(65) And in this heaven the holy angels dwell amongst us, and the devils in the other part: and in this heaven man liveth between heaven and hell, and must endure and suffer from the fierceness many hard blows, temptations, persecutions, and many times torments and squeezings.

(615) who had been great criminals: they were just, as they fancied, about to return into the upper world, but the mouth, instead of admitting them, gave a roar, whenever any of these incurable sinners or some one who had not been sufficiently punished tried to ascend; and then wild men of fiery aspect, who were standing by and heard the sound, seized and carried them off; and Ardiaeus and others they bound head and foot and hand, and threw them down and flayed them with scourges, and dragged them along the road at the side, carding them on thorns like wool, and declaring to the passers-by what were their crimes, and that 8 they were being taken away to be cast into hell.’ And of all the many terrors which they had endured, he said that there was none like the terror which each of them felt at that moment, lest they should hear the voice; and when there was silence, one by one they ascended with exceeding joy. These, said Er, were the penalties and retributions, and there were blessings as great. Now when the spirits which were in the meadow had tarried seven days, on the eighth they were obliged to proceed on their journey, and, on the fourth day after, he said that they came to a place where they could see from above a line of light, straight as a column, extending right through the whole heaven and through the earth, in colour resembling the rainbow, only brighter and purer; another day’s journey brought them to the place, and there, in the

(110) And in such a manner heaven and earth are his; also in such a manner all the devils, together with all wicked men, must be his eternal prisoners; and in the Salitter, which they have corrupted and kindled in their place or space, must endure eternal pain and torment, and moreover eternal shame and reproach.

(19) And thus he is in this Life threefold, and the threefold Spirit hangs on him, and he is generated therein, neither can he be rid of it, except he [corrupts or] breaks to Pieces; yet he can be rid of Paradise, whensoever his Spirit imagines in the Fierceness [or Wrath] and Falshood, and gives up himself thereto, that so he might be above Meekness and Righteousness in himself, as a Lord, like Lucifer, [and] live in Pride [and Stateliness;] and then Paradise falls [away,] and is shut up; and he loses his first Image which stands in the hidden Element in Paradise.

(27) 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 rend [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 the one Gate, and calls you; and 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 Hell-fire. On the contrary, God has in his Hands, Crosses, Persecution, Misery, Poverty, Ignominy, and Sorrow; and the Root of these is a Fire also, and in the Fire [there is] a Light, and in the Light the Virtue, and in the Virtue [or Power] the Paradise, and in the Paradise [are] the Angels, and among the Angels Joy. The gross Eyes cannot behold it, because they are from the third Principle, and see only by the Splendor 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, and gets the Key of Paradise, and that Soul sees into the Midst thereof.

(2) Whoso lamenteth him that here we die That we may live above, has never there Seen the refreshment of the eternal rain. The One and Two and Three who ever liveth, And reigneth ever in Three and Two and One, Not circumscribed and all things circumscribing, Three several times was chanted by each one Among those spirits, with such melody That for all merit it were just reward; And, in the lustre most divine of all The lesser ring, I heard a modest voice, Such as perhaps the Angel's was to Mary, Answer: "As long as the festivity Of Paradise shall be, so long our love Shall radiate round about us such a vesture. Its brightness is proportioned to the ardour, The ardour to the vision; and the vision Equals what grace it has above its worth. When, glorious and sanctified, our flesh Is reassumed, then shall our persons be More pleasing by their being all complete; For will increase whate'er bestows on us Of light gratuitous the Good Supreme, Light which enables us to look on Him;

(115) But here is no help, their torment increaseth and becometh but the greater; the more they bewail it, the more does the hellish fierceness or wrath kindle itself, they must lie in hell, as dead bones, like singed scorched sheep in the fire, their stink and abomination gnaweth them.

(91) The faithful will say on the last day, "O King! Was not Hell on the route all of us traveled? Did not faithful as well as infidels pass through it? Yet on our way we perceived not the smoke of the fire; Nay, it seemed Paradise and the mansion of the blessed." Then the King will answer, "That green garden, As it appeared to you on your passage through it, Was indeed Hell and the place of dread torment; Since you have labored to make hellish lusts, And the 'fire of pride that courts destruction,

(108) But seeing the first three qualities of the earth are congealed or benumbed in death, therefore they remain also a death, and cannot elevate there life into the light, but remain a dark valley, in which there stands God's wrath, death, and hell, as also the eternal prison and source or torment of the devil.

(22) Here their spirits shall be set apart in this great pain till the great day of judgement and punishment and torment of those who †curse† for ever, and retribution for their spirits. There He shall bind them for ever.

(11) Also let a man mark, when he is in this hell, nothing may console him; and he cannot believe that he shall ever be released or comforted. But when he is in heaven, nothing can trouble him; he believeth also that none will ever be able to offend or trouble him, albeit it is indeed true, that after this hell he may be comforted and released, and after this heaven he may be troubled and left without consolation. Again: this hell and this heaven come about a man in such sort, that he knoweth not whence they come; and whether they come to him, or depart from him, he can of himself do nothing towards it. Of these things he can neither give nor take away from himself, bring them nor banish them, but as it is written, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof,” that is to say, at this time present, “but thou knowest not whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth.”12 And when a man is in one of these two states, all is right with him, and he is as safe in hell as in heaven, and so long as a man is on earth, it is possible for him to pass ofttimes from the one into the other; nay even within the space of a day and night, and all without his own doing. But when the man is in neither of these two states he holdeth converse with the creature, and wavereth hither and thither, and knoweth not what manner of man he is. Therefore he shall never forget either of them, but lay up the remembrance of them in his heart.

(10) Behold, we understand by Jerusalem the Paradise, and by the Way to Jericho the Going forth out of Paradise into this World, where then the World captivated us in her Garden, where continually the great Sea of Misery is wherein our Soul swims. Also the Devil is therein, who has bound us with the Chains of the Anger of God, and he leads the poor Soul captive (in the dark Garden of Flesh and Blood) into his fierce Garden of Anger; where the new-born Souls continually break out of his Garden, and break his hellish Kingdom in Pieces; also they have taken Possession of his royal Throne, where he was an Angel, and with their Horns (which are the Spirit of God) have broken in Pieces his hellish Kingdom which he set up; also they oppose him with their Storm out of Hell into Heaven, and assault his Kingdom; but he holds the poor Soul captive with the Chains of the Anger, in this evil Flesh and Blood, and continually sets on the Crew of the Wicked, that they seduce it, and baptize it in the Anger of God up to the very Lips; and there the poor Soul stands up to the Neck in the Sea of Misery, ready to be drowned; and there the Devil thrusts it down with the Vices and Sins of the Body, and would drown the poor Soul in the Anger of God in the Abyss of Hell.

(16) The third spiritual hell is that of disappointment and failure to reach the real objects of existence. Man was intended to mirror forth the light of the knowledge of God, but if he arrives in the next world with his soul thickly coated with the rust of sensual indulgence he will entirely fail of the object for which he was made. His disappointment may be figured in the following way: Suppose a man is passing with some companions through a dark wood. Here and there, glimmering on the ground, lie variously coloured stones. His companions collect and carry these and advise him to do the same. "For," say they, "we have heard that these stones will fetch a high price in the place whither we are going." He on the other hand, laughs at them and calls them fools for loading themselves in the vain hope of gain, while he walks free and unencumbered. Presently they emerge into the full daylight and find that these coloured stones are rubies, emeralds, and other jewels of priceless value. The man's disappointment and chagrin at not having gathered some when so easily within his reach may be more easily imagined than described. Such will be the remorse of those hereafter, who, while passing through this world, have been at no pains to acquire the jewels of virtue and the treasures of religion.

(110) Here thou seest once more how the kingdom of God and the kingdom of hell hang one to the other, as one body, and yet the one cannot comprehend the other. For the second birth, viz. the heat, light, love, and the sound or tone, is hidden in the outermost, and makes the outward moveable, so that the outward gathereth itself together, and generateth a body.

(2) He created heaven and earth and everything that He created in six days, and God made the seventh day holy, for all His worjcs ; therefore He commanded on its behalf that, whoever doth any work thereon shall die, and thathe who defileth it shall surely die.

(87) Some men have many times, according to or in the sidereal or astral spirit, entered in thither, and been ravished in an ecstasy, as men call it, and have presently known the gates of heaven and of hell, and have told, shewn and declared how that many men dwell in hell, with or in their living bodies, or with their bodies alive: Such indeed have been scorned, derided or laughed at, but with great ignorance and indiscretion, for it is just so as they declare; which I will also describe more at large in its due place, and shew in what manner and condition it is with them.

(69) Besides, the Kingdom of Hell, and of [fierce] Wrath, always gape after the Soul, and set their Jaws wide open to devour the captive Soul; which is held fast fettered with two strong Chains; the one of the Kingdom of Hell; the other of the Kingdom of this World; and it is continually led by the heavy, lumpish, bestial, and sickly Body, as a Thief who is often led to the Place of Execution, and still by a Petition reprieved, and laid in Prison again, and the poor Soul must lie thus in Prison the whole Time of the Body; where the Devil on the one Side very suddenly rushes upon it with his devouring Fierceness, Wrath, and Malice, and would carry it into the Abyss. Then instantly [it is beat upon by] the glistering [flattering] World, with Pomp, Bravery, Covetousness, and Voluptuousness of Perdition; presenting [again come upon it] Sickness and Fear, and it is continually trembling and quaking; and when Man goes but in the Dark, how is it amazed, and continually afraid that the Executioner will take it, and tdo Execution upon it! The Gate [or Explanation] of the great Sin, and Contrariety of Will against God, in Man.

(42) For till the third day from the time of the kindling of God's wrath in this world, nature, in the anxiety, was a dark valley, and stood in death; but on the third day the life brake through death, and the new birth began.

(13) After this Manner you may understand how he destroyed Death, by the Springing of the eternal Life in the Deity through Death; and you may understand how the new Body in the Love of God holds the eternal Source of the Anger captive, for the Love is the Prison [of the Anger,] for the Source of the Anger cannot enter into the Love, but continues only by itself, as it was from Eternity, and therein the Devils are imprisoned; for the Light of God strikes them down, they neither can nor dare behold that Light in Eternity; a Principle is between; for the Love springs forth in the Center of the Soul, and therein the Holy Trinity appears, [or shines.]

(33) Only, the spirit here setteth open for thee the gates of hell, that thou may see what is the condition of the devils and of hell, and what is the condition of man, when the divine light extinguished in him, so that he sitteth in the wrath of God and liveth in such a generating, in such an anguish, in such smarting pains, in such woe and misery.