one has that key, then he may go both in and

out.

Paradise was the heavenly essentiality of the second principle. It budded in the beginning of the world through the earthly essentiality, as the eternity is in the time, and the divine power is through all things; and yet is neither comprehended or understood of any earthly thing in self-hood.

In Paradise the essence of the divine world penetrated the essence of time, as the sun penetrates the fruit upon a tree, and effectually works in it into a pleasantness, that it is lovely to look upon and good to eat; the like we are to understand of the garden of Eden.

The garden Eden was a place upon the earth where man was tempted; and the Paradise was in heaven, and yet was in the garden Eden; for as Adam before his sleep, and before his Eve was made out of him, was, as to his inward man, in heaven, and, as to the outward, upon the earth; and as the inward, holy man penetrated the outward, as a fire through heats an iron, so also the heavenly power out of the pure, eternal element penetrated the four elements, and sprang through the earth, and bare fruits, which were heavenly and earthly, and were qualified, sweetly tempered of the divine power, and the vanity in the fruit was held as it were swallowed up, as the day hides the night, and holds it captive in itself, that it is not known and manifest.

The whole world would have been a mere Paradise if Lucifer had not corrupted it, who was in the beginning of his creation an hierarch in the place of this world; but seeing God knew that Adam would fall, therefore Paradise sprang forth and budded only in one certain place, to introduce and confirm man in his obedience therein. God nevertheless saw he would depart thence, whom he would again introduce thereinto by Christ, and establish him anew in Christ to eternity in Paradise, therefore God promised to regenerate it anew in Christ, in the Spirit of Christ in the human property.

There is nothing that is nearer you, than heaven, Paradise, and hell; unto which of them you are inclined, and to which of them you tend or walk, to that in this life-time you are most near. You are between both; and there is a birth between each of them. You stand in this world between both the gates, and you have both the births in you. God beckons to you in one gate, and calls you; the devil beckons you in the other gate and cails you; with whom you go, with him you enter in. The devil has in his hand, power, honour, pleasure, and worldly joy; and the root of these is death and hell-fire. On the contrary, God has in his hand, crosses, persecution, misery, poverty, ignominy, and sorrow; and the root of these is a fire also, but in the fire there is a light, and in the light the virtue, and in the virtue the Paradise; and in the Paradise are the angels, and among the angels, joy. The gross fleshly eyes cannot behold it, because they are from the

third principle, and see only by the splendour of the sun; but when the Holy Ghost comes into the soul, then he regenerates it anew in God, and then it becomes a paradisical child, who gets the key of Paradise, and that soul sees into the midst thereof.

But the gross body cannot see into it, because it belongs not to Paradise; it belongs to the earth, and must putrefy and rot, and rise in a new virtue and power in Christ, at the end of days; and then it may also be in Paradise, and not before; it must lay off the third principle, namely, this skin or covering which father Adam and mother Eve got into, and in which they supposed they should be wise by wearing all the three principles manifested on them. Oh! that they had preferred the wearing two of the principles hidden in them, and had continued in the principle of light, it had been good for us. But of this I purpose to speak hereafter when I treat about the fall.

Thus now in the essence of all essences, there are three several distinct properties, with one source or property far from one another, yet not parted asunder, but are in one another as one only essence; nevertheless the one does not comprehend the other, as in the three elements, fire, air, water; all three are in one another, but neither of them comprehend the other. And as one element generates another and yet is not of the essence, source, or property thereof; so the three principles are in one another, and one generates the other; and yet none of them all comprehends the other, nor is any of them the essence or substance of the other.

The third principle, namely, this material world, shall pass away and go into its ether, and then the shadow of all creatures remain, also of all growing things [vegetables and fruits] and of all that ever came to light; as also the shadow and figure of all words and works; and that incomprehensibly, like a nothing or shadow in respect of the light, and after the end of time there will be nothing but light and darkness; where the source or property remain in each of them as it has been from eternity, and the one shall not comprehend the other.

Yet whether God will create more after this world's time, that my spirit doth not know; for it apprehends no farther than what is in its centre wherein it lives, and in which the Paradise and the kingdom of heaven stands.

CONCERNING THE SUPERSENSUAL LIFE.*

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN MASTER AND DISCIPLE. FROM THE SIXTH BOOK OF THE WORK ENTITLED "THE WAY TO CHRIST."

1. The Disciple said to the Master: How

* Translated from the Extract in Künzel's "Drei Bücher Deutscher Prosa."

and we can say no otherwise, but that the first principle in creation is God the Father himself, as the source, or fountain of life.

Yet there is found in the original of life the most fierce and strong birth, namely, harshness, bitterness, anguish, and fire; of which we cannot say that it is God; and yet is the most inward first source of all light, and that is in God the Father; according to which he calls himself an angry, zealous, or jealous God, and a consuming fire. And this source is the first principle, and that is God the Father in the originality, or first manifestation of himself, at the beginning in creation.

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And in this first principle, prince Lucifer, at the extinguishing in himself the light of the second principle, continued; and is ever the same abyss of hell; wherein the soul also continues which extinguishes that light which shines from the heart of God, (into every man that cometh into the world,) being then separated from the second principle. For which cause also, at the end of time, there will be a separation or parting asunder of the saints of light from the damned, whose source of life will be without the light of God, and the working fountain of their condition as a boiling, springing

I will now write of the second principle, of the clear, pure Deity; namely, of the heart of God, that is, the power, glory, or lustre of God the Father, in the Son. In the first principle, I have mentioned harshness, bitterness, anguish, and fire, yet they are not separate but one only thing, and they generate one another in the first source of all creation. And if now the second principle did not break forth, and spring up in the birth of the Son, then the Father would be a dark valley; and the Son, who is the heart, the love, the brightness, and the sweet rejoicing of the Father (in whom the Father is well pleased) opens another principle.

This is now what the evangelist John says, chap. 1, "In the beginning was the word; and the word was with God; and the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made. In him was life." And he is another person than the Father, for in his centre there is nothing else but mere joy, love and pleasure. *

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The evangelist says further, "And the life was the light of men." Here, O man, take now this light of life, which was in the word and is eternal; and behold the Being of all beings, and especially thyself; seeing thou art an image, life, and derive thy being of the unsearchable God; and a likeness as to him. Here consider time and eternity; heaven and hell; this world; light and darkness; pain, and the source; life and death. Here examine thyself, whether thou hast the light and life of the Word in thee; so shalt thou be able to see and understand all

things for thy life was in the word, and was made manifest in the image which God created; it was breathed into it from the Spirit of the Word. Now lift up thy understanding in the light of thy life; and behold the formed Word! Consider its generation, for all is manifest in the light of life.

Although here the tongue of man cannot utter, declare, express nor fathom this great depth, where there is neither number nor end; yet we have power to speak thereof, as children talk of their father.

Now being to speak of the holy Trinity, we must, first, say that there is one God, and he is called God the Father and Creator of all things, who is almighty, and all in all; whose are all things, and in whom and from whom all things proceed, and in whom they remain eternally. And then we say, that he is three in persons, and has, from eternity, generated his Son out of himself, who is his heart, light and love: and yet they are not two, but one eternal essence. And further we say, the Scripture tells us that there is a Holy Ghost, which proceeds from the Father and the Son, and there is but one essence in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

But the Holy Ghost is not known or manifested in the original of the Father before the light, or son [break forth] but when the soft fountain springs up in the light, then he goes forth as a strong almighty spirit in great joy from the pleasant source of water and of the light; and he makes the forming [shaping, figuring] and images [or species], and he is the centre in all created essences; in which centre the light of life, in the light of the son or heart of the father, takes its original. And the Holy Ghost is a several person, because he proceeds [as a living power and virtue] from the Father and the Son; and confirms the birth, generating or working of the holy Trinity.

Thus God is one only undivided essence, and yet threefold in personal distinction, one God, one Will, one heart, one desire, one pleasure, one beauty, one almightiness, one fulness of all things, neither beginning nor ending: for if I should go about to seek for the beginning or ending of a small dot, or punctum, or of a perfect circle, I should be confounded.

And although I have written here of the springing of the second principle, and the birth of the divine essence in the Trinity, as if it took a beginning, yet you must not understand it as having any beginning, for the eternal manifestation of the pure Deity is thus, without beginning or end; and that in the originalness in creation for I am permitted to write as far as of the originalness, to the end that man might learn to know himself, what he is, and what God in the Triune One, heaven, angels, devils, and hell are. And also what the wrath of God and hell fire is, by the extinguishment of the divine light.

OF THE CREATION OF ANGELS, AND OF LUCIFER;

DESCRIBING HOW HE WAS IN THE ANGELICAL FORM, AND HOW HE IS NOW IN HIS OWN PROPER FORM, BY HIS REJECTING, AND THEREBY EXTINGUISHING, THE DIVINE LIGHT OF THE SECOND PRINCIPLE IN HIMSELF.

Behold, O child of man, all the angels were created in the first principle, and by the flowing forth of the Holy Spirit were formed, and bodied in a true angelical and spiritual manner, and enlightened from the light of God, that they might increase the paradisical joy, and abide therein eternally; 'but being they were to abide eternally, they must be formed out of the first principle which is an indissoluble band;' and they were to look upon the heart or Son of God, to receive his light, and to feed upon the word, which food was to be their holy preservation, and to keep their image clear and light; even as the heart or Son of God in the second principle, manifests and enlightens the Father, namely, the first principle; and in those two principles the divine power, the pure elements, paradise, and kingdom of heaven spring up.

Thus it is with those angels that continued in the kingdom of heaven in the first paradise; they stand in the first principle in the indissoluble band, enlightened by the Son in the second principle; their food is the divine word; and their thoughts and mind is in the will of the Trinity in the Deity. The confirming and establishing of their life, will, and doings, is the power of the Holy Ghost: whatever the Holy Spirit does in the regenerating of paradise, and the holy wonders, the angels rejoice at, and sing the joyful Hallelujahs of Paradise concerning the pleasant saving and eternal birth. All they do is an increase of their heavenly joy, delight, and pleasure in the heart or Son of God; and they sport in holy obedience in the will of the eternal Father; and to this end their God created them that he might be manifested, and rejoice in his creatures, and his creatures in him; so that there might be an eternal sport of love, in the centre of the multiplying of the pure eternal nature in the indissoluble eternal band. But this sport of love was spoiled by Lucifer himself, who is so called, because of the extinguishment of the light of the Son of God in him, and his being cast out of his throne.

DESCRIBING WHAT HE THEN WAS, AND ALSO

WHAT HE NOW IS.

He was the most glorious prince in heaven, and king over many legions of angels, and had he introduced his will into the divine meekness, and the light of the Son of God, and continued in the harmony wherein God had created him, then he would have stood, and nothing could have cast him out of the light. For he, as well as the other angels, was created of the pure eternal nature, out of the indissoluble band, and stood in the first Paradise. He felt and saw the generation of the holy Deity in the birth of

the second principle, namely, of the heart or Son of God, and the outflowing of the Holy Ghost; his food was of the word of the Lord, and therein he should have continued an angel of light.

But he saw his own great beauty and glory, and that he was a prince standing in the first principle, and in his own desire went into the centre, and would himself be God. He despised the birth of the Son and heart of God, and the soft and very lovely influence, working, and into SELF, and meant to be a very potent and qualification thereof. He entered with his will terrible Lord in the first principle, and would work in the strength of the fire, in the centre of nature; he therefore could no longer be fed from the word of the Lord, and so his light went out

by the heart or Son of God departing from him;

for thereby the second principle was shut up to him; and presently he became loathsome in Paradise, and was cast out with all his legions that stuck to and depended upon him.

And so he lost God, the kingdom of heaven, and all paradisical knowledge, pleasure and joy; he also presently lost the image of God, and the confirmation of the Holy Ghost; for because he despised the second principle, wherein he was an angel and image of God, all heavenly things departed from him, and he fell into the dark vale, or valley of darkness, and could no more raise his imagination up into God, but remained in the anguishes of the first four forms of the original of nature.

For he is always shut up in the first principle, (as in the eternal death,) and yet he raises himself up continually, thinking to reach the heart of God, and to domineer over it; for his bitter sting climbs up eternally in the source or root of the fire, and affords him a proud will to have all at his pleasure, but he attains nothing. His food is the source or fountain of poison, namely, the brimstone spirit: his refreshing is the eternal cold fire he has an eternal hunger in the bitterness; an eternal thirst in the source of the fire. His climbing up is his fall, and the more he climbs up in his will the greater is his fall: as one standing upon a high clift would cast himself down into a bottomless pit, he looks still further, and he falls in further and further, and yet can find no ground.

Thus he is an eternal enemy to the heart or Son of God, and to all the holy angels, and he cannot now frame any other will in himself.

His angels or devils are of very many several sorts; for, at the time of Lucifer's creation, he stood in the kingdom of heaven in the point, locus, or place, where the Holy Ghost in the birth of the heart of God in Paradise, did open infinite and innumerable centres in the eternal birth of pure eternal nature; and therefore their quality was also manifold, and all should have been and continued angels of God, if Lucifer had not corrupted and thereby destroyed them: and so now every one in his fall continues in his own essences, excluded from the light of the second principle, which they extinguished in

themselves and so it is with the soul of man, when it rejects the light of God, and it goes out of that soul.

OF THE THIRD PRINCIPLE, OR CREATION of the MATERIAL WORLD, WITH THE STARS AND ELEMENTS; WHEREIN THE FIRST AND SECOND PRINCIPLE IS MORE CLEARLY UNDERSTOOD.

The eternal and indissoluble band, which is the first principle wherein the essence of all essences stands, is not easily nor in haste to be understood; therefore it is necessary that the desirous reader should the more earnestly consider himself what he is, and whence his reason, his inward senses, and thoughts do proceed, for therein he finds the similitude of God, especially if he considers and meditates what his soul is, which is an eternal, incorruptible spirit.

For if the reader be born of God in true resignation, there is no nearer way for him to come to the knowledge of the third principle, than by considering the new birth, how the soul is new born by the love of God in the light, and how it is translated out of darkness into the light by a second birth. And now every one finds by experience, that falls into the wrath of God, and whereof there are terrible examples, that the soul must endure uneasiness and torment in itself, in the birth of its own life, so long as it is in the wrath of God; and then if it be born again, there is great exulting joy arises in it; and thus there is found very clearly and plainly two principles; also God, Paradise and the kingdom of heaven.

For you find in the root of the original of the spirit of the soul, the most inimicitious, irksome source, torment, or working property, wherein the soul without the light of God is like all devils, being an enmity in itself, striving against God and goodness, and climbing up with pride in the strength of the fire, in a bitter, fierce, malicious wrathfulness against God, against heaven, against all creatures in the light of the second principle, and also against all creatures in the third principle of this world, setting up themselves alone.

Now the Scripture witnesses throughout, and the new-born man finds it so, that when the soul is new born in the light of God, then it is quite otherwise, and contrary to what it was before. It finds itself very humble, meek, courteous, and pleasant; it readily bears all manner of crosses and persecution; it turns the outward body from out of the way of the wicked; it regards no reproach, disgrace or scorn, put upon it from the devil or man; it places its confidence, refuge and love in the heart or Son of God; it is fed by the word of God, and cannot be hurt or so much as touched by the devil; for although it is in its own substance, and stands in the first principle in the indissoluble band, it is enlightened with the light of God in the Son or second principle, and the Holy Ghost (who goes forth out of the eternal birth or gene

ration of the Father, in the light of the heart or Son of God) goes in it, and establishes it the child of God; therefore all that it does, living in the light of God, is done in the love of God; and the devil cannot see that soul, for the second principle, in which it then lives, and in which God, and the kingdom of heaven is, as also the angels and Paradise, is shut up from him, and he cannot get to it.

Therefore, O man, consider with thyself, where thou art; namely, on one part, [that is, thy body and outward carcass of clay, thou art a guest for awhile in this outward world, travelling in the vanity of time] under the influence of the stars, and four elements; one other part, [namely, thy soul in its own self and creaturely being, that is, in its fallen state, without the divine light or regeneration] in the dark world among the devils; and as to the third part, [namely, thy divine image and spirit of love, in the eternal light] in the divine power in heaven: that property which is master in thee, its servant thou art; prank and vapour as stately and gloriously as thou wilt in the sun's light, yet thy fountain shall be made manifest to thee.

OF PARADISE.

Moses says, that, when God had made man, he planted a garden in Eden, and there he put man, to till and keep the same; and caused all manner of fruits to grow, pleasant for the sight and good for food; and planted the tree of life also, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the midst.

Here lies the veil before the face of Moses, in that he had a bright shining countenance, that sinful Israel cannot look him in the face; for the man of vanity is not worthy to know what Paradise is; and albeit it be given us to know it according to the inward, hidden man, yet by this description we shall remain as dumb to the beast, but yet be sufficiently understood by our fellow scholars in the school of the great

master.

Poor reason, which is gone forth with Adam out of Paradise, asks where is Paradise to be had or found? Is it far off or near? Or, when the souls go into Paradise, whither do they go? Is it in the place of this world, or without the place of this world above the stars? where is it that God dwells with the angels? and where is that desirable native country where there is no death? Being there is no sun nor stars in it, therefore it cannot be in this world, or else it would have been found long ago.

Beloved reason; one cannot lend a key to another to unlock this withal; and if any have a key, he cannot open it to another, as antichrist boasts that he has the keys of heaven and hell; it is true, a man may have the keys of both in this life time, but he cannot open with them for any body else; every one must unlock it with his own key, or else he cannot enter therein; for the Holy Ghost is the key, and when any

one has that key, then he may go both in and

out.

Paradise was the heavenly essentiality of the second principle. It budded in the beginning of the world through the earthly essentiality, as the eternity is in the time, and the divine power is through all things; and yet is neither comprehended or understood of any earthly thing in self-hood.

In Paradise the essence of the divine world penetrated the essence of time, as the sun penetrates the fruit upon a tree, and effectually works in it into a pleasantness, that it is lovely to look upon and good to eat; the like we are to understand of the garden of Eden.

The garden Eden was a place upon the earth where man was tempted; and the Paradise was in heaven, and yet was in the garden Eden; for as Adam before his sleep, and before his Eve was made out of him, was, as to his inward man, in heaven, and, as to the outward, upon the earth; and as the inward, holy man penetrated the outward, as a fire through heats an iron, so also the heavenly power out of the pure, eternal element penetrated the four elements, and sprang through the earth, and bare fruits, which were heavenly and earthly, and were qualified, sweetly tempered of the divine power, and the vanity in the fruit was held as it were swallowed up, as the day hides the night, and holds it captive in itself, that it is not known and manifest.

The whole world would have been a mere Paradise if Lucifer had not corrupted it, who was in the beginning of his creation an hierarch in the place of this world; but seeing God knew that Adam would fall, therefore Paradise sprang forth and budded only in one certain place, to introduce and confirm man in his obedience therein. God nevertheless saw he would depart thence, whom he would again introduce thereinto by Christ, and establish him anew in Christ to eternity in Paradise, therefore God promised to regenerate it anew in Christ, in the Spirit of Christ in the human property.

There is nothing that is nearer you, than heaven, Paradise, and hell; unto which of them you are inclined, and to which of them you tend or walk, to that in this life-time you are most near. You are between both; and there is a birth between each of them. You stand in this world between both the gates, and you have both the births in you. God beckons to you in one gate, and calls you; the devil beckons you in the other gate and calls you; with whom you go, with him you enter in. The devil has in his hand, power, honour, pleasure, and worldly joy; and the root of these is death and bell-fire. On the contrary, God has in his hand, crosses, persecution, misery, poverty, ignominy, and sorrow; and the root of these is a fire also, but in the fire there is a light, and in the light the virtue, and in the virtue the Paradise; and in the Paradise are the angels, and among the angels, joy. The gross fleshly eyes cannot behold it, because they are from the

third principle, and see only by the splendour of the sun; but when the Holy Ghost comes into the soul, then he regenerates it anew in God, and then it becomes a paradisical child, who gets the key of Paradise, and that soul sees into the midst thereof.

But the gross body cannot see into it, because it belongs not to Paradise; it belongs to the earth, and must putrefy and rot, and rise in a new virtue and power in Christ, at the end of days; and then it may also be in Paradise, and not before; it must lay off the third principle, namely, this skin or covering which father Adam and mother Eve got into, and in which they supposed they should be wise by wearing all the three principles manifested on them. Oh! that they had preferred the wearing two of the principles hidden in them, and had continued in the principle of light, it had been good for us. But of this I purpose to speak hereafter when I treat about the fall.

Thus now in the essence of all essences, there are three several distinct properties, with one source or property far from one another, yet not parted asunder, but are in one another as one only essence; nevertheless the one does not comprehend the other, as in the three elements, fire, air, water; all three are in one another, but neither of them comprehend the other.

And as one element generates another and yet is not of the essence, source, or property thereof; so the three principles are in one another, and one generates the other; and yet none of them all comprehends the other, nor is any of them the essence or substance of the other.

The third principle, namely, this material world, shall pass away and go into its ether, and then the shadow of all creatures remain, also of all growing things [vegetables and fruits] and of all that ever came to light; as also the shadow and figure of all words and works; and that incomprehensibly, like a nothing or shadow in respect of the light, and after the end of time there will be nothing but light and darkness; where the source or property remain in each of them as it has been from eternity, and the one shall not comprehend the other.

Yet whether God will create more after this world's time, that my spirit doth not know; for it apprehends no farther than what is in its centre wherein it lives, and in which the Paradise and the kingdom of heaven stands.

CONCERNING THE SUPERSENSUAL LIFE.

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN MASTER AND DISCIPLE. FROM THE SIXTH BOOK OF THE WORK ENTITLED "THE WAY TO CHRIST."

1. The Disciple said to the Master: How

* Translated from the Extract in Künzel's "Drei Bücher Deutscher Prosa."