(33) Here open your noble Mind, see and search further. Seeing God is only good, from whence comes the Evil? And seeing also that he alone is the Life, and the Light, and the holy Power, as it is undeniably true, from whence comes the Anger of God? From whence comes the Devil, and his [evil] Will? Also Hell-fire, from whence has that its Original? Seeing there was nothing before the Time of this World, but only God, who was and is a Spirit, and continues so in Eternity, from whence then is the first Materia, or Matter of Evil? For Reason gives this Judgment, that there must needs have been in the Spirit of God a Will to generate the Source or Fountain of Anger.

(14) Now therefore we say (as the Scripture informs us) that God dwells in Heaven, and it is the Truth. Now mark, Moses writes, that God created the Heaven out of the Midst of the Waters, and the Scripture says, God dwells in Heaven; therefore we may now observe, that the Water has its Original from the Longing of the eternal Nature after the eternal Light of God; but the eternal Nature is made manifest by the Longing after the Light of God, as is mentioned before; and the Light of God is present every where, and yet remains hidden to Nature; for Nature receives only the Virtue of the Light, and the Virtue is the Heaven wherein the Light of God dwells and is hid, and so shines in the Darkness. The Water is the Materia, or Matter that is generated from the Heaven, and therein stands the third, which again generates a Life, and comprehensible Essence, or Substance, out of itself, viz. the Elements and other Creatures.

(24) If you lift up your Thoughts and Minds, and ride upon the Chariot of the Soul, as is before mentioned, and look upon yourself, and all Creatures, and consider how the Birth of Life in you takes its Original, and the Light of your Life, whereby you can behold the shining of the Sun; and also look with your Imagination, without the Light of the Sun, into a vast large Space, to which the Eyes of your Body cannot reach, and then consider what the Cause might be that you are more rational than the other Creatures, seeing you can search what is in every Thing; and consider farther, from whence the Elements, Fire and Air take their Original, and how the Fire comes to be in the Water, and generates itself in the Water; and how the Light of your Body generates itself in the Water; and then if you be born of God, you attain to what God and the Eternal Birth is.

(1) Looking into his Son with all the Love Which each of them eternally breathes forth, The Primal and unutterable Power Whate'er before the mind or eye revolves With so much order made, there can be none Who this beholds without enjoying Him. Lift up then, Reader, to the lofty wheels With me thy vision straight unto that part Where the one motion on the other strikes, And there begin to contemplate with joy That Master's art, who in himself so loves it That never doth his eye depart therefrom. Behold how from that point goes branching off The oblique circle, which conveys the planets, To satisfy the world that calls upon them; And if their pathway were not thus inflected, Much virtue in the heavens would be in vain, And almost every power below here dead. If from the straight line distant more or less Were the departure, much would wanting be Above and underneath of mundane order. Remain now, Reader, still upon thy bench, In thought pursuing that which is foretasted, If thou wouldst jocund be instead of weary.

(3) It is by Spirit that all things are governed in the Cosmos, and made quick,—Spirit made subject to the Will of Highest God, as though it were an engine or machine. So far, then, [only] let Him be by us conceived,—as Him who is conceivable by mind alone, who is called Highest God, the Ruler and Director of God Sensible, —of Him who in Himself includes all Space, all Substance, and all Matter, of things producing and begetting, and all whatever is, however great it be. XVII

(1) IN the Beginning of the last preceding Chapter, it is mentioned, that it is not strange for a Man to write, speak, and teach of the Creation of the World, though he was not present when it was doing, if he has but the Knowledge in the Spirit. For there he sees in the Mother, as in a Glass, the Genetrix of every Thing; for one Thing always lies in another, and the more is sought, the more is found, and there is no need to cast the Mind beyond this World; for all is to be found in this World, yea in every Thing that lives and moves. Whatsoever any looks upon, and searches into, he shall find the Spirit with the Fiat therein; and the divine Virtue [or Power discovers, or] beholds itself in all Things, as it is written, the Word is near thee, even in thy Heart and Lips. For when the Light of God dawns, or breaks forth in the Center of the Spirit of the Soul, then the Spirit of the Soul sees very well the Creation of this World, as in a clear Glass, and nothing is far off.

(15) Now observe, the Heaven is the whole Deep so far as the Ethera, or Skies have given up themselves to the Birth of this World, and that Heaven is the Matrix, out of which Earth, Stones, and the material Water are generated. And there God separated the material Water from the Matrix; and here it is very plainly discerned, that the material Water is as it were dead, or has Death in it; for it could not abide in the moving Mother, but was created [to be] upon the Globe of the Earth, and God called it Sea, [Meer;] in which [Word] is understood in the Language of Nature, as it were a Springing [or Growing] in Death, or a Life in Corruption: Although herein I shall be as one that is dumb to the Reader, yet I know it very well, and I am very well satisfied therewith. But because the bestial Man is not worthy to know it, therefore I will not here cast the Pearl before the Swine; but for the Children of God, which will be benefited by it, the Spirit of God will certainly teach and instruct them in it. Note.

(6) Thus do these organs of the world proceed, As thou perceivest now, from grade to grade; Since from above they take, and act beneath. Observe me well, how through this place I come Unto the truth thou wishest, that hereafter Thou mayst alone know how to keep the ford The power and motion of the holy spheres, As from the artisan the hammer's craft, Forth from the blessed motors must proceed. The heaven, which lights so manifold make fair, From the Intelligence profound, which turns it, The image takes, and makes of it a seal. And even as the soul within your dust Through members different and accommodated To faculties diverse expands itself,

(59) Now we pray thus, Our Father [which art] in Heaven, hallowed (or sanctified) be thy Name. And in the first of Genesis it is written, God created the Heaven out of the Midst of the Water, by which is [meant or] understood the Heaven of the third Principle: And yet indeed he has created it out of his own Heaven wherein he dwells. Thus you may easily find, that the Birth of the Holy Deity stands in the Source of Water, and the powerful Spirit is moreover the Former, Framer, and Fashioner therein.

(21) As we see that here out of the Earth there springs Plants, Herbs, and Fruits, which receive their Virtue from the Sun, and from the Constellation: So the Heaven or the heavenly Limbus is instead of the Earth; and the Light of God instead of the Sun; and the eternal Father instead of the Virtue of the Stars. The Depth of this Substance is without Beginning and End, its Breadth cannot be reached, there are neither Years nor Time, no Cold nor Heat; no moving of the Air; no Sun nor Stars; no Water nor Fire; no Sight of evil Spirits; no Knowledge nor Apprehension of the Affliction of this World; no stony Rock nor Earth; and yet a figured Substance of all the Creatures of this World. For all the Creatures of this World have appeared to this End, that they might be an eternal figured Similitude; not that they continue in this Spirit in their Substance, no not so: All the Creatures return into their a Ether, and the Spirit corrupts [or fades,] but the Figure and the Shadow continue eternally.

(25) For you see, feel, and find, that all these must yet have a higher Root from whence they proceed, which is not visible, but hidden; especially if you look upon the starry Heaven which endures thus unchangeably; therefore you ought to consider from whence it is proceeded, and how it subsists thus, and is not corrupted, nor rises up above, nor falls down beneath, though indeed there is neither above nor beneath there. Now if you consider what preserves all thus, and whence it is, then you find the eternal Birth that has no Beginning, and you find the Original of the eternal Principle, viz. the eternal indissoluble Band: And then, secondly, you see the Separation, in that the material World, with the Stars and Elements, are out of the first Principle, which contains the outward and third Principle in it; for you find in the elementary Kingdom or Dominion, a Cause in every Thing, wherefore it is, generates, and moves as it does: But you find not the first Cause, from whence it is so: There are therefore stwo several Principles; for you find in the visible Things a Corruptibility, and perceive that they must have a Beginning, because they have an End.

(60) Thus now the Heaven in this Forming or Framing, and the Framing and Generating out of it in infinitum, or endlessly, is the Paradise of God, as the highly worthy Moses writes: The Spirit of God moved upon the Water, in the Framing [Forming or Fashioning] of the World. This is, and continues so in its Eternity, that the Spirit of God (in the Birth of the Son of God) moves upon the Water; for he is the Virtue, or Power, and the Out-Flowing of the Father, out of the kindled Light- Water, out of the Water and Light of God.