(7) ¶But take heed to yourselves: for before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you; delivering you up to councils, and into prisons, to be afflicted: and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my name's sake. And it shall turn to you for a testimony against them. Then shall they kill you, and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.

(24) Or what thinkest thou, if thy Twig be thus very dry and withered, and that thou must eternally swelter in the Anger of God, where instantly thy human Image will be taken away, and thou wilt be in the a Shape of the most abominable Beasts, Worms, and Serpents, all according to thy Deeds and Practice here, where then all thy Deeds will stand in the Figure in the Tincture eternally before thy Eyes, and will gnaw thee sufficiently, so that thou wilt continually think, if thou hadst not done this or that, thou shouldst have attained the Grace of God? Thy Mocking stands before thy Eyes, and thou art ashamed to let the least good Thought into thy Soul; for Good is as an Angel before thee, and thou darest not (for great Shame) so much as to touch it with thy Mind, much less look upon it. But thou must eternally devour into thyself thy great Scorning, with all thy Vices and Sins, and thou must eternally despair; and though thou thinkest to go forth after Abstinence, yet the Light strikes thee down again, and so thou goest but forth aloft (in thy devouring fretting Worm, in thyself) without the Thrones of God; and it is with thee, as with one who stands upon a high stony Cliff of a Rock, and would cast himself into a bottomless Gulf; and the further he sees, the deeper he falls. Thus thy own Sins, Scornings, Deridings, Cursings in Contempt of God, are thy Hell-fire, which gnaws thee eternally; this I speak in the Word of Life.

(30) For there will be plague upon plague, and curse upon curse, and every judgment and plague and curse will come (upon him) : if he do this thing, or hide his eyes from those who commit uncleanness, or those who defile the sanctuary of the Lord, or those who profane His holy name, (then) will the whole nation together be judged for all the uncleanness and profanation of this (man).

(34) But when the Kingdom of the Fierceness of the Wrath, of Death, and of Hell, saw that it had lost, and could not keep Man, then it said, I am Death, and a Worm, and my Virtue [or Power] is in him, and I will grind him and break him to Pieces, and his Spirit must live in me; and although thou World supposest that he is thine, because he bears thy Image, yet his Spirit is mine, generated out of my Kingdom; therefore take what is thine from him, I will keep that which is mine.

(12) Thus one of the Wicked curses the other, who has caused him to commit such Wickedness; the Inferior his Superior that has given him Offence, [and been a Stumbling-block to him;] the Laity curse the Clergy or Priests, who have given them evil Examples, and seduced them with false Doctrine; the wicked Curser, Swearer, and Blasphemer, bites and gnaws his Tongue, which has so murdered him; the Mind beats the Head against the Stones; and the Ungodly hide themselves in the Caves and Holes of the Earth, before the Terror of the LORD; for there is great Quaking and Stirring in the Essences of the Anger and fierce Wrath of the LORD; and the Anguish breaks the Heart, and yet there is no Dying; for the Anger is stirring, and the Life of the Ungodly flows up in the Anger. There the Ungodly curses the Heaven and the Earth that bore him, as also the Constellation [or Stars] that led him, and the Hour of his Birth; all his Uncleanness stands before his Eyes, and he sees the Cause of his Horror, and condemns himself; he cannot look upon the Righteous for very Shame; all his Works stand in his Mind, and in the Essences cry, Woe to him that did them, they accuse him; the Tears of those he has afflicted and oppressed are like a fiery stinging Serpent; he desires Rest or Ease, but there is no Comfort, Despair rises up in him, for Hell terrifies him.

(19) Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; and hid that shall not be known. What I tell you in darkness that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

(6) When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.

(15) But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to smit his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

(13) For as he goes a Hunting, in his Kingdom, and catches the poor Souls which Way soever he can, and lays wait for them by his Servants, with all Manner of Vice and Wickedness, and so continually sets such Looking-glasses before the Soul, that it should behold itself in its own Wickedness, and amuses it also with fair Promises of great Honour, Power, and Authority, he sets the poor despised Sort before the Soul, and says, Wilt thou only be the Fool of the World, come along with me, I will give thee the Kingdom of this World for a Possession, as he said to Christ, so in like Manner, when the Soul has put on the Kingdom of Heaven, and yet sticks in the dark Valley in Flesh and Blood, and sees the Devil's P murdering of its Brethren and Sisters, then it comes to be armed of God to fight against the Devil, and to discover his Burrow. For the Love to its Neighbour constrains it to do so, because it would help to increase the Kingdom of Heaven; therefore it teaches and reproves thus, it warns against Sin, and teaches the Way to the Kingdom of Heaven; which indeed the bestial Body does not understand; it goes away, like the rude Ass, and thinks with the starry and elementary Mind, as follows.

(32) Thou suppressest the Miserable and Needy under thy Feet, and thou constrainest him with Necessity, and makest him vain, [or carelessly wicked,] so that he runs after thy Beast, and gazes upon thee, and also becomes a Servant of the Opposer of Christ; thy Beast whereon thou ridest is thy Strength and Power, which thou usurpest to thyself, thou fattenest thy Beast with the Fatness of the Earth, and thou crammest it with the Sweat of the Needy; it is filled with the Tears of the Miserable, whose Sighs and Groans press in through the Gate of the Deep to God, and (with their Pressing in) they awaken the Anger of God in thy Beast; as the Blood of Abel did the Anger in Cain.

(10) But seeing I have such an impulse upon me, I let him act and move in me, he who knoweth and understands what it is, and whose pleasure it is that I should do it; I, poor man of earth, dust and ashes, could not do it. But the spirit inviteth and citeth all such mockers and despisers [to come] before the innermost birth or geniture of God in this world, [and] to desist from their wickedness and malice: If not, then they shall be spewed out as hellish chaff into the outermost birth or geniture in the wrath of God. Now observe:

(5) But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.

(1) "You wretches! You poor devils! You pretenders to truth! You falsifiers of knowledge! You sinners against the spirit! Do you still dare to listen when from the beginning you should have been speaking? Do you still dare to sleep when from the beginning you should have been awake so that the kingdom of heaven might receive you? I tell you the truth, it is easier for a holy person to sink into defilement, and for an enlightened person to sink into darkness, than for you to reign—or not to reign.

(54) For the old Enemy is subtile and strong, who still assaults the Soul again, to try how he may afflict and deceive it; if he cannot overwhelm it with Sins, then he begins an outward War with it, and stirs up the Children of Malice against it, so that they contemn, mock, deride, vilify it, and do all Manner of Evil to it; and so they lay Wait for its Body and Goods, they jeer, reproach, and scorn it, and account it as the Off-scouring of the World; they upbraid it for its Infirmities; if it does but reprove their Faults and Unrighteousness, then it must be an Hypocrite [with them.]

(38) Hast thou been a proud vain-glorious, selfishly Potent, and one that has for thy Pleasure Sake oppressed the Needy, then such a Spirit goes forth from thee, and then so it is in the Eternity, where it can neither keep nor get any Thing for [to feed] its Covetousness, neither can it adorn its Body with any Thing, but with that which is there, and yet it climbs up eternally in its Pride, for there is no other Source in it; and thus in its Rising it reaches into nothing else but the stern Might of the Fire in its Elevation; it inclines itself in its Will continually in such a Purpose as it did in this World; as it was wont to do here, so all appears in its Tincture, therein itclimbs up eternally in the Abyss of Hell.

(127) But that the astringent and bitter spirit sitteth still in its seat at the hinder gums on the tongue, and thrusteth forth the word at the mouth, and yet cannot get away from thence, signifieth that the devil and the wrath of God would indeed be domineering in all the creatures, yet would not have full power in them, but must stay in prison; and that there they would belch forth or blow into all the creatures, and plague them, but would not overcome them, unless the creatures themselves are minded to tarry there in that place.

(14) We have seen above that one kind of spiritual hell is the forcible separation from worldly things to which the heart cleaves too fondly. Many carry about within them the germs of such a hell without being aware of it; hereafter they will feel like some king who, after living in luxury, has been dethroned and made a laughing stock. The second kind of spiritual hell is that of shame, when a man wakes up to see the nature of the actions he committed in their naked reality. Thus he who slandered will see himself in the guise of a cannibal eating his dead brother's flesh, and he who envied as one who cast stones against a wall, which stones, rebounding, put out the eyes of his own children.

(26) When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest: and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.

(9) For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

(53) And then when the poor Soul shall travel [Home,] there are great Mountains in its Way; and then thy fair Tincture will appear before the [holy] Element like a defiled Cloth; and there stands the Devil and reads the Law to you about it; and then the poor Soul quakes, and begins to doubt; and when it is to break through the bitter Gate [of the Cherubim,] then it continually fears that the fierce Anger of God shall seize upon it, [as upon hellish Brimstone,] and kindle it; as it comes to pass for certain, if it be not born anew in Christ, through earnest Repentance.