(90) If they had but continued in their meek Birth or Geniture, according to the divine Right, then all had been their own, and their Will would have been always fulfilled eternally, and nothing had been among them and in them, but merely the Joy of Love, to speak after an earthly Manner, as it were an eternal Laughing, and a perpetual Rejoicing in an eternal hearty Delight. For God and the Creatures had been one Heart and one Will. [“The Image out of, or proceeding from the Soul’s Fire, and the Love, or the divine Center, are in one Being.”]

(27) In the act of contemplating the souls of the brethren, he beholds the beauty of the flesh also, with the soul itself, which has become habituated to look solely upon that which is good, without carnal pleasure. And they are really brethren; inasmuch as, by reason of their elect creation, and their oneness of character, and the nature of their deeds, they do, and think, and speak the same holy and good works, in accordance with the sentiments with which the Lord wished them as elect to be inspired.

(58) And though indeed the bestial Body must putrefy and rot, yet its Power and Virtue live, and in the mean while there grow out of its Power, in its Mother, fair beautiful Roses, Blossoms and Flowers. And though it were quite burnt up and consumed in the Fire, yet its Power and Virtue stands in the four Elements in the Word, and the Soul qualifies, mixes, or unites therewith; for the Soul is in Heaven, and the same Heaven is every where, even in the Midst or Center of the Earth.

(2) Such a good will is the substance of all perfection. All sweetness and comforts, bodily or ghostly, be to this but as it were accidents, be they never so holy; and they do but hang on this good will. Accidents I call them, for they may be had and lacked without breaking asunder of it. I mean in this life, but it is not so in the bliss of heaven; for there shall they be oned with the substance without departing, as shall the body in the which they work with the soul. So that the substance of them here is but a good ghostly will. And surely I trow that he that feeleth the perfection of this will, as it may be had here, there may no sweetness nor no comfort fall to any man in this life, that he is not as fain and as glad to lack it at God’s will, as to feel it and have it.

(42) Behold! what the Deity does, that they also do; when the Spirits of God lovingly generate one in another, and rise up one in another, as in a loving, saluting, embracing, kissing, and feeding one another; in which Taste and Smell the Life rises up, and the eternal Refreshing; of which thou mayest read before at large;

(43) They saw very well, that the animated or soulish Spirit qualified, mixed, or operated with the Heart of God; and thereupon they were resolved, they would elevate and kindle themselves, hoping to be as bright, illustrious, deep, and almighty, as the deepest Ground in the Center of the Heart of God. [deepest Ground]

(101) And in this Motion it grows unctuous or fat, and luscious or luxuriant; it increases and spreads itself, and the highest Depth generates itself very joyfully out of or from the Heart of the Spirit, just as if it would begin an angelical Triumph, and present or show forth itself infinitely in divine Power and Form, according to the Right of the Deity: And thereby the Body gets its greatest Strength and Power, and the Body colours, or tinctures itself with the highest Degree, and gets its true Beauty, Excellence, and Virtue.

(51) For the Soul comprehends the highest Sense, it beholds what God its Father acts or makes, also it co-operates in the heavenly Imaging or Framing: And therefore it makes a Description, Draught, Platform, or Model for the Nature-spirits, showing how a Thing should be imaged or framed. And

(74) But here thou must know, that this Quality penetrates very gently and pleasantly with its Touching or Stirring, through all the Spirits, in such a Way and Manner, as when a pleasant and meek Fire of Joy rises up in the Heart of a Man, in which Fire of Joy, the animated or soulish Spirit triumphs as if it were in Heaven.

(3) This same subjection of the body to the spirit may be in manner verily conceived in the proof of this ghostly work of this book, by them that work therein. For what time that a soul disposeth him effectually to this work, then as fast suddenly, unwitting himself that worketh, the body that peradventure before ere he began was somewhat bent downwards, on one side or on other for ease of the flesh, by virtue of the spirit shall set it upright: following in manner and in likeness bodily the work of the spirit that is made ghostly. And thus it is most seemly to be.