(1) BECAUSE I may happen not to be understood clearly enough by the desirous Reader, and shall be as one that is altogether dumb to the unenlightened, (for the eternal and indissoluble Band, wherein the Essence of all Essences stands, is not easily nor in haste to be understood,) therefore it is necessary that the desirous Reader do the more earnestly consider himself what he is, and from whence his Reason and Senses proceed, wherein he finds the Similitude of God, especially if he considers and meditates what his Soul is, which is an eternal incorruptible Spirit.

(17) But we should not here again wholly set down the Ground of the Deity, so far as it is otherwise meet and known by us, we account that needless [here,] for you may find it before the Incarnation of a Child in the Mother's [Womb or] Body. We set down thus much here, to the End that the Region of his World may be understood. And thus we give the Reader exactly to understand and know how the Region of Good and Evil are in one another, and how it is an imperishable Thing [or Substance,] so that one is generated out of the other, and that also the one goes forth out of the other into another Substance [or Being,] which it was not in the Beginning; as you may learn to understand this in Man, who in his Beginning, in the Will of Man and Woman, viz. in the Limbus, and in the Matrix, is conceived in the Tincture, and sown in an earthly Soil; where then the first Tincture A Desiring or Attracting. Dispels. (in the Will) breaks, and his own Tincture springs forth out of the anxious [or aching] Chamber of Darkness, and of Death, out of the anxious Source [or Property,] and blossoms out of the Darkness, in the broken Gate of the Darkness in it, as a pleasant Habitation, and so generates its Light out of the anxious Fierceness out of itself; where then (in the Light) there goes forth again the endless Source of the [Thoughts or] Senses, which make a Throne and Region of Reason, which governs the whole House, and desires to enter into the Region of Heaven, out of which it proceeded not. And therefore now this is not the original Will, which there desires to enter into the Region of the Heaven; but it is the preconceived Will out of the Source of the Anxiety, [which Will is a Desire to] enter through the deep Gate of God.

(1) SEEING we are now to speak of God, what he is, and where he is, we must say, that God himself is the Essence of all Essences; for all is generated or born, created and proceeded from him, and all Things take their first Beginning out of God; as the Scripture witnesses, saying, Through him, and in him are all Things. Also, The Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens are not able to contain him: Also, Heaven is my Throne, and the Earth is my Footstool: And in Our Father is mentioned, thine is the Kingdom and the Power; understand all Power.

(4) Now this cannot be expressed or described, nor brought to the Understanding by the Tongue of Man; for God has no Beginning. But I will set it down so as if he had a Beginning, that it might be understood what is in the first Principle, whereby the difference between the first and second Principle may be understood, and what God or Spirit is. Indeed there is no difference in God, only when it is enquired from whence Evil and Good proceed, it is to be known, what is the first and original fountain of Anger, and also of Love, since they both proceed from one and the same Original, out of one Mother, and are one Thing. Thus we must speak after a creaturely Manner, as if it took a Beginning, that it might be brought to be understood.

(53) But what is that which is of God, and belongeth unto Him? I answer: whatever with justice and truth we do, or might call good. When therefore among the creatures the man cleaveth to that which is the best that he can perceive, and keepeth steadfastly to that, in singleness of heart, he cometh afterward to what is better and better, until, at last, he findeth and tasteth that the Eternal Good is a Perfect Good, without measure and number above all created good. Now if what is best is to be dearest to us, and we are to follow after it, the One Eternal Good must be loved above all and alone, and we must cleave to Him alone, and unite ourselves with Him as closely as we may. And now if we are to ascribe all goodness to the One Eternal Good, as of right and truth we ought, so must we also of right and truth ascribe unto Him the beginning, middle, and end of our course, so that nothing remain to man or the creature. So it should be of a truth, let men say what they will. Now on this wise we should attain unto a true inward life. And what then further would happen to the soul, or would be revealed unto her, and what her life would be henceforward, none can declare or guess. For it is that which hath never been uttered by man’s lips, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive. In this our long discourse, are briefly comprehended those things which ought of right and truth to be fulfilled: to wit, that man should claim nothing for his own, nor crave, will, love, or intend anything but God alone, and what is like unto Him, that is to say, the One, Eternal, Perfect Goodness. But if it be not thus with a man, and he take, will, purpose, or crave, somewhat for himself, this or that, whatever it may be, beside or other than the Eternal and Perfect Goodness which is God Himself, this is all too much and a great injury, and hindereth the man from a perfect life; wherefore he can never reach the Perfect Good, unless he first forsake all things and himself first of all. For no man can serve two masters, who are contrary the one to the other; he who will have the one, must let the other go. Therefore if the Creator shall enter in, the creature must depart. Of this be assured.

(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.

(63) For because Man was to be eternal, therefore he must also come to be out of the Eternal; for nothing is created out of the Fountain of the Heart of God. For that is the End of Nature, and has no such Essences; no comprehensible [or palpable] Thing enters therein; otherwise it would be a Filling and Darkness, and that cannot be: Also from Eternity, there has been nothing else but only the Source [or working Property] where the Deity continually rises up, as is mentioned before.

(30) But when we consider [or mean] the Original of the first Principle, then we find the [Nature, Property, or] Species of the Tree, and also the Will to the Tree. We find there the Abyss of Hell and of Anger [and Wrath;] and moreover we find the Will of all the Devils, we find the envious Will of all the Creatures of this World, why they all are the Enemies one of another, and do hate, bite, worry, kill and devour one another. My beloved Reason, here I will show you the Tree of the Temptation, and you shall look Moses in the Face: Keep your Mind stedfast, that you may apprehend it. 31.1 have often given you to understand in this Book already, what the Essence of all Essences is; but because it is most of all highly necessary in this Place to know the Ground [thereof,] therefore I will a set it you down all at large, and very fundamentally, so that you shall know it in yourself; yea you shall understand it in all Creatures, and in all Things that are, or that you look upon, or at any Time may possibly think on; all these shall be Witnesses. I can bring Heaven and Earth, also the Sun, Stars, and Elements for a Witness, and that not in bare Words and Promises only, but it shall be set before you [very convincingly and] very powerfully in their Virtue and Essence; and you have no Virtue [or Power, or Faculty] in your Body, that shall not [convince you and] witness against you; do but not suffer the lying Spirit, the old Serpent, to darken your Mind, who is the Inventor of a Thousand Tricks.

(9) Let us, then, make a mental picture of our universe: each member shall remain what it is, distinctly apart; yet all is to form, as far as possible, a complete unity so that whatever comes into view shall show as if it were the surface of the orb over all, bringing immediately with it the vision, on the one plane, of the sun and of all the stars with earth and sea and all living things as if exhibited upon a transparent globe.

Bring this vision actually before your sight, so that there shall be in your mind the gleaming representation of a sphere, a picture holding sprung, themselves, of that universe and repose or some at rest, some in motion. Keep this sphere before you, and from it imagine another, a sphere stripped of magnitude and of spatial differences; cast out your inborn sense of Matter, taking care not merely to attenuate it: call on God, maker of the sphere whose image you now hold, and pray Him to enter. And may He come bringing His own Universe with all the Gods that dwell in it- He who is the one God and all the gods, where each is all, blending into a unity, distinct in powers but all one god in virtue of that one divine power of many facets.

More truly, this is the one God who is all the gods; for, in the coming to be of all those, this, the one, has suffered no diminishing. He and all have one existence while each again is distinct. It is distinction by state without interval: there is no outward form to set one here and another there and to prevent any from being an entire identity; yet there is no sharing of parts from one to another. Nor is each of those divine wholes a power in fragment, a power totalling to the sum of the measurable segments: the divine is one all-power, reaching out to infinity, powerful to infinity; and so great is God that his very members are infinites. What place can be named to which He does not reach?

Great, too, is this firmament of ours and all the powers constellated within it, but it would be greater still, unspeakably, but that there is inbound in it something of the petty power of body; no doubt the powers of fire and other bodily substances might themselves be thought very great, but in fact, it is through their failure in the true power that we see them burning, destroying, wearing things away, and slaving towards the production of life; they destroy because they are themselves in process of destruction, and they produce because they belong to the realm of the produced.

The power in that other world has merely Being and Beauty of Being. Beauty without Being could not be, nor Being voided of Beauty: abandoned of Beauty, Being loses something of its essence. Being is desirable because it is identical with Beauty; and Beauty is loved because it is Being. How then can we debate which is the cause of the other, where the nature is one? The very figment of Being needs some imposed image of Beauty to make it passable and even to ensure its existence; it exists to the degree in which it has taken some share in the beauty of Idea; and the more deeply it has drawn on this, the less imperfect it is, precisely because the nature which is essentially the beautiful has entered into it the more intimately.

(48) Now we have shown you the first Principle, out of which all Things take their Beginning; and must so speak of it, as if there was a Place, or a separable Essence, where there is such a Kind of Source; to the End that the first Principle might be understood, so that the Eternity, as also the Anger of God, Sin, eternal Death, the Darkness, (which is so called in Respect of the Extinguishing of the Light,) also Hell-fire, and the Devil, might be known and understood [what they are.]

(62) And although I have written here, as if it took a Beginning, (writing as it were of the Beginning [and first Springing] of the second Principle, and the Birth of the divine Essence,) yet you must not understand it as having any Beginning; for the eternal Birth is thus, [without Beginning or End,] and that in the Originality; but I write, to the End that Man might learn to know himself, what he is, and what God, Heaven, Angels, Devils, and Hell are, as also what the Wrath of God and Hell- Fire is. For I am permitted to write as far as of the Originality.

(32) In short, I would have you to understand, that God (in so far as He is good) is goodness as goodness, and not this or that good. But here mark one thing. Behold! what is sometimes here and sometimes there is not everywhere, and above all things and places; so also, what is to-day, or to-morrow, is not always, at all times, and above all time; and what is some thing, this or that, is not all things and above all things. Now behold, if God were some thing, this or that, He would not be all in all, and above all, as He is; and so also, He would not be true Perfection. Therefore God is, and yet He is neither this nor that which the creature, as creature, can perceive, name, conceive or express. Therefore if God (in so far as He is good) were this or that good, He would not be all good, and therefore He would not be the One Perfect Good, which He is. Now God is also a Light and a Reason,40 the property of which is to give light and shine, and take knowledge; and inasmuch as God is Light and Reason, He must give light and perceive. And all this giving and perceiving of light existeth in God without the creature; not as a work fulfilled, but as a substance or well-spring. But for it to flow out into a work, something really done and accomplished,41 there must be creatures through whom this can come to pass.

(1) FIRST, with your permission, let us examine the all-perfect Name of Goodness, which is indicative of the whole progressions of Almighty God, having invoked the supremely good, and super-good Triad--the Name which indicates Its whole best Providences. For, we must first be raised up to It, as Source of good, by our prayers; and by a nearer approach to It, be initiated as to the all good gifts which are established around It. For It is indeed present to all, but all are not present to It. But then, when we have invoked It, by all pure prayers and unpolluted mind, and by our aptitude towards Divine Union, we also are present to It. For, It is not in a place, so that It should be absent from a particular place, or should pass from one to another. But even the statement that It is in all existing beings, falls short of Its infinitude (which is) above all, and embracing all. Let us then elevate our very selves by our prayers to the higher ascent of the Divine and good rays,--as if a luminous chain being suspended from the celestial heights, and reaching down hither, we, by ever clutching this upwards, first with one hand, and then with the other, seem indeed to draw it down, but in reality we do not draw it down, it being both above and below, but ourselves are carried upwards to the higher splendours of the luminous rays. Or, as if, after we have embarked on a ship, and are holding on to the cables reaching from some rock, such as are given out, as it were, for us to seize, we do not draw the rock to us, but ourselves, in fact, and the ship, to the rock. Or to take another example, if any one standing on the ship pushes away the rock by the sea shore, he will do nothing to the stationary and unmoved rock, but he separates himself from it, and in proportion as he pushes that away, he is so far hurled from it. Wherefore, before everything, and especially theology, we must begin with prayer, not as though we ourselves were drawing the power, which is everywhere and nowhere present, but as, by our godly reminiscences and invocations, conducting ourselves to, and making ourselves one with, it.

(29) Reader, who lovest God; hereby it will be shown thee, that the great Mysteries meet us, concerning the hidden Things that were in Adam before his Fall, and that yet there are much greater after his Fall, when he was as it were dead, and yet living; and here is shown the Birth of the eternal Essence, and why it still must thus have been, that Adam must have been tempted, and wherefore it could not have been otherwise; though Reason continually a gainsays it, and alledges God's Omnipotence, that it was in him to hinder, or suffer the doing of it.

(38) Thus, my beloved Reason, I have set a Gloss before you, and thus it was with Adam. God had created his Work wisely and good, and extracted the one out of the other. The first Ground was himself, out of which he created the World, and out of the World [he created] Man, to whom he gave his Spirit, and intimated to him, that without Wavering, or any other Desire, he should live in him most perfectly.

(1) BECAUSE there belongs a divine Light to the Knowledge and Apprehension of this, and that without the divine Light there is no Comprehensibility at all of the divine Essence, therefore I will a little represent the high hidden Secret in a creaturely Manner, that thereby the Reader may come into the Depth. For the divine Essence cannot be wholly expressed by the Tongue; the Spiraculum Vitae (that is, the Spirit of the Soul which looks into the Light) only comprehends it. For every Creature sees and understands no further nor deeper than its Mother is, out of which it is come originally.

(1) IF we consider now (in the Light of Nature) of Man, the Image of God, of his Beginning, and of his eternal Enduring, Being, [or Substance,] and then of the Breaking of his Body, how Body and Soul part asunder, and whither the Souls go, when the Spirit of their Breath does break [or dissolve] in them, and the Springing or Moving in the Tincture of this World does cease, then we find the Ground of the Unquietness of the Soul, when it is separated from the Body, [being] unregenerated; from whence Lamentation and Desiring arise; from whence then the Babel of Confusion has risen, so that very many Things have therefore been invented to ransom Souls [out of Distress.]

(3) And although I write now, as if there was a Beginning in the eternal Birth, yet it is not so; but the eternal Nature thus begets [or generates] itself without Beginning. My Writings must be understood in a creaturely Manner, as the Birth of Man is, who is a Similitude of God. Although it be just so in the eternal Being, [Essence or Substance,] yet that is both without Beginning and without End; and my Writing is only to this End, that Man might learn to know what he is, what he was in the Beginning, how he was a very glorious eternal holy Man, that should never have known the Gate of the strong [or austere] Birth in the Eternity, if he had not suffered himself to lust after it through the Infection of the Devil, and had not eaten of that naked and vain Man in a bestial Form, and lost the heavenly Garment of the divine Power, and lives now in the Kingdom of the Devil, in the i infected Salnitre, and feeds upon the infected Food. Therefore it is necessary for us to learn to know ourselves, what we are, and how we might be redeemed from the anguishing austere Birth, and be regenerated or born anew, and live in the new Man, (which is like the first Man before the Fall,) in Christ our Regenerator.

(11) But that we may, in a brief Sum, give the Reader to understand what our Knowledge and high Sense in the Light of Nature has highly apprehended, we therefore set it down thus, according to our Knowledge. Adam was the Image of God, according to the Similitude of God, which God (the holy Trinity in one only divine Substance) through the Virgin of his eternal Wisdom, in the Wisdom had [manifested or discovered, [or purposed,] in the eternal Element to have in the Room of the fallen Devil. For his Counsel (in the eternal Will) must stand; there should and must be a Throne and Princely Region in this Place, which should manifest the eternal Wonders.

(2) Therefore now I direct the Reader to the Creatures, that he may search into them, and so he shall find all Things, and that more wonderfully than any Man can write or speak, if we be born of God. We must not a think with our Understanding and Skill, of God's making or creating, as of a Man that makes something, as a Potter makes a Vessel of a Lump of Clay, or a Stone-Cutter or Carver makes an Image after his Pleasure; and if it does not please him, then he breaks it again: No, the Works of God, in the Creation of the World, were altogether fixt and stedfast, good and perfect, as Moses writes: And God saw all that he had made, and behold it was very good.