eternal Principles having each an Eternal Will Foundation and Centre of its own Therefore if the Anger will sever the Love doth not hinder with force Nor could the Love work otherwise than like it self else God would be at odds in himself But if the Created Image the No or Anger give its Will to the Yea or Love it would be chang'd into a Love-Fire 3. And tho' the Anger be an Eternal Principle and part of God's Omnipotence the fault was the Creatures for in the unimaged Power the Love doth ever burn And God's hardening is not sending a strange fierce Wrath into any but it is left to its own fierceness on which Judgment passeth The Anger is Love's manifestation and the Fallen Angels are the Looking glass of the Good Angels Q. 10. What did the Devil desire for which he left God A. He would be an Artist their Joy still is in Transmutation of themselves into Forms Subjection in Humility pleased him not but would be a God to himself and his Legions The Magick ground of Omnipotency pleas'd him which made him elevate himself above the Efflux of the Unity and prove the Properties but knew not how it would be with him when the Light should extinguish for then came Darkness and the cold sharpness of the Fierceness and he instantly at utter Enmity against God and all Angelical Hosts Q. 11. What was the Strife between Michael and the Dragon and what are they A. 1. Michael is the Figure of the Divine Power not as a Creature but as the opening and moving of the Eternity which name after in Jesus was ordained for Man 2. The Dragon is Hell manifested the Will of the Anger and the Wrath of the Properties as Heat Cold Woe the first Principle a Hunger and Thirst a Dying Quality Satan is the Will to Contradiction and Lies Belial the Lust to Uncleanness Belzebub a Source of Idol Gods Asmodâ—â— a Spirit of Fury and Madness Lucifer of Pride and stately climbing up 3. Their Strife was as of the first and second Principles as was That of Jesus in his forty days Temptation and of Israel while Moses was in the Mount In This Strife the Dragon is driven out of the Holy Name in This Strife Christ brought the Will of Man through Death and Hell to subsist in God unpassive that it may subsist in the Fire unapprehended by the Fire or as the Sun kindleth it self in the Elements yet
Extraction as to its Original It is always Morning with it bearing equal date with God's other Attributes and so with God himself 9. God being infinitely all that he is is also infinitely Just and Almighty True and Faithful we can no more say his Grace and Love to have Priority than the Light of a Candle can precede the firing the wiek or than Man's Intellect could precede the enkindling his Humane Soul or than the Fruit can prevent the Tree or That the Root 10. Can we well conceive the Eternal Permanence of God's Goodness and why not his Infinite Power and Justice is there room to doubt that to be a part of him 11. Must the Fruit and Flower live and not the Root must the Eye see if the Man dye or the Candle shine when the Wiek is cold Then may the Principle of Sweetness Meekness Grace and Love survive the Principle of Strength Might Potence and Wrath. The last Branch of the Question is Why hath God poured forth Eternal Wrath 12. God according to the first Principle is not called God but a consuming Fire nor is he called God according to the out-birth or third outward Principle for the Devil is called the God of this World though Divine Omnipotence guides and restrains in all Occurrences for no place or space excludes him for God is in it or more properly it in Him comprehended by Him yet God's infinite Abyss of Love and Goodness is His Heaven That his Throne 13. When God created Angels the first race of Intellectuals known to us they were made out of Himself of his Abyss of Might and His Abyss of Goodness or of His first and second Principles Darkness and Light in such Excellency as are the Angels who so continue 14. When also God created Man His second race of Intellectuals it was out of the two former Principles in Conjunction with the third yet in such sweet order as we know little of a glimpse whereof is seen in the resigned humble regenerate Soul who lives in God and hath there His Possessions and Reversions about that is employ'd His Fear Care Grief also His only Delight and Satisfaction both for time and for ever yet all this is but a glimpse of what we were at first and shall be at last 15. These things being premised give us a prospect what good beautiful excellent Creatures Angels and Men were and should all have continued to be 16. For if God had willed the one to be Devils the other to be inwardly so and outwardly Beasts How is it they were all created Divine and perfectly Good 17. But they directly against the confessed Will of the gracious Creator who never did nor ever can will any thing sinfully Evil but Good and only Good both the fallen Angels and Adam formed in themselves a Will perverse to the Sovereign Will shutting up their whole selves from the only true Guide and Eternal Light and Wisdom and so became Dark and such Fools for whose back is the rod and being Estranged snuffed at Reproof grew into Scorning Enmity and Diametrical contrariety and hatred of Holy things 18. Their own private will became their God for having broken the sweet Bands of Love they made a League with Hell and Death for the Divine Light withdrawing or rather they declining its Councels the dark fierce fire became their very Essence and Life under the domineering Power whereof the fallen Angels by their departure from the sweet Kingdom of Love and Peace have forever subjected themselves into which obstinate hardened Men also throw themselves And this is so contrary to God that his Spirit loatheth them and withdraweth and his so withdrawing is God's pouring out Eternal Wrath and the way how and cause why it is the Eternal Perdition Q. 17. Whereas God is and remaineth Eternally undivided what then is his working in the Place of Hell Is there indeed a certain Place of Hell or not A. 1. Here on a Position premised is a Question proposed and a second Question occasionally put It seems fit to strengthen the Concession by explaining it 2. That although every part of the Creation consisteth of various Heterogeneous and contrary Properties all which is not only derived from God but their Life Motion and Being is in Him yet 〈…〉 e from Eternity in Eternity the same undivided One 3. For if an Infinite were divided into Parts the Parts must also be Infinite and then must be more than one Infinite which were a Contradiction as equally vain as to say that Almightiness doth divide it self against Almightiness 4. But that the Infinite Almighty comprehendeth all Properties in perfect Supream Excellency is clear and that Himself remaining still in Himself can yet make Himself creaturely in Infinite Multiplicity is as clear and visible 5. The outward Sun consisting of Light and Heat can by its Beams help Generation of Infinite Productions Good and Bad even poisonous perilous Images of the dark World and this principally by His Heat but by His Light can attenuate penetrate and change gross dark Bodies yet Himself as the outward Agent of Omnipotence remain untouch'd unaltered unaffected unsubjected in any degree whatsoever by his so doing to the things wrought 6. For alluding to the instance in the Answer to the last preceding Question If Sin like a Burning-glass contract the hot Beams it may be intolerable to the Sinner or Object opposed to it yet is the glorious Sun still the unaltered same 7. The Gardner Roots up dryes and burns the Weeds The Sovereign Power guards the Peaceable and curbs the implacable But if the good Plant would wear out the strength of the Weed by extracting and transfusing into it self part of its Nutritive Property the good Plant may degenerate into a Wild one or Weed Also if a private Person shall unauthorized make himself a Judge or Publick Arbitrator he may fall into a Crime on the other hand for these things are the Gardener's Work to whom Vengeance belongeth Mens own Vindictive Desire is touching pitch 8. Now to Answer directly what God's Working in Hell is It is answered That his working there is only according to the first Principle according to which he is not called God but a consuming Fire 9. God's working in Hell convinceth Atheism to be an Error The Devils believe so as to make them tremble Men were loth to believe God made the World and Them though so evident as to leave them inexcusable this they are now assured of by His destroying both It and Them 10. God's working in Hell openeth every Book of Conscience Dives extenuates not his Crimes but roars out his Torments That Place of Darkness affords Light enough to read Guilt by and thereby give Immortality to that Worm 11. God's working there restores the Memory Dives had not forgotten his former calling of Abraham Father as if That would have Privileged him nor had he forgotten his Brethren who perhaps had run Parallel with him in
21 days 17. How mighty their Strength and transcendent their Nature and perfect soever to behold the Most High yet their sweet humble modest Love notwithstanding their sublime Purity is such that they disdain not to serve and dandle such vile wretched Creatures as Man such is the flaming Love they abound with to Christ that they vouchsafe to do for us what sinful abjects even scorn to do for their poor Brethren by constant watching care c. As they did for the Child lost in a Wood for a time in Franconia whom a Snow falling they fed and guided at last homeward The Innocency Chastity and Modesty of Children is that why Angels delight them and no marvel seeing the Lord of Angels gave a little Child as a Pattern of Humility to his Apostles for Children some more eminently have Angelical Sparkles of Paradice in them and before knowing Evil have lively Figures of the Children of the Resurrection 18. And seeing there never was nor can be more than three Universal Principles out of some or all of them must all things originate immediately or mediately 19. Whence 't is plain that Angels and Man's Spirit are of one substance even as the Fire in the luminous Globes is the same with that which being sunk down by the Separator is confined in the Bowels of the Earth for generating of Metals c. 20. The Angels are so near of kin to us that they appear in Human Form And tho' they are not Almighty but depend for Eternal Subsistence and Food from God's Infinite Store yet are they far above all Human Might and Power 21. 1. Because they are not at all detained from action by their own Bodies 22. 2. Because they can have no Resistance from any Elementary Bodies simple or compound in exercise of any of their proper Powers and Offices The Terrestrial Globe hinders not their seeing a Pin's point were it in the Centre of it 23. 3. Because they dwelling in Eternity need not time whence it is that tho' they are but in one place at once yet can instantly be in another not so slowly as Light or Lightening for that needs some time to pass from East to West for altho ' perhaps it hath no detention from its own gravity yet is subjected to some resistance by interposing Atoms and space or distance 24. Their Expedition is otherwise than our Thoughts for our Thoughts being reposed require time to dissipate obstructions immuring them and collect Requisites having first been informed by the Affections or Senses but these sublime Agents being above all such inferior Laws can instantly effect what time must measure it self out to us to think 25. Thus was it an Angel slew in one night 18 5000 of Sennacherib's Army as before all the first-born of all the Land of Egypt passing by all where the Blood was on the Lintel 26. 4. Because of their Noble Transcendent Nature perfectly fixt in them Their Saturnine Property is not their burthen but their most strong Compaction and so of the other Properties Yet how perfectly soever they are honoured with the Majestick Names they admit more as by adventitious occurrents not unfitly call'd Improved and Acquired Experience of the works of Infinite Grace Mercy and Bounty of God to Apostate Penitent Converts at which they rejoyce 27. Angels have the Senses of Seeing Touching Hearing c. yet without Organs whence they are affected with Delight and Dislike Earnest Desire Joy Grief Pleasure and Pain Their Understanding is vast and perfect for they penetrate all Creatures of their Principle Simple or Compound as far at least as their Principle is an Ingredient which yet is bounded by the adverse Principle for the Holy Angels are as Children to the Sinful Tricks of the impure separate World as are the Evil ones to them The infinite God only comprehends all Things as one and all Time and Eternity as present But the Good Angels see not things above them in their own very Principle for they desire to look or pry into the Mystery of the Incarnation by which lost Mankind are found Q. 20. Out of what is the Visible World Created seeing the Scripture saith God made all things by his Word how is the same to be understood A. 1. First By way of Simile A Wheat Corn is sowed there is produced a Blade Ear Husk or Chaff The Ear Straw and Chaff as an Appurtenance to the Corn or an Accident is likened to the Visible World the Grain of Corn to the fixed Harmony produced into Existence by the Power of the Seven Fountain Spirits The Spirit of the Grain to the Quintessence and the Quintessence is the one Element having in it the Mystery and vertue of the Four Elements and the Power of the Holy World and God himself is likened to the Husbandman 2. Thus as the Son is the Infinite Majesty Light and Speaking Word Express Image of the Father and as the Holy Ghost is the Infinite Breath of Father and Son So is the Holy Spiritual World the Image of the Father Son and Holy Ghost in the Heavenly Powers Vertues Colours and infinite Variety and Harmony of it And as the Paradisical Principle is the Image of God's Holiness and the dark Abyss the Image of God's Potence so is the Out-birth the Image of the two Spiritual Worlds in the Good and Evil Properties whereof it is Composed And the Varieties therein Image the Varieties of the Eternal Mansions and these Creatures all those Eternal Creatures of all Kinds 3. Another Simile may be the enkindling of a common Fire the hunger whereof attracts the Circumambient Air for Nourishment yet the Fiâ—e remains an hungry fierceness still the Air by way of Supplement to the vacuity endeavoured by the Fire becomes it self enkindled into a Radiant Flame the operation whereof is various first at nearest distance are hot active Productions also luminous active Productions Secondly At greater remove are other less fiery and luminous yet excellent Productions of both Kinds viz. with the Temperament of Fire and Light 3. At the most remote Extream bounding the stream of the Fires spherical activity are produced sluggish dark cold glâ—â—inous Passive rather than Active Bodies 4. The first Production of the Fire shews us the two Spiritual Worlds of Fire and Light The second the Angelical World in which are the Souls and Spirits of Mankind 5. The third the Out-birth consisting of the visible Heavens and this poor sorry Ball of Earth and Waters 6. Over this Out-birth of the third Principle Man should have continued Ruler and have subsisted in his Divine Principle but falling into it became much a Bâ—â—it into the sluggish cold passive Principle as to his Body and entred into the dark Principle with his Soul and Spirit 7. Out of which the infinite Grace of the Almighty Saviour by dying Himself to the third Principle taught us so to do redeemed the Body and by bringing in the Righteousness of Perfect Obedience teacheth us to die
State of things will fall under the Answers of the 33 34 35 36 and 37th Questions by whomsoever they shall by Divine Assistance be resolved Q. 24. Wherefore and to what use and benefit are the Stars created Ans. 1. This of the Stars includes the Sun and Moon for they also are two of the Royal Stars To the better discoursing which it may be orderly 1. To say what they are 2. What they figure and represent 3. What they are Instruments to do 2. They are in the Out-birth vigorous Engines of Omnipotence that by occult and Spiritual Powers can insensibly influence and act irresistible applications for the concreting or generating improving dissolving of all the various Bodies within the Sphere of their Activity or Principle being of the Outward World or Third Principle 3. Thus by similitude the Angels are call'd Stars As doth the Lord of Angels humble himself to be call'd a Star several times in the Sacred Records 4. What they represent and figure The four Forms or Anguishes of binding attracting Anguish and Fire represent the first whole Principle and do form Saturn Jupiter Mercury and Mars The two Forms of Majestick Light and dear Love figure the whole second Principle and do form Sol and Venus And the seventh Form of habitation a seeming change or inconstancy a seeming alteration of increase and diminution of Essence being the Scale and Method of the third Principle formeth the Moon with her Changes and Eclipses 5. The seven Royal Stars are like vowels or spirits of Letters and the innumerable others are like consonants forming infinite variety of syllables and words for as words are the opening of the secret lockt up Mind so are the Stars the opening of the Dark Mystery or Chaos shut up in the Anguish Chambers And as the various Properties of the several Principles are couched in and expressed by the vowels and spirits of the Letters peculiar to them so the seven Royal Stars are suited in and qualified by the three Principles and the seven Properties of the Eternal Nature 6. Thus the Stars figure God in his Almightiness Infinity and Eternity according to the first Principle In His Majestick Triumphant Kingdom of Light according to the second and in His Gracious Kingdom of Love according to the third Principle And are in the very third Principle the express word of what the Devils are in the Dark Abyss and of what the Holy Angels are in the Heavenly World In all which they are an Image of the Image of God so expresly that the Throne or Angelical Kings according to each of the seven Fountain Spirits are imaged by the seven Kingly Stars The Hosts and Legions of the seven Angelical Kings by the rest of the innumerable Constellations and lesser Glories 7. What they do instrumentally Moses saith they were for signs seasons days months and years Deborah makes them Warriors The Stars in their courses fought against Siâ—era The wise men found one of them a Harbinger to tell them of Christ's Incarnation 8. The wise Antients penetrated so far into their Properties Virtues and Orderly Applications in Human and all Terrene Bodies Affairs Governments that by true Natural Magick they could demonstrate their occult Energies by sensible Influences And the Egyptian Magi imitating Moses may not be concluded meerly Impostors tho' their Acquired Operations how really natural soever must humble themselves before the stupendious Fiat of the God of Nature The Babylionian Magi whereof Daniel and his Companions were could interpret and disclose Secrets And the wise men find the King of the Jews by clear Inductions and Conclusions of Natural Operations as are found Real Causes by Natural Consequents 9. But some Modern Pretenders to Wisdom little more than gaze on the Stars and take up with names and numbers and where they see more will entitle Satan to the honour of God's great excellent Works amongst his Creatures 10. Having thus made way be it known Man hath an Astral Spirit call'd by Some an Evester by others otherwise which laies hold on him at the enkindling of his Life when his Embrio in the Conception is ennobled by a Living Soul and that Astral Spirit sublimeth or debaseth his Intellect decorateth or incurvateth his Mind towards Good or Evil. This as the Separators Instrument doth model and distinguish into Sexes dispenseth such Peculiar Properties as their successive ascending Regiments by prevalence or precedency shall impress then and at the Birth the Internal Faculties more or less capacious c. The whole composure of Body the Eye Feature Stature Lineaments Voice Seal of the Palm Tincture of the Parts caâ—t of the Hair c. 11. The Stars are such Arbitrary Lords since Adam's heavy Fall subjected him thereunto that they can well proportion the Elementary Body of one a Mind well composed Atchievements successful his course renowned Another they load with an incumbring Body of Ill Symmetry perverse Humours and unprosperous and finish him with a Tragical Exit 12. The Astral Vertue is woven into all the variety of Minerals distributing weight to one making Lead from Saturn so Mars harshness makes Iron Venus Copper those with the work of the power of Sol produceth Gold and so of the rest 13. Their Vertue is also as apparent in the other parts of the Creation as in Vegetables from the Cedar to the Hyssop or pile of Grass In Insects that there is infused both utmost diligence and providence which is observed in the Ant. What is the Spur of the delicate curious Bee the crafty industrious Spider the profitable Contexture of the Silk-worm with its Transmigration all proceeding from the strife of the Properties 14. In Sensitives and Animals are there Inscriptions some fitted by the first four Forms or some of the four for prey and hostility others by conjunction of more benevolent Aspects are mild some very docible So in the general Body of Nature by some call'd the Soul of the World are Sympathies and Antipathies c. In all which no cause is left to doubt but their Vertue is expresly eminent in the several Elementary Worlds Who sees not that all things bear their Impressions Some according to the Darkness and others the Light and some after the mixt Powers from their peeping up into Propriety till their being resumed by their several Ethers and first Principles 15. As the Stars are over under and incircle us so their Energies and Powers are in us and on us we are strong in their strength they are not ours more properly than that they are us even a very great part of us They are the Pilot of the Elementary part and the Chariot of our Eternal Soul And to our shame and sorrow it must be acknowledged they are in very many Lords paramount even over the High-born Noble Eternal Soul very many give up their Will to their Conduct for never laying hold of the Grace provided for them in the true Jubilee are voluntary Ear-boar'd Slaves 16. But
of these Waters on whose Face dwelt the Darkness when first the Spirit of God began to move thereon Q. 27. What is the Ground of the Male and Female Kind in the Essence of this World Whence is the Conjunction and Desire arisen Could not the same be effected in one only Ground without dividing A. The Question having three Branches requires a distinct Answer to each part 1. To the first it must be said The Male and Female Essence of this World have their Root in the very Properties whereof the World it self consisteth And tho' the same Tinctures be an Image of the two Spiritual Worlds and of the Principles yet the dividing of the Tinctures are not in the Divine World for though they are there yet are United and so are not two but one Potent glorious Power 2. Will any say Why differs the Copy from the Original It 's answer'd The four Elements though divided are a Figure of the inward World yet the inward World consisteth in one undivided Element whence the four proceeded 3. Now this is a manifest dividing of the Tincture of the Fire from that of the Light which the Elementary Creatures bear in two distinct Bodies divided each from other for as the four several Properties of the first Principle longed to be Creaturely and attained their Images in the several Transitory Creatures so the two Tinctures longed and obtained their Images in the two distinct Sexes of the Transitory Creatures 4. To the second Part whence the Conjunction and Desire is arisen which is for that they come from one only Root and are there really one only Tincture therefore being divided do they so exceedingly desire one the other as is seen among the many Kinds of Birds and Beasts Also in the Properties of the Minerals for we may see how Mars naturally incorporated and digested with and made tough by Venus and then brought into an Hunger and fed by Sol transmuteth into the desired Metal or Solar Body This Desire Nature sheweth in Mulberry-Trees and that of the Vine and Elm c. And not only in Minerals Vegetatives and Animals 5. But in the Sympathies of the outward Universe is this apparent as in every Element and part of Element who all retire to their several Centres as soon as they get dismist from their Obligations to other different Elements Also in the Union of Will between the Loadstone and Needle more especially in Man the bare Instances whereof would be a Volume one whereof may be 6. We see how exceedingly every Man is affected with the Good or Ill Opinion others have of him drawing a kind of Life or Death from their Affections or Ill Humours shewing the Souls of all Men to have but one only Root Body or Fountain and the Severals to be but Drils or Twigs 7. To the third Part Whether it could not have been otherwise c. 'T is answer'd The Male and Female Tinctures are originally one glorious Power-World in which all Properties are United but when that one Element or Divine Eternal Nature was moved to give out the Astral Heavens and four Elements in their divided Properties Those Beasts Birds and Fishes which were distinguished into Male and Female Sexes and did propagate themselves by Commixture were the most apt Expressions of the Astral Spirit and Powers and plainest Characters of the inward distinct Wills For granting that World whereof this is an Image the longing Desire it had to be Imaged it could not possibly be otherwise For though the Female and Male Properties are shewn obscurely in the Spawn and Melt of Fishes but not so conspicuous as in those greater Kinds of Fishes which bring forth young large full-formed Fishes Also not so plainly in Insects as in more mature Sensitives nor in Immoveables as in Insects yet perceptible it is in every of them 8. But all this relates to Temporary Creatures Extracts of the Stars and Elements having no Original Right but Usurping Dominion over Man's pure holy Humane Body for that being out of the Quintessence was capable of Eternity therefore not out of the Stars which shall fall into their Ether nor out of the four Elements which shall dissolve and be Melted by their Central Fire 9. The dividing of the Tincture into two distinct Sexes in Man was no otherwise needful but as a Chirurgeon impresseth an Incision to save a maimed Limb from a Gangrene To man thus it became also of absolute necessity because he was fallen headlong from his Magistracy over both the Astral and Elementary Powers to be a poor Captive under their Domination Q. 28. What are the Principles of the Spirit of this World of the Superior or Inferior Being A. 1. A Principle is a New Birth or New Life The Eternal Deity is the only One Principle wherein is Eternal Life the Creation of Angels and Men are its manifestation yet is there another Principle rightly call'd the first which is also Eternal but not of Life Eternal but of Death where-ever the Divine Principle is not manifest 2. Into which when Lucifer and his Legions had thrown themselves Man was created to supply that place And lest when he should fall he might become a Devil also the third Principle was created to help him And were it not out of the Question and that perhaps it may fall under another Question to be answered by a more enlighten d hand it should be here shewn how the Man's concern in This Created World was what adequated and priviledged him tho' fallen to a possibility of being recovered which here not without some reluctancy I must be content to omit in this place 3. Now restraining my self to the limits of the Question with all brevity 't is answered That the most or innermost Principle of This Worlds Spirit is the Powers of the Stars in all the Creation The Light of the Sun and the Astral World is out of the second Principle And were not some Wrath in the Sun shewn by the intolerable Heat it might unite with the Light of the Eternal Spiritual World but as it is the Tincture in it is the most noble of all Visibles as a God in Nature not only wholly useless to Evil Angels but a check to many of their works for they like Adulterers love the Twy-light 4. The next Birth or Principle downward in the Spirit of this World inferior to the Astral is the Elementary which is not so remote from the wrathful or first Principle as is the former but are another or second Birth the Stars being reckoned the first Whence it is that Man 's Elementary part since the Fall is transitory gross and sluggish like as the Bodies of Beasts for the Spirit of this World doth in this Birth boil up the half dead Salitter gross Sulphur and infected Mercury So that the Body were a lump did not the Sun's lustre or glance give him Eyes and it with the other powers of the Stars in the Properties of the first Principle
the Scales c. They have also Craft Wrath Love every of the Five Senses Invention Providence Memory c. 2. To call them moving Plants is too low but only that it leadeth the Mind to view the Harmony of all the Creatures how they variously some more clearly others more obscurely Image and Shadow every of the three Principles and the seven Properties of the Eternal World 3. Whence they sprung appears by several Answers of the foregoing Questions particularly in that of the 33th 4. And now among the many Glorious Ends of their Creation the following brief hints are some They are at fourth Degree from the Principles and Properties created 1. To Figure the Dark Abyss 2. The Light World though very obscurely 3. The Out-birth or outward World of the Stars and Elements with the almost infinitely various Tendencies Inclinations and Impulses of them By every of which the Almighty Creator uncovereth his veiled Omnipotence infinite Grace and Wisdom 5. The Contemplation of them is both a pleasant and a perplexing Laboratory or serious Book for Man's Study and as it were a Play-Book for the Angels whose piercing understandings read the Effects by the Causes while declined Man gropeth by the Information of the Senses at a piece-meal guess of the Causes from Experience of the Effects 6. It must be confest that Adam being as to his Body or third Principle in his first and pure state Lord of the Mystery whence they proceeded could more sensibly discover and Epitomize them than the Angels as the Lord Jesus had a feeling of our Infirmities by His gracious humbling Himself to be as one of us But Adam's bright Eyes were darkened by the dismal lapse 7. Men may see themselves in the brute Creatures 1. All Unregenerate Men are figured either by the greedy ones 2. Or by the haughty proud Beasts 3. Or by the envious Reptils where by the way may be observed that Envy is found among the Poorer sort for the venomous Creatures are rather creeping than going 4 Or by the cruel wrathful ones And all these are of the first Principle without proceeding to enkindle the Light of the second Principle and are call'd by the Names of those Creatures in the Sacred Records 8. Other Creatures there are that figure the Light World or second Principle by their Innocence Love Usefulness and Loveliness in which they glorifie the Creator and like a dark Shadow pourtray the same 9. There are other Creatures more especially of the Out-world or World's Spirit as those that have Lunary Bodies produced improved and transacted by her Mutations which extends very far also to the whole Creation 10. My last Consideration restraining my self to brevity is somewhat abstracted which is That their Root is not so Ignoble and Vile but their Forms and Idea's for the sake of their Tincture have a prospect into Perpetuity each into their natural Aethers as is signified by the Apostle that the Creatures Travel in pain groaning under forced and as to them causless Vassalage shall be deliver'd into the glorious Liberty of the Children of God where the Drunkard's Horse shall like Balaam's Ass convince mens Madness and cruel Excess The abused toil of the Laborious Ox the innocent life of the Patient Lambs both employed to nourish filthy Lusts the cruel Delight of Hunting to the heart-breaking of the Deer and Hare c. shall at last be material Witnesses of Man's aggravated Guilt perpetuated Apostacy and lawless Irregularities Q 38. Whence was Man Created as to his Body The Fourth grand Distribution A. 1. Not of the Earth for the brute Animals are more nobly descended not of the four Elements which are the Matrix of the Earth for of that Matter are the Brutes form'd and the Elements are Transient and must melt or resolve into their first Principles Not of the Astral Out-birth for the Stars shall fall that is cease their present Order and pay the Debt of their various Properties to the Aether whence they were separated 2. But because Adam's Body was of Eternal Duration had he not â—inned it could not derive from a fading Root as Eternity is not founded on Mortality which forceth our search to ascend a step higher 3. It shall therefore be to the Divine Salitter which also hath the Water-spirit in it from both which the Stars were breathed And this Divine Salitter as it hath in it all the Powers of the Properties together with the Divine Sulphur and Mercury is call'd the great Mystery Eternal Nature or Quintessence 4. Out of this was Created Adam's Holy pure Paradisical Body capable of Eternal Life This Divine Saliter J. B. calls the Holy Ternary that is a Celestial Paradisical pure Earth whence grows Heavenly holy Fruits and near unto it no Curse ever can enter or approach for thereinto cometh nothing that defileth Of this Dust of this Ground Moses spake that God formed Man But they who suppose it to be our dead Dust wherein is the Wrath and Fierceness do not only err by means of the Veil before Moses's Face but also by reason of the Veil on their own Hearts and Eyes 5. The Apostle saith The first Man is of the Earth earthy The second is the Lord from Heaven 6. That it could not be this nor the Elements nor the Astral Birth is clear but therefore that it must be the Heavenly Earth is of forcible Consequence The Apostle saith not what Adam was or was extracted from but what he is or is come to be but if he had so said yet the Proportion betwixt the second and first admits no Comparison 7. Between a Mote in the Sun and the whole Glorious Sun is some Proportion for the least of Quantities taken from the greatest of Bodies below Infinity hath Proportion to that whence it was for it leaves the other really lessened but all created Worlds bear no Proportion with the Infinite Son of God for all breathed out from an Infinite leaves still an Infinite and the Infinite is not lessened by it 8. The Apostle therefore in this place either doth not speak of Adam's first state or doth not lessen his Extraction but adoreth the Glory of the second Adam as the Work-master excelleth the Work made for when of the Angels it is written And hath made them all ministring Spirits Of the Son it is said Let all the Angels of God worship him Also Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever c. Q. 39. What was the Inspiration or Breathing in whereby Man became a living Soul A. 1. The Inspiration of Man's Soul was out of the first Principle the Father's Property which consisteth of the first four Forms of Nature of this Living Root sprung his Immortal Living Soul 2. Yet so is it that wherever or in whomsoever the second Principle is shut out that Exclusion is truly call'd the Death of the Soul for the Living Soul by that Deprivation enters or remaineth in Death which though
flame Like as the right Tincture transmuteth Metals and the Elixir Tinctures Mans sickly Body 8. Now to say what was the Image Likeness Form and Fashion of Adam when he was neither Husband nor Wife and yet Both. He was as to his first Principle or Eternal Soul Potent and Mighty resembling him to the Father and to the Angels who are Mighty in Power In his second Principle or Divine Spirit he was as a God in Holiness Love Purity and Brightness which illustrated his first Principle joyning the Dove and Lamb to the Lyon In his third Principle he was Prince over the Astral Heavens a remainder whereof was in Joshuah who stopt the Sun and Moon And under his God Soveraign over the Elementary Worlds a remainder whereof is seen in Moses over the Waters and Elias over it and the fire 9. His Body was as those in the Resurrection with this difference that having both Tinctures he could have been Magically fruitful whereas they and the Angels are in that respect Barren and was all this in great Modesty Simplicity Wisdom Unity dear Love Holiness and immaculate Purity Q. 46. Had Adam before his Eve Masculine Members and such Bones Stomach Guts Entrails Teeth and also such things as we now have A. 1. Adam's Holy Virgin state exempted him from those impure deformed bestial Members for Propagation which yet pitying our Wo and Necessity is bore with by Divine Patience but the Filthiness of it is signified by the Circumsicion and is that whereof Nature it self as depraved as it is blusheth and is ashamed 2. And Bones were Strengths for the Saturnine Compaction could not petrefie to that excess till his Body which was derived from the Astral Root or one Element whence they were also breathed out became subjected to those Astral Powers which were to have continued his Servants and Subjects 3. The Teeth Stomach Gutts evacuating Vessels c. which we now have could not befal him while he remained in his Holy State for his food was holy pure heavenly such as might stand in Eternity for such was he not as yet confined under the Horoscope of Time 4. He stuft not himself with the Elements nor to speak strictly doth he so yet no nor do the Animals for the Elements feed the Plants and the Animal Creatures feed on the Plants produced by the Elements but Man on the Animal Creatures like a Wolf and on the Plants like an Animal But Adam's Food was Holy Paradisical Angelical Eternal needing no evacuation eaten only in the mouth not tartarous which the Law commanding the Israelites to carry out a Paddle to cover theirs without the Camp signifieth And that other Law prohibiting and strictly nominating unclean and clean Creatures pointeth at Q 47. If Adam also had been thus as we are now how was it possible he should in such a condition have been able to stand without suffering and corruption If Paracelsus thought by feeding on that whereof the Stars subsisted to extend his Thread of Life to what length he would it was a thing might soon be purposed 1. 'T is true the Elixir if duly and naturally collected epitomising the Universe must be granted to do much in tincturing the Vital Natural and Animal Spirits whereby the Astral and Elementary Man may be strongly fortified the Natural Balsam restored radically dregs obstructing the quick interiours of the Powers separated highly conducing to health And the long Lives before the Flood as well as many since seem to be referred to their happy Knowledge of this almost Paradisical Secret as an immediate eminent Second Cause 2. Yet must it not be denied that besides the Supream Law for abridging Man's Race the Astral Revolutions summon us to a period and the Volatile Nature of the Elementary Fabrick loosen the connexions of our Outward Man from Affinity to the fixed Inward Man in so manifest a degree that we bring from the Womb the Seeds of our Mortality our Bones are sensless dead and as to themselves dry already our need of frequent sleep pourtrays death our food is corruptible those few that attain the Winter of Age then fall to Ashes by their Cold Fire others fall to Ashes by the Hot Fire as it is written Your Fathers where are they Also like as it is said If there had been a Law that could have given Life verily Righteousness had come by the Law so had there been an happy Eternity attainable out of the Reliques of Adam we had been thence raised to Immortality but not by dying 3. But seeing there was no such therefore the Second Adam breaks through death into Eternity because Adam having subjected himself and us to the Stars and Elements therefore that part of us under that Rule must change as they who by wrestling vary their Powers nor are the Stars nor Elements themselves on a surer Basis but that the one must one day fall the other melt Q. 48. Should Adam's eating and drinking have been after a Paradisical manner without care distress and sorrow if he had stood out the Trial or Proba A. 1. It is written The Kingdom of God is not Meat and Drink but Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost Yet the Lord saith I will drink no more of the fruit of the Vine till I drink it new in my Fathers Kingdom The Manna also by allusion is call'd Angels food 2. Adam's eating without care distress and sorrow was without distrust of want therefore without care without subtlety and disappointments therefore without distress without sorrow being ever a gainer having supply out of the Ocean needing only to abound in humble gratitude Adam's Paradisical food is sometimes signified by Bread of Life Water of Life a Tree of Life Manna New Wine c. 3. Those fruits are real and substantial more Divine than to be palpable of true Power and Vertue to nourish to Eternal Life therefore must be incorruptible having the forms of the fruits in this World for this is the representation of That tho' but as a dead dark shadow as the husk This hath the Curse in it but the fruits there have the purity realness or essence existing in and deriving from the Omnipotence and Lustre of the Second Principle 4. The dead fruits here which mold and perish figure those heavenly ones The faded stains of things here point at those living bright glorious colours the variety of these the infinity of those these Trees as it were pourtray those this very dead Earth in a sort figureth the Divine Salitter our Mortal Dead Water the Pure River of the Living Water our Air their Air which is of the Holy Ghost our musical Sounds hint at their ravishing living speaking Airs our plucking and eating our fruits figure their so doing the strength we receive and retain thereby figureth the same in them our seemingly delightful Objects figure their transcendent glorious Objects 5. But all in so vast disproportion as a dead Corps to a flourishing lively noble
or Prophesying c. Also He that prophesieth let him prophesie according to the proportion of Faith 2. But this Question intending chiefly things to come we must say There are two sorts of False and two sorts of true Prophets viz First to describe the false 1 They are such as do Lying Wonders and predict Events of Publick and Private Importance going no farther than into the imaged formed word the occult qualities of Nature and outward Causes and Consequents contracted to wonderful Good and Evil Uses into which Satan can easily insinuate himself 3. 2. Such as have a Spirit of Prophesie but not a Spirit of Holiness such was Balaam and such the Lord mentions who shall say Lord Lord we have prophesied in thy Name c. And these have their Water out of the Fountain but receive and keep it in foul Vessels God is so bountiful a House-keeper that his Wine is given running over so that some falls into such Mensold Bottles 4. 3. The Children of Wisdom the regenerated holy ones who live in God and have their Names written in the Book of Life having Divine senses opened These Prophesies according to their proportion of Faith for Love and Faith begot them They prophesie of their own Death which comes to pass for they die daily they are Priests and Prophets what they want in skill and Power they have in love to his Service These as Prophets and Priests shall have boldness in the day of the Lord which they wait for being Children of the day and are true Prophets yet without that Gift of Prophecy this Question levels at and yet of these it is said the Spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets 5. 4. Those of the Lord 's Holy ones who are gifted by the Spirit of Prophecy some more eminently familiarly frequently and as it were continually before whom the Doors of the spiritual World lye Night and Day wide open 6. They as Watchmen see the contest of the Properties and what weight of sin over-ballanceth the contra-ponderating Wrestlers for the Magical Power of their Souls uniteth with the Universal as the Tincture of Gold doth with the Sun's Tincture they as evidently see the Displeasure of the Almighty as by Man's face may his delight or dislike of any extream occurrence be discerned 7. This is so intimate that the Lord saith he doth nothing but what he tells or shews to his Servants the Prophets For as there is but one God and his Spirit is but one and that Man is a compleat Image of the whole Almighty God and having the Work of that one Spirit begetting in him the true Divine second Principle he can as clearly when gifted to this distinct office hear and see the Power whence himself and all things are as a Glass can reflect a Face for all lyes in himself though like Hagar we see not the Fountain till God's Angel shew it though it be as that in and before us For such a Man is as a well tun'd Musical Instrument the Sounds are all distinct ready when ever the Spirit of God shall play on it And the simile sutes well for Man's original Numbers and Measures answer exactly to the Number of the Notes in Musick which are 3 and 7 and not one more or less and this Harmony is signified in the Harp Organ c. used in the legal Administration 9. And as Men are affected with the elevating of the Airs to Delight and with the solemnity into seriousness with the harshness into regret and with the solid composure into excess of Melancholy so ought all to be with the Lord's Voice in his Prophets 10. To such it is shewn many times what time place manner and other circumstances may sitly hide the Lord 's redeemed ones if the Decree be not gone forth for they see where when and how the Destroyer comes by which such may escape who are not to witness by their Blood and be Crown'd with Martyrdom 11. Some have been Leaders as Moses Deliverers and Judges as Samuel c. And as a figure of the Heavenly Worlds concurrence and assistance to the Magical Vertue of the faithful Soul was the Oracle near the Mercy Seat the Urim and Thummim Ephod c. Some have been Prophets for more private and particular Occasions as Agabus c. 12. We are farther to know he that liveth the Life of Jesus Christ lives at the Fountain of Wisdom having all the Principles and Properties in due subordination to the Divine Life whereby he knows God the Creation Heavenly Hellish the Out-world and Himself 13. Yet all this in part he comprehends not that wherewith himself is comprehended he seeth a part of every thing but not the whole of any part As a Mathematician hath a true distinct knowledge of both Globes which he can describe and measure while yet he knoweth not fully that spot of Earth whereon his Feet tread 14. And though the Natural Philosopher penetrateth much farther and the Divine Philosopher deepest of all yet how little a part know we of him even of things existent how much less of Futurities 15. And if Daniel heard the Angel praying How long wilt thou not have Compassion on Jerusalem against whom thou hast had Indignation these threescore and ten years and if the Lord Jesus said of that day and hour knoweth no man no not the Son which I submissively understand to be meant thus viz. 16. Not the Son as he is the opened Treasure of Grace and Love of the second Principle but the Father that is as he is the secret Treasure of the Justice and Vengeance of the first Principle How very little and poor is the utmost faln Man's Race can attain 17. But hence we discern that the Knowledge and Spirit whence the Prophets in the Old Testament did Prophesie Good was by the Spirit in them opening those things out of the second Principle and the Spirit and Knowledge whence the Prophets either brought Evil Denunciations which should succeed was out of the first wrath Principle or by which they call'd down immediate Evil as Eliah the Fire was the same 18. But that it might not as a Coal burn the hand of the Bearer it was wrapt up in the Prophets holy Divine second Principle 19. For as it is hard for a Captain who hath Personal Enemies in the adverse Camp to carry on his Force vigorously and at the same time pursuing his Success wholly lay aside the Sentiments of all personal private Wrongs so is it hard for a Prophet to bring the Turba on others without his own entring into it either before in or after the stroak How needful is it therefore that sinful men should be inhibited to revenge themselves Q. 102. What is Christ of whom the Prophets Prophesied in the Old Testament The Seventh grand Distribution A. According to the constant design of avoiding Repetitions the Answer of this Question is referr'd to the review and perusal of
had an open Door into Hearts that could see who was in the Gall of Bitterness and who had Faith to be Healed so infallible was their deep penetration whereas the now Pretenders have their own Hearts shut against them and many 't is to be feared themselves fetter'd in the Bonds of Iniquity 8. I compare the Apostles continuation in the Lord's Work of remitting after his departure to Joshuah succeeding Moses who passed the Tribes through Jordan as Moses had done through the Sea but the succeeding Judges though Prophets did not so and the Allusion so fits as the one is the plain figure of the other 9. He that converteth a Sinner from the Error of his ways shall save a Soul from death and cover a multitude of Sins As many therefore as God useth for Instruments of Converting Sinners so many Absolvers Remitters Pardoners and Coverers of Sins are there yet not one of them is so but God alone enkindles his Candle and puts a Treasure in such Earthen Vessels sometimes by Preaching the Gospel which who so reject do reject the Council of God against themselves Some others are used by holy Conversation to the same end so is the unbelieving Husband by the believing Wife c. Some by faithful Monitions Some by patient and constant Suffering But many by Writing according to the measure of Grace vouchsafed which is a loud way of Preaching ringing to the largest distance of the habitable Earth and living to the longest space of time it self opening Heaven to several Nations and Ages influencing dark Souls and subjecting them to the Scepter of Jesus Christ. 10. All these and the like blessed ways doth God the Holy Ghost consecrate and sanctifie to touch and change Hearts these are the Keys the Evangelical Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven to unlock Imprison'd Souls But if any pretend to have Keys to open Heaven to the Unregenerate Man the old unchang'd Nature and to bring the Serpentine Man in as once the Serpent entred Eden those are Thieves and their Keys Picklocks Heaven is exempt and above them that would break through and enter not in by the Door Q. 151. What is Christ's Testament together with the last Supper with Bread and Wine How is Christ really enjoy'd what manner of Flesh and Blood is it and what is the Mouth to eat it with A. 1. The Question is double 1. What is Christ's Testament together with the last Supper with Bread and Wine what manner of Flesh and Blood is it 2. How is Christ really enjoy'd and what is the Mouth to Eat it To the first it 's answer'd Negatively 1. It 's not his Almighty pure Deity the infinite inaccessible Light or true second Principle this no Creature can touch or reach 2. It is not the Body Soul and Spirit he received from Mary descending from Eve for so he is our Brother and remains a Creature not so swallow'd up as to be confounded in his Deity but must so return as the two Men in white testified nor is it eaten or swallow'd Cannibal like into our foul Carcasses As the Jews rightly said How can this man give us his meaning this his flesh to Eat But affirmatively 2. The Last-Supper Bread and Wine Flesh and Blood is the pure chast Virgin of Wisdom or Heavenly Man or Holy Humanity which Adam fell from The Tongue of an Angel might tell what this is but there must be a preparedness in the Intellect to receive the thing spoken or he would be as Dumb to the Hearers yet for the sake of the serious Deâ—irers it is answered 3. It is the created Tincture of the Light World That out of which Angels were spoken or breathed forth the Food of Angels as every Creature feedeth of its Mother the Child of the Breast and the Elementary Creatures of the Elements Man's outward Body on the Tincture of the Elements Soul of the World or Astral Powers but if his inward Man hath no higher Nourishment as the Unregenerate hath not the Soul starveth for its Will hath an inferiour false Tincture declining to Sensuality and with the Fool saith Soul take thyrest eat drink and be merry And though by reason of the noble Extraction of the Soul Man hath Eternity as also the Devil remains an Angel Yet is the Tincture of both false and degenerate man going into the Wrath in the Looking-Glass and the Evil Spirits into the fierceness of the first Principle and both out of the Light 4. While the regenerate New Man feedeth on the true Divine Tincture which is the Bread that cometh down from Heaven or the Flesh of Christ and Water of Life or Divine Meekness viz. The Blood of Christ which quencheth the wrath or thirst of the Fire-Soul It is the Quintessence of the Paradisical Angelical World every where for ever pure before God evidently figur'd by the Quintessence and Tincture in the outward World which that Man only who is taught of God knoweth or can know 5. The second part How is Christ really enjoy'd and what is the Mouth to eat it with 2. A. The Mouth is the great earnest hunger and thirst of the Love sick Fire-Soul and the enlightned Human Spirit both sharpened into so vigorous desire of Food proper for them that they are dead while thus awakened to all the drivings of the outward Magia And Christ is really enjoy'd while the outward Bread and Wine or Elements are received by such a Soul The way and manner how The Divine Power-world or Paradisical-Tincture or Virgin of Wisdom and Purity which are meant by the Flesh and Blood of Christ gives it self by and through the Tincture of the Bread and Wine not through the Elementary Bread and Wine which are Mortal and so under the Wrath but through the Tincture thereof which is Immortal and for the sake whereof the Creatures shall in their Idea share in the Liberty of the Children of God Therefore this Tincture or Kind of Quintessence doth the Holy Power use as the Medium to conveigh it self into the Mouth of the Human Soul and Spirit And as the right Tincture transmuteth inferior Metals into the noble solar one so doth this Body and Blood through the above Medium transmute the half dead Image into revived Vertue the Eternal inward Man into a holy lustrous Love-fire and Love-flame that the Man may thereby be exalted into an Image of the three Worlds in due weight harmony and regiment of the Holy World or Divine second Principle the Almighty Infinite Son of God Q. 152. What is the place in Man wherein Christ's Flesh and Blood continueth He himself saith Whosoever eateth my Flesh and drinketh my Blood he continueth in me and I in him Also If you do not eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood then you have no life in you A. 1. What the eaâ—ing Christ's Flesh and drinking his Blood is and how it is really enjoy'd also what we are
of the Country a Self-murtherer their shame and indignation but the unknown number of wounded Souls and self-murthered Souls are not regarded tho' it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for such Gospel-Apostates and Haters of Christ. The malicious Enemy of Mankind who wounds himself that he may murther Souls so greatly he hates Man draws into the Anguishes of his Central Forms whole Harvests of Reprobates in whom he hath no true Right or Propriety by his offering Baits and Cheats for Food and Realities while woe to the World the most glorious gracious and adorable only Son of the only High God whose we are by Absolute Propriety and whose Love to Mankind was so immense and unsearchable as that He made Himself vile and a Sacrifice to whom He offereth Real Highest and Eternal Blessedness yet hath only the gleanings of the Harvest or Vintage while the World lieth in wickedness and their Posterities approve of their saying calling the proud happy and perpetuating the Black Art of Self-murther like Fish hasten greedily to catch the same Bait wherewith others had been hookt or Birds speed to be taken in an evil Net so throng Men to be ruined reject the only Hope precipitate into irreparable desperation Others seeming less obstinate are as fatal Foes to themselves telling and flattering of tomorrow while such futurities of safety expose them as Fools to perish to day while Wisdom saith To day if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts and that This is the accepted time This is the day of Salvation The time of the coming of John the Baptist was in the year of Jubilee yet then saith he The Axe is laid to the Root of the Tree 17. Our gracious God infinitely out-doth and out-bids all to make us his and restore his Image in us for in Man's Creation he did much more than for any or all the visible Creatures of the Out-birth or third Principle in his Redemption for restoring the Divine Image he did infinitely more for him than any or all the invisible Creatures of the first Principle the Apostate Angels for whom is given no Sacrifice nor Mediator Also in Man's Consummation Perfection Sealing and Glorification and Preparation thereunto is much more done for him than for the Holy glorious Angels the Sons and Inhabitants as morning Stars of the bright Heaven the Holy second Principle for the Spirits of just Men made perfect the general Assembly of the Church of the first-born are Fellow-Citizens with the Angelical Worlds and so share of the infinite Goodness of God as they and also have this more that they have had in the Lord their Head the Bowels of infinite Pardoning Mercy drawn out for them which is peculiarly extended them and treasur'd up only in the Emmanuel for them 18. This most dear boundless Goodness calls for the highest and deepest Contemplation 't is so profound so large so adorable so admirable that neither can the Earthen Vessel bear it the Syderial Man find any thing whereunto his Bounty may be likened the Immortal Soul be properly said to know it for it is what passeth Knowledge but the Soul is known by it as it is more or less enlighten'd therewith and Man's intellectual Spirit is so far from throughly penetrating it that it only shines and flows by Influence and Reflection of it for it self is as a drop of the Abyss enlighten'd by a beam of the Eternal Sun it burns and flames in the self-evidencing splendor of that incomparable inexhaustible Treasure and excellent Majesty This poor vile hand lyes prostrate at the Footstool of this Grace the Elementary and Astral Man the Eternal Soul and Spirit is herein swallow'd up once and for ever 19. How reasonable necessary and natural was what our Apostle saith I beseech you Brethren by the Mercies of God that ye present your Bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto God This is the Riches of his goodness forbearance and long suffering to lead man to Repentance There is a Promise that Men shall fear the Lord and his Goodness Man's contempt of Bowels of Infinite Mercy shews him less rational than the Bruits than the Insects who all shew the desire of Self-defence while he refuseth to be shielded from the greatest of horror by the free goodness of his God purchased by his own Blood with sorrows aggravated to unexpressible mysteriousness yet is Man offered all at the cheap Price of Acceptance and importunately besought to open his Hand Mouth and Heart to receive Pardon from day to day perhaps for many years still in vain whil'st he riseth early compasseth Sea and Land with his Life in his hand sweats freezeth bleeds frets wounds his Conscience and sells himself What therefore can the account of such Rejecters of the Invitation to the Marriage Supper be seeing to Ungratitude is added Stubbornness to that Despitefulness and consequently desperate Madness being one who having more done for him than for the Holy Angels and yet thus doth more against the glorious Grace of God in Christ by exalted Wickedness than the very Devils 20. Behold this and Blush ye Heavens ye Sun and Stars gather blackness let the Earth be moved let the Stones of the Streets and Walls be Witnesses let the Brutes and Animals stand amaz'd melt ye Rocks of Adamant relent and sigh ye Mountains of Ice let Marble and Pummice-stones weep come hither discover your inward Forms ye savage Bears cruel Tygers Vultures and unnatural Vipers The Heavens Sun and Stars were never Witness of the like Tragick Stupidity for had they seen the Angels that fell become Devils yet had they not known them refuse Mercy freely continually and importunately tendered the most brutish Animals reject not but greedily snatch what they want the Adamantine and Marble Rocks are all easily dissolvable by their proper Separators and Dissolvents the Mountains of Ice are as unwilling Captives Bears Tygers and Vultures are not only kind and friendly to themselves but compassionate to their Young the Viper though he destroys his Genitrix yet seems to do it of necessity to preserve its own Existence where therefore can be found so obdurate a thing as the Impenitent Heart of Man so great a Monster so ferine a Brute such a Prodigy of Ingratitude so implacable a Creature as the hardened obstinate Sinner No such Ingratitude and Cruelty can the Astral World demonstrate in the contrary Wills of the Martial Mercurial and other cross Constellations nor in the Elementary Offspring of them nor all whose Differences result to Harmony in the Earth or Deserts Air or Seas no not in Hell the dark Abyss or Devils no Sinners against so great Mercies and means for Recovery no Sinners against a Redeemer against the bleeding Love and Bowels of a Saviour there but Man the Devils are those for whom nothing of Mercy is prepared Oh therefore that Men were wise that they knew this and would hear that their Souls might live and not sink
into everlasting Indignation Wrath Tribulation and Anguish who can dwell with devouring Fire under the Wrath of the Lamb Q. 167. What is the Dying of a true Christian What of him Dyeth A. 1. The Dying here inquired is call'd a Sleep which alludes to Adam who not exerting his Power became as one fainting and fell into a deep Sleep in which time his Female Property was divided from him and he slumbered to the Unity of the Paradisical Life and then was opened in him the divided state partly and but partly Paradisical for it was a begun Declension into the Dividings of the Astral Multiplicity And by Eves and his Eating the Fruit of the third Principle soon wrought in them dismal Effects for he lived no longer according to the Universal Will but set up a private Self-will as Law-maker ceasing to Rule over the Astral Powers he fell under them and so sadly as to be relieved and collect support and food from them given up to their contrary Properties and became a Beast as to his outward Body the deadness of part whereof degraded him so far as to render him by his Bones Skin and other insensible Parts to the baseness of Vegetatives and all this not transient as are some Astral Impressions but as a strong Prison out of which is no escape but by demolishing the Walls and Fabrick This is the desolate Wilderness which was signified by the going of the the Lord Jesus out of Canaan into the Wilderness to be there Forty days teÌ„mpted of the Devil after Fasting 2. Thus may a glimpse be seen what Adam's Sleep and after that his Fall introduced It chang'd his first Principle by darkning the Divine Eye of his second from great Power and active Vigor such as is that of the mighty Angels into Discord Rage Envy Fury c. and it chang'd his third Principle from so great Purity Transparency and Aptitude to have done Eternally the Offices of his great Soul and Divine Spirit into a gross obscene filthy palpable feeble sickly bestial perishing Carcass or Sack of Worms 3. Now when the Sun of Righteousness descends into this dark Dungeon he more or less according to the growth of the Regenerate Child by his pure meek Spirit appeaseth the Disorders of the Soul and halloweth it directing correcting and confirming a resolved will to obey as simply as a little Child and to persevere as a strong Man in Christ by which the Internal Man is in great part made God's Child and Image reaching toward the Love flame pressing strongly thitherward and groans to be with the Lord but still is the Body as little affected as the Bark of a Tree with the Virtue of the Fruit or as a Candlestick with the lustre of the Taper or as the Earth with the Astral Vertue rouâ—ing the Principles of Sulphur and Mercury in the saline Spirit in and through it 4. What can be done with this Body If it were possible to affect it so as the East-India Nut-tree doth that the Mercurial Vertue arising with Sulphur into a Nutmâ—g on a Clove for the Stud the Bark should be a Cinnamon it were somewhat but our Carcass is as senseless of the inward Man's Divine Work as the Bone is the Respondence and Intercourse the Spirits have through the Arteries and venal Channels or as the Beasts Hide is of the Astral Impulses moving the Animal Therefore it must like a Husk shell off and the Natural Body as a Grain of Wheat be sowed into the Elements whence it derived as the Corn into the Earth and die before it can increase and rise a spiritual Body 5. Thus dieth the Elementary part of the true Christian. How dieth the Wise-Man as the Fool returning into the Mouth whence it was spoken The Astral Body also rather disappears than dies but being dissolved from the ancient Obligations to the bestial Body it may remain at the Will of the Noble Soul to be its Chariot wherewith as a Medium it sometimes doth vouchsafe a loving Visit to his dear Christian Friend yet in the Body but most easily when such a one sleepeth as to the Elementary Man and seeth heareth and toucheth with his Astral Man for then may the precious separate Soul if it desires it as familiarly have access and converse with his dear Friend or Brother as two Men of one Language may and this hath been and may be to the great Satisfaction and Edification of the surviving Christian though not frequently because of Mens unworthiness or for fear of Impostures and especially because the Lord only is abundantly and infinitely all-sufficient by his own Omnipotence and Omnipresence 6. As Adam slept to the Holy Paradifical Virgin state and awaked to the bestial World's Adulterous state so the true Christian's Death is a sleeping to that sleep of his viz. The filthy sickly cumbring prophane Elementary Life and an awaking to the pure holy triumphant dear sweet child-like angelical Endless Life it transfers him out of the howling Wilderness of Temptation into Eternal Canaan out of a Dungeon into the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God out of the Turba of perplexing Multiplicity and restless wrestling of contrary Properties into the equal Temperature and Calm harmonious complete Unity the private Self being extinct he entreth the Universal sacred Freedom of the Lord's Redeemed ones Q. 168. What is the Dying of the wicked in that it is called an Eternal Dying A. 1. It hath been often inculcated in these Writings that all Men are in all the three Principles of one Blood but their difference is notorious for though they are almost the same in their first and third Principles and much what alike though not without great distance of degrees in their second Principle yet here is the immense difference that in some their second Principle like the House of Saul impairs and gradually as it were insensibly extinguisheth to a dismal blackness to be felt at length and in others the Regeneration calmly yet with irresistible sweet force more and more opens that Principle which as the House of David improves and flourisheth 2. From these dear Children if their Progress hath been Crown'd with Perseverance their third Principle is like Trash and dusty Rubbish scatter'd about a firm built Structure fully finished which Death like an impetuous Storm with rapid Motion disperseth or as a mounting Torrent of Water violently bears away leaving the Fabrick unconcern'd But the third Principle is to the other his Fortress Confidence Retreat Refuge Rest Joy Hope Treasure and his all therefore Death at once surprizing him and snatching that away he and it perish together his only home falleth for want of Foundation the Cistern he hath hewn is broken having no Water in it nor can hold it if any were entrusted thereinto which shews the fault to be in the very bottom else it might hold some Water but the truth is it hath no bottom at all The World to the one is either as it is to
Consider common Fire it is not Light no more than a Rose is a Tree or the Root of a Lilly is the Flower Tho' by the way we may digress to observe that an Eminent Pen endeavours by many in their kind ingenious Arguments to prove Light to be Fire in a less degree but granting the vigour of the Fire to be in the Light or by the affluence of the Air to be the enkindler of the Light yet will it not follow that the Light is Fire unless the whole Deep is therefore the Sun because the Sun's vigour enlivens it For grant That Author's Arguments to arrive at what he levels them the distinct Properties will result into a Chaos whose various Vertues mutually produce consubstantiate figure and cohabit each the other yet the one no more the other than Heat is Cold or Light is Darkness It would also confound the Son with the Father and those two to be only terms convertible a thing so far from truth as not to be esteemed only short of it but rather diametrically opposite to it But passing by this consider we as was said common Fire that hath an attractive hungry fierceness in it like that in a heated Stone and that fierceness must be perpetuated if the Light be not generated by it but is the Fire of Hell but when the Light begotten by it as from a Fountain is resigned unto it and shineth in it then and there is the meek Vertue united with the strong might of the Fire thereby turning all into a Majestick splendor so bringing the Copy as a fit due conformity to the Original because the alone perfection of the multiplicity is its arriving at the Unity 23. Now come we to the last and God shall be all in all here may be taken a prospect of the Holy of Holies An Angel's Royal Hand were well employed in drawing these Lines and Measures but then still it must be with a Reed and the Computation must suit with the Cubit of a Man the Language also must be flammering wretched and as it were foolish else it descends not to the fallen Human Understanding And as none knows the things of a man but the Human Understanding Spirit so none those of God but the Holy Spirit of God What is vile dust to penetrate this Woe to us that we are of unclean Lips and vain in our imagination 24. Truth tells us that our Omnipotent God hath three Delights viz. 1. In his Son in whom is his delight 2. In the Excellent made so by his Son 3. In Exercising Mercy The two last viz. the Excellent and Exercising of Mercy dwell in the Son as in their Ocean Centre or Fountain and issue through him as Sap through a Tree and That Tree grows in our Impotent Humanity Now after the delivering up the Kingdom to the Father God's becoming all in all is the uniting all these three Delights to the Almighty Power-World where the Joy is incomprehensible and the Increase of it Endless and Infinite for then Almightiness of Strength and Wisdom hath replenisht it self with Almightiness of Love and Goodness the Unity hath reassumed the Multiplicity What words may express This most Holy Dominion 25. Can it be pourtrayed by the Joy of a tender-hearted Parent all whose dear Children having been miserably captiv'd by a barbarous malicious Enemy are by the prudent Conduct and prosperous Atchievement of their eldest Brother compleatly rescued May it be apprehended by the Joy of the Harvest when the loaden Sheaves crowning the Fields do seasonably enrich the Barns and Granaries Or of the Vintage when the bowed Branches dropping into the Press overflow it Or by the lost Son the lost Groat the lost Sheep the Joy of the Bridegroom over the Bride all which are faint resemblances and dim shadows of the Delight of the Eternal Father Also what is the Content of an Earthly Monarch whose Victorious Arms subject his Enemies and his seasonable Succours secure his Friends What is the Triumph of the Sun in the Firmament when his Spicy Beams revive the Face of Nature grown pale by his long absence and call up a smiling Spring These are weak figures and dark similes of the Delight of the Sun of Righteousness And what is the sweet Satisfaction the tender Mother hath by seeing all her dear Babes for whom she travell'd to whom she had drawn out her Breasts over whom she had long unweariedly watcht and cared of whom she had been a compassionate Comfort and Assistant in their Froward Fits various Anguishes Sicknesses and Hazards as so many Deaths at last all thriveâ— to perfect stature of Body excellent Endowments of Mind exact chearful Dutifulness to their Father and by Him all advanced to wear Crowns By this may be tho' obscurely represented the Delight of God's Holy Spirit Lastly What was the Joy of the lately oppressed Tribes when delivered at the Red Sea and occasion'd the Song of Moses What was also their Joy when God turned back the Captivity of Sion from the Chaldean when they were as men in a dream and what the Joy of them who having washed their Garments in the Blood of the Lamb and had been brought out of Fiery Tryals do come to receive their White Robes and Palms by which may be seen the Joy of the Redeemed of the Lord in that Holy of Holy days Thus are the sublimost Affairs offered in a most familiar homely manner with a low voice and flat style for so the Wisdom of God descends and delights to cloath it self while Man's Wisdom would flourish in enticing words puft up with empty sounds Obj. 26. But some by way of opposition may say that God ever was is and shall all be in all as it is written Of him for him and through him are all things and in him we live move and have our Being Ans. A confused knowledge of things doth but little difference men from Brute Creatures Let us therefore summarily remember what dispersedly in the Answers foregoing and the blessed Jacob Behmers Writings is large and clear viz. That the gracious Creator spake the Paradisical or Angelical World out of himself according to every Property of the Eternal Nature and according to the holy second Principle which till there was a rent by the receding of Lucifer into the by-path of his private Self-will the whole remained an exact Image and true Copy of the Original where the Name of God was perfectly spoken and God was all in all 27. And out of and as an Image of the Paradisical Principle and with the Properties of the Power-World did God speak forth the Astral-World an Image of both Inward-Worlds which as a Child of the other two had as the Children of Men have a Centre of its own and tho' it were a Copy of the Inward-Worlds yet was another a third Principle issuing into the multiplicity and as far as it so remaineth God is all in all in it also 28. In and over
this Principle Lucifer's Throne had Jurisdiction substituted by the Son of God himself till on Lucifer's Heresie he became uncapable to derive Power from the Holy World but introduced Anarchy in the Principle over which he was to Rule according to Divine Order thence all faces of his Legions and This very Deep gathered Blackness and the Deep tumbled into a Chaos Here then God as He is Purity Holiness and Goodness was not all in all but they were now captiv'd in him as he is the Ocean of all Might and Power the Abyss of the first Principle according to which He is called a Jealous God and Consuming Fire and thus is He in That Profane Dark World But God is all in all in the Holy World and Creatures as far as they are Holy in his gracious majestick Light and Goodness the thing in this Question intended 29. And now that the whole Deep being God's inoffensive Creature was impos'd on suffering the sad Effects of the Rebellion of the Apostate Angels it pleas'd the God of Grace whose Angel pitied Balaam's Ass and who made merciful mention of the very Cattle in Niniveh to ransom this great space that as it had been the Tragical Stage of the Impure Spirits it might by introduction of Light be the Theatre of Mercy and Goodness Then was the New which Men call'd the Old World founded or a New Principle revealed such a one that as the Evil ones having profanely left their Habitation viz the Holy second Principle so were they in a great measure excluded This New one the Light of the Outward Sun being no advantage but rather opposing them and the Moon tho' but a Looking-glass reflecting the Sun's Light not serving but rather thwarting them for no Light fits them better than that of the Lightening from the astonishment that comes with it 30. And whereas the Out-World was like a Boat built of the pieces of a wracked Ship and that it was formed of the Properties which Lucifer had divided therefore were the fierceness of Mars the strong Bands of Saturn the sly quality of Mercury figured distinctly and not harmoniously in the cruel and other Creatures of this World at enmity with the noble Jupiter amiable Venus and royal Sol. Seeing now also here was an empty Throne whereof Lucifer was as uncapable as of That Estate which he had not kept then did God create a Prince who might Image the Trinity His Soul having the Properties of the first Principle His Divine Spirit the Holy second His Royal Transparent Body capable of Eternity figuring the third in This Noble Person while he so stood was Power and Suitableness to sit in the Throne of the third Principle for in him was God whom he compleatly Imaged all in all 31. But when This Prince divorc't the Pure Virgin of Divine Love and degenerated into Bestial Lust God his Creator was no longer all in all in him but he was a Mock-God to himself a Captive to his own Lust and Tyrannous Self-will So that his dear Virgin could no longer trust her self with him but he died as to her and she withdrew her pure Modesty into her own Heaven leaving his Soul among the Murtherers whereof Cain was afraid like to the state of the Out-cast Legions and his Body like the dark confused Deep before the Almighty call'd for Light where was now the Holy Image wherein God is all in all Q. 32. But is not God all in all in His Converted Children here of whom it is said He that is born of God sinneth not And as many as be perfect viz. meaning them be thus minded Again He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified and is not God all in all in Such A. Well were it for us if it were so but our too high thoughts keeps us dwarfy and greatly aggravates our wretchedness proceeding very much from our ignorance of that State we fell from of which Treats the 45th Answer 8 and 9 verses and the 52 Answer throughout and how miserable Man 's Fall made him is traced in the 72 Answer in all the 8 verses of it The dividing of the Tinctures into distinct Male and Female is an Evil men are willingly ignorant of where began the dismal breach whence David as a Prophet lamenteth his Extraction viz. I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my Mother conceive me that also is signified by our Apostle viz. There is neither Male nor Female but Christ is all in all 33. The present State of God's Holy Ones subjects them in a great degree to the prevailing hot fury and wrath of the first Principle and the fleeting wavering ambiguous unsteadiness of the third against both of which is the Apostle's caution viz. I will therefore that men pray every where lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting that is without the predominancy of either first or third but in the Resignation Love Meekness and Faith of the pure second Principle Thus as this World is a part of us the God of this World hath a party in us which entails on Adam's Posterity vast loads of sorrow misery vexation and woe for so far are we wandered from the Holy Powers and Magically formed and degenerated into so corrupt a Bestial Body that the awakened Soul finds her self not only unequally but sinfully and shamefully yoked to a strange deformed filthy Companion instead of the pure Paradisical Virgin Image capable of Eternity bearing only the figure but that we lost was to have been the Ruler over and Epitome of the Out-world and was invested with Dominion of the Works of God and all this to that degree of wretchedness That to be present in this vile Body is to be absent from the Lord. And that through much tribulation we must enter into the Kingdom of God 34. Hence is it that the Wise man tells us Wisdom and Sorrow joyntly grow up for he that encreaseth Wisdom encreaseth Sorrow So that Heman who was wise to a Proverb that it was said of Solomon He was wiser than Heman This Heman the Pen-man of the 88 Psalm shews his frame to be composed of mournful parts and that Psalm as the Glass Door or Issue of him is as the Epitome of unexpressible grief as a night mantled over from any the least glimpse of day It is ignorance stupidity or madness that transports men in the Vale of Tears into wanton fleshly merriments for this is the time of budding and extendeth but to green fruit wherein the bitter sour undigested Properties prevent by their crudity the Solar Influence And lest we deceive our selves we ought to know this is the watry Seed-time the place of the Childrens being in the birth of working with fear and trembling fighting wrestling watching of receiving many a wound and discouragement of suffering reproach many reluctances upon the rallying and re-enforcing of our domestick Enemies who impudently almost continually return upon us our old Habits The Evil One is also
him and gave him the superior Primacy in whose bright Light was perfect understanding 3. But he seeing himself so Triumphant moved the Spirit generated by the seven so hard and strongly that it became very fiery climbing up in the Fountain of the Heart 4. But had it moved gently and lovingly as the seven did before they became creaturely there had been generated a lovely mild Son like to the Son of God and then the Infinite Light the Son of God would have been delighted in and played with the small Light in Lucifer as with a young Son or dear little Brother 5. But let not the Devil make any believe Gods will was that he had some Men should be loft and so pervert Gods Truth defending the Devil by Lies 6. For know the whole Deity hath in its innermost Birth or Pith a very tart terrible sharpness in which 1. The Astringent quality is a very hard dark cold attracting like the extream Frost congealed Water when suppose the Sun totally taken away which austere attraction causeth fixation of the Body and the hardness drieth it up so that it subsisteth creaturely 7. The bitter quality is tearing cutting and penetrating driving the Astringent to Mobility From the fierce rubbing and raging of both which 8. A wrathful kindling proceedeth 9. And in this eager strife existeth a hard Tone or Noise penetrating all like a Tyrant according to which God calls himself an Angry Jealous God and in this consisteth Hell Enmity and Eternal Perdition And such a Creature is the Devil come to be 10. And in these is God an All-comprehensible All-fixing Sharp God 11. But in the strife and heat of these qualities ariseth the Light and in the Light and the Sweet Water the Flash of Life wherein all the foregoing qualities are made pleasant as a sour Apple by the Sun is made sweet and good yet the Taste of the other qualities remain in it The Head Spring and Fountain of Sin 12. Lucifer's qualifying Spirits having an Imaging Power in that Royal Body vehemently affected the high Light so triumphantly that they lifted up themselves to Pomp and Stateliness leaving the Angelical Obedience whereby the great bright flash became so bright as was intolerable to the Fountain Spirits against the right of Nature So that the bitter quality which Existeth in the sweet Water and is the cause of joy trembled and rub'd it self so hard in the Astringent that the Fountain or Quality of Heat was eagerly kindled Which bitter and hot Quality caus'd the Astringent to dry up the sweet Water wherein the Heavenly Heat and Light have their Being And thenceforth could not the Heat rise to a Flame or Light for the Light existeth in the Oyliness of the Water thus dryed up but glowed as red hot Iron or rather a very hard Stone in the greatest Heat 13. Not that the Spirit of the Water was devoured but its quality was turn'd into a dusky hot and sour Quality Which introduced extremity of Cold also whereby the whole Body grew fierce and wrathful And the bitter Quality raged and became a Poyson hence sprung the first Poyson which bitter poysonous Death comes also into poor Humane Flesh. 14. And now was Lucifer an Astringent hot bitter dark cold sour stinking poysonous Fountain And the Tone rose up through the bitter Qualities penetrating the Heat and Astringent hard Quality as a clap of Thunder 15. God created Angels out of himself that they might be harder and dryer compacted than the Ideas or Forms which through the qualifying of the Spirits of God in Nature rise up and through the moving of the Spirits pass away again that their Light in their hardness should shine brighter and the Tone of their Body should sound clearer and shriller than it did before either shine or sound in the Salitter which was thin and dim And therefore they lifted up themselves tho' they knew themselves to be but a piece of the total God supposing they were a fairer little Son than the Son of God himself and that they could qualifie operate and elevate themselves above the whole God and Rule and Govern all without Corrival or Supream Comptroller 16. Here lyes the Root of Covetousness Envy Pride and Wrath. All Lucifer's Angels fell with him for he was created out of the Kernel of the Salitter out of which they were created he their Lord they were all of one will with him which they would not suffer to be taken away 17. Q. Did not the Universal God know this before the Creation of the Angels 18. A. No. for if so it had been a Predestinate Will in God to have it so and had been no Enmity against God but God had created him a Devil God made him a King of Light and for Disobedience spewed him out of his Royal Throne 19. God knew this according to his Wrath in which he is not called God but a consuming â—ire but knew not this according to his Love according to which he is called God into which no fierceness entreth and so God is alone called God or Goodness 20 And what Gods Love knoweth sensibly or feelingly in it self that it also and that only it willeth 21. The Devils Prison is in upon and above the Earth up to the Moon till the last day And 22. Then their House will be in the place where the Earth now standeth and this will be called the Burning Hell but not in such a Form as it now standeth but separated in the kindled wrath Fire into a dark hot cold rugged hard bitter stinking Reliâ—ks dregs or dross CHAP. XVIII Of the Creation of Heaven and Earth 1. WHen the Astringent quality was predominant the hard dry Stones came to be 2. But where the Astringent and Bitter were equally predominant there sharp Gravel and Sand. 3. Where the Tone and Astringent in the Water there Copper Iron and Rocky Oar. 4. Where the Water there the wild Earth But the Bitter Spirit is the chief cause of the Black Earth 5. Yet the Heat in the Astringent chiefly helped to make the hardness and there it generated the noblest and preciousest Saâ—â—â—ter in the Earth as Gold Silver and precious Stones 6. But when the hot Spirit in the sweet Water was predominant in the Love the Astringent made the Oar of precious Stones c. CHAP. XIX Concerning Heaven what it is where it is and how it is 1. THat there is a pure glorious Heaven in all the three Births aloft above the deep of this World in which is Gods Being and the Holy Angels he is not Born of God that denieth Which comprizeth the Kingdoms of Michael and Uriel and continueth as it was from Eternity with which the innermost and holy Birth in this World uniteth being all one Body of God one Heart one Will one God all in all for the true Heaven is every where 2. When thy Spirit apprehendeth the
it all which the Fiat holdeth fast thereby Creating the Head c. And by the hard Terror is made the Skull and in the Contest and Terror of the departing Essences come the various Veins 11. The stifling in the Matrix is the first dying by which the Essences so sever from Heaven that the Virgin cannot be generated which Adam should have done without Woman or rending his Body 12. Further of the Incarnation The Fiat so holdeth in the Terror that the filling in of Elements hardeneth to be Bones So the Elementary Man riseth and the Heavenly falleth And the Stiches and Aches Women feel come from the Sympathy the Tincture of their Bodies have with the Tincture in the Matrix In this Anguish a sting enkindleth a Fire and in the Fire a Light of Joy which is the beginning of Life 13. In the fourth Month the Light of Life makes the harshness calm and meek here springeth a longing and vertue coming from the Light and this delight in the Love is the Noble Tincture which is the Child 's own And the Spirit generated out of the Anguish in the flash of the Fire is the true real Soul CHAP. XIV Of the Birth and Propagation of Man The very Secret Gate 1. MANS Paradisiâ—al Life sprung up in the Holy Ghost in the Divine Light in the place of the four Elements Whence when he departed into the Principle of the Spirit of this World that withdrew and this made him like other Beasts desiring only to fill it self and propagate By that Spirit is he figur'd in the Mothers Womb Life Birth Nourishment good or evil success is given and at last corruption 2. And were not Mans Essences out of Gods Eternity he like the Spirit of other Creatures had gone into its Ether and in this Life had worn the rough Hide but he is left with full Power to yield himself to which of the first or second Principle he will Hence is it that Regeneration is of absolute necessity to the blessed Restoration 3. Of the strong Gate of the indissoluble Band. The three Essences viz. Harshness or Sourness Bitterness and Fire make like the Trinity the indissoluble Band. The first is the Fiat and sting of the second and both the cause of the third and from all three in anxiety ariseth the twinkling flash out of which the Angels are Created who by their longing after the Heart of God were enlightened by the Divine Wisdom But Lucifer's Pride cast him back into the anxious Fire without Light 4. The Gate of the Sydereal or Starry Spirit By the great longing of the darkness after the light was this World Created which desire must continue else no good Creature could be 6. But the Starry Spirit would be King of the Essences of the Soul which ought not to be It longeth to find the Virgin in Man where once it was but the Virgin consisting in the vertue of the second Principle is out of reach 6. Every thing groaneth after the Divine Vertue to be freed from the Vanity of the Devil which panting should it cease the World would be a meer Hell 7. But that the Creatures may attain it they must wait till their dissolution when in their Figure and in their Ether they get a place in Paradise 8. The more the Spirit of the World wrestleth and that the Soul by approaching the Heart of God resisteth the more eager still is the Spirit of the World There the King the Vertue of the Sâ—n is so triumphant that it sublimeth all the Essences of the Stars to their highest Summit And here the Essences of the Soul can see in the Light of the Virgin it s own Original 9. The depth in the Centre That Fire we see with our Eyes is not the Element of Fire but the fiery Wrath come to be such by the inkindling when the Devils fell out of the one holy Element in which one Element is Meekness and Rest not Heat and Cold which have a contrary will 10 Because therefore the fierceness would rule over meekness God caused the Sun to come forth thereby opening four Centres 1. It made the harshness thin and pleasant as Water 2. By the Water the fierceness in the flash was extinguisht 3. The Motion and Egress whereof became Air. 4. And what the sour fierceness had attracted to it was thrust out as the Earth swimmeth in the Water these seek in anxiety to retreat again into the one Element which cannot be till the number to the praise of God be full according to the Eternal Mind 1. The most precious Gate in the Root of the Lilly 1. The longing or attracting willing and desiring are the three beginningless and indissoluble Band. Hence originateth the Eternal Mind in that the Will goeth out of the attracting Activity into Meekness Hence also originateth the Eternal Anguish Gods original fierceness Hence likewise originateth the Eternal mixture where the flash discovereth it self in many thousand thousands The going forth out of the darkness without intermission opening still a new Centre or Principle in infinitum 2. The Gate of God the Father The attracting of the Will impregnateth it self with meekness being deliver'd from darkness wherein standeth the pleasant joy for in the appearing of the sharpness breaking the darkness standeth the Omnipotence and is as when a Man is instantly come out of a scorching Fire to sit in a temperate refreshment herein is the perfection of the highest Joy and Meekness 3. The Will of God is that whatsoever inclineth it self to him he will create in meekness To which the Worm in the Spark inclineth whether to the sharp fierceness in the Fire or the sharp flash to the Regeneration in the second Principle of meekness in that it standeth in Eternity 4. The deep of the darkness and of the Light are alike great and are both without beginning and end the firm Bar of a whole Principle is between them And the will to Love Resignation Meekness and sharp Regeneration is the bound or limit of these two Principles 5. The Gate of the Son of God The will from Eternity impregnateth it self and hath an Eternal Desiring and bringeth forth Eternally the Eternal Son and Child of Meekness Vertue or Power expressing and speaking forth the depth of the Deity and the Eternal Wisdom of God 6. The Gate of Gods Wonders in the Rose of the Lilly The Holy Trinity dwelling in it self generating out of it self comprehended by nothing having no place of rest or limit but is the unsearchable Eternity and Infinity hath an Eternal Will going forth of the Mouth and Heart of God by the Holy Ghost In which going forth by the sharpness of the Fiat all Essences are and yet this is not God but a chast Virgin of the Wisdom of God This Virgin openeth Gods Wonders in the Eternal Essences These reveal'd Wonders become a substance And this substance is the one Element wherein all Essences are And the fair chast
and Sorrow Meekness and Fierceness thus it is in the Father's Nature This twofold desiring in one substance are two Centres that to Meekness not severed from the other is the second or Son and is therefore call'd the Son because generated out of the Father's Nature call'd the Word because he is the Glance or Majesty of the Eternal Liberty call'd a Person because he is a Self-subsisting Essence not the Birth of Nature but the Life and Understanding of Nature and call'd the Heart of the Father because he is the Vertue and Power of the Centre of Nature as the Heart is in the Body and call'd the Light of the Father because he takes his Lustre out of the sharpness of the Eternal Nature and call'd wonderful for by him out of the Father's Essences are all things brought to Light the Father and Son are as Fire and Light 7. The Holy Ghost is the third the Breath or Noise is that which makes the Will manifest and the Heart also The Noise is the awakener of Life framer of the Sences or Reason and bringer of one Essence into another Thus the third Person is a Self-subsisting Essence going in triumph with the Essences the Father and manager of the Sword of Omnipotence the destroyer of Malice and Evil the opener of the Genitrix in the Darkness All which is thus shewed in Man his Body tho' it hath the Essences were senceless without the Spirit Again the Spirit is not the Understanding and Light it self for the Light is the blossom and originateth in the Tincture of the Fire and the Spirit is the blower up of the Fire CHAP. V. Of the Virgin the Wisdom of God and of the Angelical World and of the Holy Trinity 1. GOD is only One every where present the Mind therefore asketh if the Spirit goeth out from God whither goeth he seeing he remaineth in the mouth of God as a Spirit in a Body to which it is answered he goeth forth revealing God as in the seven Lamps and opening gradually the seven Seals but the seven Thunders being in the dark Matrix of Fierceness he hideth and â—ealeth not to be known till they are past and the whole Mystery of God's Kingdom opened by the seventh Angel And the Glassy Sea is the Water Spirit whence the Fiat made not only the outward Element of Water but every thing for in this seventh Form in great Holiness is the Father revealed in this Angelical World 2. Thus the Father's Will maketh the cause of Nature which is a Darkness consisting of the four first Forms to become seven and thence infinitely the seventh being their Body in this Earth for the Fathers Nature in the Wrath makes this Corporeal in which the Devil as Prince in the Wrath is called Prince of this World And the same is also in the deep of the Astral Wheel Just so is it also in the inward Holy World which is not severed from this but this severed by a Principle from that for there is no Angle where the inward World is not 3. The Angelical World of Love and humble Joy is the Sons and at the flash two Kingdoms sever Love and Wrath there is made the Cross with the two Centres as Light hath another Centre than Fire tho' not separated and on this Cross Birth is the Heart or Son of God generated from Eternity in Eternity at this Cross lie the Holy Children of the Virgin Image and in the Wisdom of the Serpent are the Children of this World The Holy Ghost goeth forth from the Father through the Son as the Air from Fire and Light revealing in the Angelical substantiality and this is meant by Ternarius Sanctus The highly Precious Gate for Man to consider of 4. The Wisdom of God is an Eternal Virgin of Purity in whom the Holy Ghost hath discovered the Image of Angels and of Man also of the third Principle she is the great secret Mystery which unapprehended goeth in the Powers and Anger of the Father opening the Wonders in the Forms and Seals of Nature Through her hath the Holy Ghost not only made Corporeal Existences out of both Matrixes of the substantiality but a limit to them where the seven Forms shall go into their Ether as after the six days Work or six Creations they enter the seventh being their Eternal Rest and the time of the seventh Seal and Trumpet yet both Mothers shall stand before the Trinity in the Eternal Figure for the glory of God's works of wonder 5. Tho' this Virgin be incorporeal yet is the Spirits Corporeity and Visibility her heavenly similitude is the Beauty and Lustre of all Fruits the Vertue of all Jewels and Vegetables she may be as the Tincture of the Holy Element wherein the Paradisical growing consisteth and the seven Forms as the holy delight of the Angels wrestle being a fulfilling of the will of every Life she is not circumscribed every Divine Creature as the Angels and holy Souls of men hath this Virgin in the Light of their Life in this we see the Majesty of the Deity We comprehend not the Trinity the Spirit of the Soul standing in the Divine Centre seeth it but imperfectly for the Soul is but out of one Form of Nature as there are several sorts of Angels yet can the Soul introduce it self into all forms the Trinity only is perfect God is manifest in a creaturely form in Angels and whole Angelical World for they are not out of the substantiality which is without understanding but out of the Centre of the seven Forms of the Eternal Nature out of each Form a Throne Angel and out of each Throne his Angel so was it a whole Dominion fell with Lucifer And the Dominions among Men which yet are all but Stewards originate here tho' a sort of proud Clergy would rule over them The Distinction between the Substantiality and the Element also between Paradice and Heaven 6. The Substantiality is in Heaven the Corporeity of the seven Spirits is call'd God's Body also the Body of our Regenerate Soul it is Christ's Body given us to eat in his Testament comprehensible to the Spirit of the Soul tho' not palpable to our outward sences yet in it self without understanding And the one Element doth lead the Principle in the Substantiality as a movable Life it is not the Spirit of God himself but the Spirit hath this Element as a â—ody 7. Heaven is call'd in the Meekness the Water Spirit and is the outward inclosure or Firmament parting the Principle and Paradice is the springing up out of the Essences through all Forms through the one Element through the Substantiality and through Heaven as the flourishing of a rich springing Rosy Garden and therefore was Adam therein that is in that Principle and also in this World The Gates of this World also the Language of Nature 8. All our knowledge of God is his own Revelation of himself for the Spirit of God hath imaged the Wisdom of God
help breathing it self again into the disappear'd Divine Property and into all the three Properties of the Humane even to the Thoughts and Senses breaking the will of self and of the Devil and hath brought the holy Life through Death into a Paradisical sprouting making Death and the Devil a reproach and shewing how the Eternal one can rule mightily over the Multiplicity and give an open Grace Gate for us poor Men to enter the Life of Christ. 3. We are therefore to come with ouâ— captivated will out of the Prison of Earth and Self and solely sink down into this Incorporated Grace which pressed from one viz. the first Man upon all and with the resign'd will sink down into the Hyperbyssal Supersensual Unsearchable Eternal one into the ground out of whiâ—h Life first sprung and then it reacheth the Temperature and true Rest. Argument How can a Man do that viz. that last above written being the Scripture saith The first Man is made to a Natural Life to rule the Creatures therefore mâ—st the Life go into the Earthy Properties Answer 1. The Humane Life is set in a reflex Image of the Divine Will in and with which God willeth and the Earthy Creatures are set in a representation of the Humane 2. And though Mans Life was set in Nature yet it was in the Temperature Without Christ we can do nothing but if Man sink into the Incorporated Grace of God and in Divine Hope rest from self-will and work and resign its will to work only what God speaketh it is beyond Nature And the Abyss God himself speaketh through him and manifesteth himself in and with him thus new-born in Christ who now ruleth over the outward Reason Life 3. Till this be done Man is no Child of Heaven but his will an Apostate just as the Devil and his Body an evil Beast and gathereth not with Gods Incorporated Grace but scattereth 4. As an Herb without Sap is burnt by the Sun while the Herb that hath Sap is warn'd So if Mans Essence hath not Ens from Gods Love and Meekness it impresseth it self into a fierce wrathful fiery sharpness and the Mind is totally rough covetous envious and stinging 5. Yet if the fiery Life eat of the Divine Love it is no more receiving as the Fires Property is but giving and working good in all as the Property of the Light for having eaten of the Bread which cometh down from Heaven it is quickned by it The Sun in a hard Stone where the Water is coagulated cannot work as in Metals Herbs and Trees because his Light and Vertue penetrateth not so is it in this CHAP. III. How Nature representeth and maketh visible the Divine Eternal and Abyssal Knowledge 1. THE Word is the Efflux of the Divine Will and Knowledge as the Thoughts and Senses are of the Mind yet the Mind remaineth totally but one So the Word was is and ever will be the Eternal Beginning flowing out and revelation of the Eternal one 2. And the Wisdom is the Eternal out-flown Beginning and cause of all Powers Colours Vertues and Properties 3. Their Powers are again an Efflux into the various Self-properties whence come the Multiplicity of Wills thence the Creaturely Life of the Eternal springeth viz. Angels and Souls 4. Not that Nature and Creature is here but the Spirit of God sporteth himself in forming Similitudes of the Powers of the Wisdom as doth the Mind with reflex Images which are the Thoughts and every Property hath its own Separator as hath the Eternal Unity whereby the Efflux of the Unity becomes perceptible in Infinite Multiplicity 5. For the Efflux sharpeneth it self superlatively by the Magnetick longing of the receiving Powers in the fiery kind wherein the Eternal One becomes Majestick and Light And the inkindling through Fire makes it a Kingdom of Joy The visible World with its Hosts is the out-flown word of Fire Light and Darkness separated by the Officer of Nature who hath imprinted each Body according to its own Property Of the Twofold Life in the Representation of the Divine Will 1. An Eternal 2. A Temporal 1. The Eternal is the sensible Life in the Eternal Fire and Light a spark of the out-flown or out-breathed will of God bound to will nothing but the out-breathed will of God a Separator and Instrument of Gods Omnipotent Glory wherewith he will rule all things having therefore given it Divine Understanding 2. The Temporal and Mortal Existence is the Efflux of the Separator of all Powers call'd the Soul of the World making the visible Creatures such a Similitude as wherein the Spiritual World of Fire Light and Darkness beholdeth it self hidden in and working through the Elementary World But the Visible possesseth not the Invisible so as to be chang'd thereinto but is only an Instrument whereby the Inward Powers Image themselves as in Herbs Trees Metals c. Of the Threefold Spirit in the Growing Powers 1. The outward Spirit is the gross Brimstone Salt and Mercury which coagulating it self in the four Elements and by drawing the Spiritual Separator to it the Signature is instantly perform'd 2. The second Spirit or Quintessence hath a Centre of its own viz. a Root of the four Elements being the Meek Joy of the painful Brimstone and Salt Spirit nourished from within of the Light of Nature and from without of the subtle Power of the Spirit of the World which fifth Essence is the right cause of all Vegetation and such a Joy of Nature as the Sun to the Elements 3. The third 's the Tincture of which see Chap. 12. of the three Principles The Tincture is that wherein all Powers lye in equality a Spiritual Fire and Light in one substance a Paradise the Mansion of Divine Power and of the Eternal Soul known to the Creature only in the Regeneration and to no ungodly one for such drive on a false will 4. It is not Elementary but issueth through the gross Elementary Spirit even into Taste and Smell But the Elements are a cause of the motion of the Tincture the sharpness of the Smell is Elementary but the vertue in the Smell is the Tincture which in Medicines Cureth for it imprinteth it self in such Balsams 5. As the voice to the Fig-tree Be thou withered did not that Miracle but the Power whence the voice proceeded As neither is the Confession of a thing Faith but that Intellectual Power is Faith out of which the Confession proceedeth wherewith Gods Spirit Co-worketh 6. Thus all whatsoever whether evil or good represent in their several Properties the hidden Spirit of the Separator of all things and the Elementary is the Efflux of the Tincture and Spiritual World for the visible moveable material World is the substance of the invisible immoveable spiritual World 7. So the desire of the Efflux out of the darkness is become sharp stern and gross and hath coagulated it self into Matter even unto the drossy Earth So out of the Light cometh the Noble
the Oleous and Love Property a sweet Spiritual Essence pleasant smell in the Fire and Light the one Element in the lustre it gives the precious Tincture in the Salnitral flagrat is the sude of growth and pullulation it also holds Sulphur and Mercury from severing from each other yet in the Salnitral flagrat they pass into the four Elements 9. The Properties are as so many hungry Desires eating of their several likenesses the hunger of Time eateth of Time and that of Eternity of Eternity but Man's Original being from two Principles may by dying to the dark Self-hood bring his hunger into God's Kingdom and feast with the five Divine Senses on the Divine Mercury Yet so great was our Fall that the outward Man apprehends this only by Imagination though the inward Man penetrateth it as the Sun doth Water which yet remaineth Water CHAP. XV. How in the Will of the great Mystery a Good and Evil Will ariseth and the one introduceth it self into the other 1. THE great Mystery was from Eternity whence the one Element which also was from Eternity proceeded in the Motion whereof the free Lubet of Eternity proceeded as a Spirit which Spirit is Gods 2. And in or from the desire to Nature the Properties proceeded having their Root in the great Mystery as Air out of Fire uncontroulably and incorruptibly 3. In the desire of Essence in the one Element arose the four Elements with manifold Wills whence variety and contrariety came as Heat and Cold Fire and Water c. each a Death to the other all things under that Dominion are in a continual strife dying and Enmity no other way to be remedied but by the Death of the Multiplicity of Wills and Resignation of all Self Wills and Lust to the one Will viz. the one Element the right of Eternity a dying to Self-fulness and Lust which like a disobedient Child striveth against its Mother and is its own Enemy and Destroyer unless Mortified in the Death of the Lord Jesus 4. The resign'd Will is not at all careful save only to bring its desire into its Eternal Mother and united with her be it self a Nothing this the Self-will calls foolishness but the resign'd Will doth as a potent Champion continually bruise the Serpents head 5. The Elemental and Sydereal Man is only the Instrument wherewith Man's Soul laboureth in the resigned Will for thereto it was Created but the Soul in Adam makes it Lord and Master 6. The resigned Will hath no rest in this Cottage but is still in Combat and the good Angels defend him from Satan's fiery Darts v. 25. The Doctrines of Christ's Satisfaction which teach not also the Death to Self in Man and resigning of the Will in Obedience as a new-born Child are flattery and words from without not in the Speaking Voice of God Christ's Dove which teacheth the bearing Fruit in Patience budding forth always as a fair Flower out of the Earth 7. The knowing Doctor and Disputant attaineth not as such what the humble Herdsman by dying to his false Will doth for a Christian is the most simple and plain Man upon Earth having nothing of his own to lose all being given up already nor any thing to seek for himself but for the Lord being dead to himself what he possesseth as an ownhood is only as a Steward Servant or Distributer 8. But all arrogated Authority which is introduced to self-hood and extraduced it self quite from God is Sacrilegious The self-will generates it a Form according to the prevalency impressing most vigorously in the enmity of his inâ—â—re depraved Nature both inward and outward But the resigned Will is formed by the Model of Eternity as an Instrument of Musick into the Love-harmony where is no Turba but the end of Nature Rest whence first it sprung a meer ravishing delight of all the Senses where God is all in all CHAP. XVI Of the Eternal Signature and Heavenly Joy and why were produced Good and Evil. 1. WHAT God is in his Eternal uninchoative Generation that is also the Creation not in Omnipotence but like an Apple which is not the Tree to manifest the Glory which was in the Eternal Mystery As one only Air melodiseth variously in several Pipes and Organs sounding also in each Note in some pleasant in other harsh Thus in Eternity is one only Spirit the Manifester of all the Works of God 2. The seven Superior Stars and all the lesser as so many Kingdoms figure the Angelical Principalities and most Inferior Existences as one Clockwork 3. Let none therefore blame the Creator as if he made it Evil for the Creatures departure from the equal accord makes that Evil which was very Good as did Lucifer who leaving the Harmony brought him to the cold dark Fire out of which is the hot Fires Generation In the Holy he is Holy so Angels and Men praise him in the might of Love and Devils praise him in the might of Wrath God's Wrath is his Joy not as if he lived in impotency but in Fiery Might as a Potent King in the dark Principle in trembling Anguish So in the Divine Angelical Creatures is a trembling Joyfulness in the Holy Light and Fire of Love 4. Thus is all a Fire in their severed Properties the one the Poison and Death to the other yet if there were no Wrath there would be no Love as no Fire no Light 5. God is himself-all but called God only according to the Light of Love but in the Darkness a consuming Fire 6. The Creature when departed out of the first Harmony becomes an Enemy to the Being of all Beings â—ven Hell and Nature in the Wrath Property is the Devils Enemy for that he would be Lord in that wherein he was not created 7. Every Spirit of Angels and Man was created out of the two Eternal Principles of Love and Anger Light and Darkness in equal weight and may take to it self a Lubet either of Good or Evil and what Property the will-Will-spirit of the Creature awakeneth by that it is ruled for dying to the one it liveth to the other 8. He is elected that dyeth to Sin in Christ's Death and by Divine earnest Desire breaking the Sinful Will so persevereth as by the new birth to rise in Christ's Resurrection Christ calleth to gather as the Hen her Chickens but they would not 't is not said they could not He that blameth God despiseth his Mercy introduced by him into the Humanity and bringeth Judgment on his own Soul and Body Gods Election of Grace CALLED Predestination CHAP. I. What the Only God is or the Sole Will what it is 1. THE Abyssal Will is the Father The conceiv'd innate Will of the Abyss the Son 2. The Exit of the Abyss through the conceived Ens the Holy Spirit 3. The Lord our God is One only God that neither willeth nor can will Evil for if he did there were a Rent in him and some cause of Contrariety
irrecoverable Apostacy and of his Legions demonstrated 305. P. 385. The Devills present and future Prison 396. Composition of the Tâ—rrene Globe 429. The dear and Transcendent Heavens P. 432. Whence our Lord Jesus came and where also he now sitteth 438. Three Births of and in the Earth 441. P. 446. 456. 467. 471. 485. Man whereof made and what his Fall was What in Man the Devil hath access to 498. Strife of the 7 Spirits causeth Vegetation 500. Commixture of Good with Evil Demonstrated P. 533. 342. 555. The Ubiquity of the Trinity What the Deity is P. 568. Stars whence 570. Lucifer's Place at present Stars and for what P. 590. 594. What the Sun is 598. The Sun moves not the Earth rouls as do the Planets 606. 609. Saturn what 612. Venus what 617. The Ubiquity of the 7 Spirits of God from them came the 7 Planets P. 627. Man's Body 630. 637. Man's Body whereof made v. 56. Three Principles A Simile Or thus Ver. 34. Q. A. * See Chap. 18. of Mysterium Magnum What the Tincture is Tinctures Esences Heavenly Tincture * Ver. 12. What the Tincture is and doth Saturn Jupiter Mars Sol. The Exit of the Will by the sharp Fiat causeth the Essences Ver. 47. Illustrations by Similitudes The Cause of the Baptism with Water Why Children must be Baptized with the outward and inward Water v. 17. v. 22. * Mare v. 42. Ten Forms of Fire The Liberty Desire Attraction Flash Eter Nature Fire and Light Magia Turba Tincture Holy Ternary The Soul is a total Similitude of the Trinity or of all Devils The Souls need of Humility 1. The Souls Will can transform the Body 2. It can reform or deform the Spirit to Good or Evil. 3. It penetrateth the Bones of others 4. If in God it can pour the Turba on the ungodly 5. It can search Nature and work Wonders The pure Soul is not corporeal The Tincture is its Body which only can comprize Gods Body the Heavenly Flesh given in the Supper By propagation The Man soweth Soul the Woman Spirit The Elements the third Principle or Earthy Mystery Answered above It is the inward Fire in the inward Blood of the Heart The Spirit is in the Tincture By dying to Matter and self and by laying hold on the liberty of God it becomes enlightened * Viz. The Fire-Spirit It comes not pure but if the Parents be Vertuous it is Baptized with their Spirit They are not in Union for the sincere Soul is ashamed at the Imaginations the Turba insinuateth into the Body The contrariety is that the inward would be Lord as it ought to be and the outward would be Lord thâ— it ought not Verse 14. Lapis Philosophorum v. 22 23 24. Purgatory No Dying but only a Will of Dying The Heavenly Body of the Soul A zealous Prayer of a faithful Brother may help the weak faith of one hanging between Faith and Doubting * Masses viz. Souls Meals Three Conditions of Departed Souls 1. Those not yet in Heaven who by Earthy Concerns appear in the starry Spirit 2. Such as are free of all wherein is the Turba and appear to reveal good and profound Arts. 3. Such as are in Abrahams Bosom in Christ's heavenly Substantiality those none can stir Paradisical Eating Praises Knowledge of one another All in Paradise are Masculine Virgins The heavenly Flesh and Blood What and where Enoch is The restoration of the heavenly Virgin Image * Or regenerated Christ's Spirit The Christians renewed Spirit The Paradisical World The Trinity made the one Holy Element Out of it Angels Man not only out of it but out of the four Elements Male and Female Tinctures were in Adam The four over which he was to Rule over-powering the one the Tinctures were divided The Eternal Virgin reincorporated Ver. 37. Ver. 4. Self-resignation reduceth the Lifes fire into Liberty Ver. 8. Ver. 28. Holdeth the Truth in unrighteousness Adam's Soul opened the Fires Essences Christ opening the Lights Essences â—ed and clothed the soul with heavenly Flesh. Man was more fully a Similitude of â—he inward World than the Angels Strong Earthy Reason makes strong Resistance to Gods Spirit Matth. 12. 30. What it is not What it is What it doth The Great Mystery 1. Text. 2. Text. 3. Text. 4. Text. 5. Text. 6. Text. 7. Text. 8. Text. 9. Text. Rom. 5. 12 18. 1 Centre 2 Centre 3 Centre P. 35. 36. 39. 42. 48. P. 50. 51. 54. 57. 59. 60. NB. 29. 56. 67. NB. * The Devil v. 14 15 16. v. 67. * 56. Where and how to find God v. 76 v. 77 v. 78. * 41. * 37. God never willed nor can will Evil. v. 105. God according to the first Principle is called Angry Jealous or Zealous In the second Principle Mâ—rciful and Loving v. 20. v. 39 c. Three Hierarchies of Angels Lucifer gave himself into the third Principle v. 82. v. 64. v. 85. v. 95. v. 112. v. 116. Illustr 1. Illustr 2. Illustr 3. Illustr 4. Illustr 5. Illustr 6. Illustr 7. Illustr 8. Illustr 9. Illustr 10. Illustr 11. Illustr 12. Illustr 13 Illustr 14. The Soul's mouth eateth and drinketh Christ's Flesh and Blood as truly as the Plant the Sun's Vertue or the heated Iron the Fire Christs Paradisical Humanity presseth as Fire into Tinder The right Adamical Humanity is eaten and drunk by the Soul a ch 4 5. b ch 13 c. c ch 18 19. d ch 19 20. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. The following Instances are as so many Figures to point at the time Adam stood in the Proba Esau lived Forty years then took two Evil Wives Israel Forty years in the Wilderness Forty days searching the Land of Canaan Moses Forty days on the Mount Goliah's Forty days Challenging the Host of Israel Elias Fasted Forty days Christ Forty days Tempted And Forty hours in the Grave And Forty days after his Resurrection Ver. 26. Ver. 28. v. 42. Gen. 6. 1. * v. 5 6. Gen. 9. 20 21 22. Gen. 10. 24. v. 26. Ch. 11. v. 11. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * Dan. 11. * 1 Cor. 3. 6. * v. 66. Gen. 15. from v. 1. to v. 17. * John 2. 13 Gen. 18. Gen. 18. * Gen. 18. * ch 19. v. 1. Gen. 19. 15. v. 17. to 23. * Rev. 10. 27. * 2 Thess. 3. Gen. 21. 22. to 34. * Joh. 3. 17. * Ezek. 33. 11 * By himself 1 Cor. 5. 15. * Gen. 22. 3. * v. 4. * v. 6. * v. 7 8. Gen. 24. 2 3. * Gen. 24. v. 5. * v. 6. * v. 9. Gen. 24. v. 10. v. 11. v. 53. * v. 54. * v 61. to 67. Gen. 25. v. 11. * Gen. 25. 24 25 26. * Gen. 26. 32 33. Gen. 27. v. 35. * See the Extracts of the Book of the Incarnation Gen. 28. 14. Gen. 33. 1 2 3. Gen. 33. 5 6 7. Note The Blessed Author taking occasion at Mens false Iâ—ferencâ— from Gods saâ—ing Esau have I hated c. to conclude Goâ—s predetermining Mâ—n to Damnation doth fundamentally discuss that great Mystery from the 22d to the 68th verse of this Chapter so convincingly and yet as plainly as so profound a subject will admit But because it is treated of in a select Volume call'd Predestination beginning p. 369. of this I refer this place thither Gen. 33. 〈◊〉 13 14. * Vide p. 369 c. of this Book of Extracts Gen. 36. * Hebrew Montanus Gen. 37. 6. * Gen. 38. 1 to 10. * Gen. 38. 11 * v. 18 19. * Gen. 38. 27 28 29 30. Gen. 39. 7 8 9 10. Gen. 39. 11 12 13 14 15. Gen. 41. 1 to â— * Gen. 41. 14 15 16. Gen. 42. Gen. 43. Gen. 44. 7 8 9 10. Gen. 44. 11 12 13. v. 14 15 16 17. Gen. 45. 1 2 3. Gen. 45. 11 12 13 14 15. Gen. 46. 28 29 30. Gen. 46. 31 32 33 34. Gen. 47. 1 2 3 4 5 6. Gen. 47. 13 14 15 16 17. v. 18 19. v. 20 21 22. v. 23 24 25 26. Gen. 48. 17. Gen. 50. 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Ep. Paul 1 Cor. 2. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Depths of God King Charles the First his Opinion of Jacob Behmen Text. The Seven Fountain Spirits The Three Principles