(40) For in the Beginning of the Creation, at the Time when the Earth became material, all was generated out of one only Substance, and there was no more done but a Separation made of one from another: Therefore in every Separation there must needs be always a vehement Hunger of one 1 after another. An Example whereof you have in Propagation; for the Sake whereof the Separation was so made: For you see that there is a Male and a Female; and that the one continually desires Copulation with the other, that they may generate. This is a great hidden Secret. Observe, when the Creator by the Fiat separated the Matrix from the Aquaster [or watery Mother;] for the first Form is heavenly and incorruptible, as long as the Kingdom of this World stands, and the Root of the first Form holds Paradise. vill set it down more intelligibly [or plainly] for the simplest Reader's Sake.

(35) Behold, thou reasonable Soul, to thee I speak, and not to the Body, thou only apprehendest it:- When the Birth is thus continually generated, then every Form has a Center to the Regeneration; for the whole divine Essence [or Substance] stands in continual and in eternal P Generating (but unchangeably) like the Mind of Man, the Thoughts being continually generated out of the Mind, and the Will and Desiring out of the Thoughts. Out of the Will and Desirousness [is] the Work [generated] which is made a Substance, in the Will, and then the Mouth and Hands, go on to perform what was substantial in the Will.

(16) Yea, I would ask Thee such a thing as this: How such an one as he who, with wise action, has striven to promote (Thy holy) Rule over house, and region, and province, in the Righteous Order and in truth, how he may become like Thee , O Great Creator, Living Lord? And when he may so become, (this also I would ask), and in what actions living he may so be ?

(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.

(2) And as in glass, in amber, or in crystal A sunbeam flashes so, that from its coming To its full being is no interval, So from its Lord did the triform effect Ray forth into its being all together, Without discrimination of beginning. Order was con-created and constructed In substances, and summit of the world Were those wherein the pure act was produced. Pure potentiality held the lowest part; Midway bound potentiality with act Such bond that it shall never be unbound. Jerome has written unto you of angels Created a long lapse of centuries Or ever yet the other world was made; But written is this truth in many places By writers of the Holy Ghost, and thou Shalt see it, if thou lookest well thereat. And even reason seeth it somewhat, For it would not concede that for so long Could be the motors without their perfection. Now dost thou know both where and when these Loves Created were, and how; so that extinct In thy desire already are three fires.

(3) Now when God was to create the World, and all things therein, he had no other a Matter to make it of, but his own which has neither Beginning nor End, and his Greatness and Depth is all. Yet a Spirit does nothing but ascend, flow, move, and continually generate itself, and in itself has chiefly a threefold Manner of Form in its Generating or Birth, vis. Bitterness, Harshness, and cHeat, and these three Manner of Forms are neither of them the first, second, nor third; for all these three are but one, and each of them generates the second and third. For between Harshness and Bitterness, Fire is generated: and the Wrath of the Fire is the Bitterness or Sting itself, and the Harshness is the Stock or Father of both these, and yet is generated of them both; for a Spirit is like a Will, Sense, [or Thought,] which rises up, and in its Rising beholds,perfects, and generates itself.

(3) Now ope thine eyes to what I answer thee, And thou shalt see thy creed and my discourse Fit in the truth as centre in a circle. That which can die, and that which dieth not, Are nothing but the splendour of the idea Which by his love our Lord brings into being; Because that living Light, which from its fount Effulgent flows, so that it disunites not From Him nor from the Love in them intrined, Through its own goodness reunites its rays In nine subsistences, as in a mirror, Itself eternally remaining One. Thence it descends to the last potencies, Downward from act to act becoming such That only brief contingencies it makes; And these contingencies I hold to be Things generated, which the heaven produces By its own motion, with seed and without. Neither their wax, nor that which tempers it, Remains immutable, and hence beneath The ideal signet more and less shines through; Therefore it happens, that the selfsame tree After its kind bears worse and better fruit, And ye are born with characters diverse.

(37) Thus is the Birth (and also the first Original) of all the Creatures; and it standeth yet in such a Birth in the Essence; and after such a Manner it is, out of the eternal Thoughts (viz. the Wisdom of God) by the Fiat, brought out of the Matrix; but being come forth out of the Darkness, out of the Out-Birth, out of the Center, (which yet was generated in the Time, in the Will,) therefore it is not eternal, but corruptible [or transitory,] like a Thought; and though it be indeed material, yet every again, as it was before the Beginning.

(1) BUT now thou askest me and sayest, “How shall I think on Himself, and what is He?” and to this I cannot answer thee but thus: “I wot not.”

(8) But as I was in great astonishment, He saith to me again: Thou didst behold in Mind the Archetypal Form whose being is before beginning without end. Thus spake to me Man-Shepherd. And I say: Whence then have Nature's elements their being? To this He answer gives: From Will of God. [Nature] received the Word (Logos), and gazing upon the Cosmos Beautiful did copy it, making herself into a cosmos, by means of her own elements and by the births of souls.