(1) There is above the Celestial Lights an Incorruptible Flame always sparkling; the Spring of Life, the Formation of all Beings, the Original of all things! This Flame produceth all things, and nothing perisheth but what it consumeth. It maketh Itself known by Itself. This Fire cannot be contained in any Place, it is without Body and without Matter. It encompasseth the Heavens. And there goeth out from it little Sparks, which make all the Fires of the Sun, of the Moon, and of the Stars. Behold! what I know of God! Strive not to know more of Him, for that is beyond thy capacity, how wise soever thou art. As to the rest, know that unjust and wicked Man cannot hide himself from the Presence of God ! No subtilty nor excuse can disguise anything from His piercing Eyes. All is full of God, and God is in All!

(93) Behold! that is the birth or geniture of nature; and so, if in these three qualities, viz. the astringent, the bitter and the sweet, the wrath-fire were not kindled, then thou wouldst plainly see where God is.

(91) "Yet the fire giveth or holdeth forth to us a mystery of the eternal nature, and of the Deity also, wherein a man is to understand two Principles of a twofold source, viz. I. a hot, fierce, astringent, bitter, anxious, consuming one in the fire-source. And out of the fire cometh II. viz. the light, which dwelleth in the fire, but is not apprehended or laid hold on by the fire; also it has another source than the fire has, which is meekness, wherein there is a desire of love, where then, in the love-desire, another will is understood than that which the fire has.

(93) "Thus the Reader is to understand this book as concerning three Principles or births; viz. one is the original of the eternal nature, in the eternal will or desire of God, which desire driveth itself on in great anguish till it cometh to the fourth form, viz. to the fire.

(136) Thou must not think that the light of the sun and of nature is the heart of God, which shineth in secret. No; thou oughtest not to worship the light of nature, it is not the heart of God, but it is a kindled light in nature, whose power and heart stand in the unctuosity or fatness of the sweet water, and of all the other spirits in the third birth or geniture, and is not called God.

(51) Whatsoever thou dost but look upon, there, is God, but in this world the comprehensibility stands in the wrath, which the devil has kindled; and in the hidden kernel, in the midst or centre of the wrath, the light or heart of God is generated, incomprehensibly as to the wrath; and so each of them remaineth in its seat.

(37) The light or the heart of God taketh not its original barely from the wild rough stars, where, indeed, love and wrath are in each other, but out of or from the seat where the meek water of life is continually generated.

(75) But it is not therefore so totally extinguished that it could not be generated in man; for man is out of or from God, and liveth in God, be it either in love or in wrath.

(74) If God should be angry in himself, then the whole nature would be on fire, which will come once to pass on the last day, in nature, but not in God, in God the triumphing joy will burn; it was never otherwise from eternity, nor will it ever be otherwise.

(16) source of peace and joy to others will be to him a source of misery. He, in whose heart the love of God has prevailed over all else, will derive more joy from this vision than he in whose heart it has not so prevailed; just as in the case of two men with equally powerful eyesight, gazing on a beautiful face, he who already loves the possessor of that face will rejoice in beholding it more than he who does not. For perfect happiness mere knowledge is not enough, unaccompanied by love, and the love of God cannot take possession of a man's heart till it be purified from love of the world, which purification can only be effected by abstinence and austerity. While he is in this world a man's condition with regard to the Vision of God is like that of a lover who should see his beloved's face in the twilight, while his clothes are infested with hornets and scorpions, which continually, torment him. But should the sun arise and reveal his beloved's face in all its beauty, and the noxious vermin leave off molesting him, then the lover's joy will be like that of God's servant, who, released from the twilight and the tormenting trials of this world, beholds Him without a veil.

(12) Thou must not here think that God has made some new thing, which never was before; for if that were so, then there had been another God, which is not possible to be. For without or besides this one only God, nothing is at all, for the gates of hell are not anywhere without, beyond or absent from this one only God; only, there is a partition or distinction between the love in the light, and the kindled wrath in the darkness, so that the one cannot comprehend the other, and yet the one hangeth to the other as one body.

(63) But when he elevated himself, intending to rule the whole Deity with his animated or soulish spirit, then the stock and heart of light, which is the kernel, marrow or pith of love in the sweet water, became a fierce and hotly pursuing fire, source or quality, from whence in the whole body existed a very trembling, burning government and birth or geniture.

(31) But that other thing which they affirm, how that we ought to throw off and cast aside the life of Christ, and all laws and commandments, customs and order and the like, and pay no heed to them, but despise and make light of them, is altogether false and a lie. Now some may say; “Since neither Christ nor others can ever gain anything, either by a Christian life, or by all these exercises and ordinances, and the like, nor turn them to any account, seeing that they possess already all that can be had through them, what cause is there why they should not henceforth eschew them altogether? Must they still retain and practise them?” Behold, ye must look narrowly into this matter. There are two kinds of Light; the one is true and the other is false. The true light is that Eternal Light which is God; or else it is a created light, but yet divine, which is called grace. And these are both the true Light. So is the false light Nature or of Nature. But why is the first true, and the second false? This we can better perceive than say or write. To God, as Godhead, appertain neither will, nor knowledge, nor manifestation, nor anything that we can name, or say, or conceive. But to God as God,39 it belongeth to express Himself, and know and love Himself, and to reveal Himself to Himself; and all this without any creature. And all this resteth in God as a substance but not as a working, so long as there is no creature.

(2) And it will prove a burden unto men; and on account of this they will despise and cease to love this Cosmos as a whole,—the changeless work of God; the glorious construction of the Good, comprised of multifold variety of forms; the engine of God’s Will, supporting His own work ungrudgingly; the multitudinous whole massed in a unity of all, that should be reverenced, praised and loved,—by them at least who have the eyes to see. For Darkness will be set before the Light, and Death will be thought preferable to Life. No one will raise his eyes to Heaven; the pious man will be considered mad, the impious a sage; the frenzied held as strong, the worst as best.

(132) For when thy light is extinguished, then thou standest in the darkness, and in the darkness the wrath of God is hidden, and so if thou awakenest it, then it burneth in thee.

(71) Father begotten Light, which alone hath gathered from the strength of the Father the Flower of mind, and hath the power of understanding the Paternal mind, and doth instil into all Fountains and Principles the power of understanding and the function of ceaseless revolution.

(3) Nor does he need cheerfulness of mind; for he does not fall into pain, being persuaded that all things happen well. Nor is he angry; for there is nothing to move him to anger, seeing he ever loves God, and is entirely turned towards Him alone, and therefore hates none of God's creatures. No more does he envy; for nothing is wanting to him, that is requisite to assimilation, in order that he may be excellent and good. Nor does he consequently love any one with this common affection, but loves the Creator in the creatures. Nor, consequently, does he fall into any desire and eagerness; nor does he want, as far as respects his soul, aught appertaining to others, now that he associates through love with the Beloved One, to whom he is allied by free choice, and by the habit which results from training, approaches closer to Him, and is blessed through the abundance of good things.

(92) "For the fire will consume all, and causes a high rising in the source, and the meekness of the light causes entity or substantiality; viz. in the eternal light it causes the water-spirit of eternal life; and in the third principle of this world it causes water, together with the existency or original of the air.

(78) Thus there is one God, and three distinct Persons one in another, and not one of them can comprehend, or withhold, or fathom the original of the others, but the Father generateth the Son, and the Son is the Father's heart, and his love and his light, and is an original of joy, and the beginning of all life.

(74) Moreover, the wrath-fire of God does not reach in nature into the innermost kernel of the heart, which is the Son of God, much less into the secret glory or holiness of the spirit, but into the birth or geniture of the six qualifying or fountain spirits, in the place where the seventh is generated.