(107) The Right-hand of God is where the Love quenches the Anger, and generates the Paradise, that must needs be the Right-hand of God, where the angry Father is called God in the Love and Light of his Heart, which is his Son; and this bodily Throne (viz. the whole Body of Christ) is wholly at the Right-hand of God. But when it is said, at the Right-hand of God, then understand the most inward Root of the sharp Might of the Father, wherein the Omnipotence consists, where the Father himself goes forth into the reconceived Will, into the Meekness, and opens the Gate (in the dispelling of the Darkness) in himself; thus Christ is set therein, and sits thus at the Right-hand of the Virtue [or Power] and Omnipotence, in such a Manner, as we cannot more highly express it with our Tongue, we understand it well in the Spirit; therefore it is not needful for you to search any further into it, but only look that you attain the Body of Christ, and then you have God and the Kingdom of Heaven; but we must write thus, because of the Errors in the World, and for their Longing's Sake that are therein.

(2) All that God worketh and teacheth, He worketh in His Son. All His work is directed to this end that we also may be His Son. When God sees that we are indeed His son, He yearns after us, and in the depth of His Divine Being waves of longing break forth, to reveal to us the abyss of His Godhead, and the fullness of His essence; He hastens to identify Himself with us. Herein He hath joy and gladness in full measure. God loveth men not less than He loveth Himself. If thou really lovest thyself, thou lovest all men as thyself; as long as thou lovest any one less than thyself, thou dost not really love thyself. That man is right who loves all men as himself.

(5) But the favourable Love, (that is, the only begotten Son of God, or that I may set it down so that it may be understood, the lovely Fountain where the Light of God is 1 generated,) sprung up, and grew again in Adam in the Center of the Birth of his Life, in the fifth Form of his Birth; whereby Adam perceived that he was not broken off from the divine Root, but that he was still the Child of God, and repented him of his first evil Lust: And thereupon the Lord showed him the Treader upon the Serpent, who should destroy his monstrous Birth; and so he should from the monstrous Birth be regenerated anew, in the Shape, Form, Power and Virtue of the Treader upon the Serpent, and be brought with Power again into Paradise, into the holy Birth, and eat of the mWord of the Lord again, and live eternally, in Spite of all the Gates of the Wrathfulness, wherein the Devil lives; concerning which there shall be farther mention made in its due Place.

(42) Behold, this they call understanding, and knowing. Yet this is not knowledge, but belief, and many things are known and loved and seen only with this sort of perceiving and knowing. There is also yet another kind of Love, which is especially false, to wit, when something is loved for the sake of a reward, as when justice is loved not for the sake of justice, but to obtain something thereby, and so on. And where a creature loveth other creatures for the sake of something that they have, or loveth God, for the sake of something of her own, it is all false Love; and this Love belongeth properly to nature, for nature as nature can feel and know no other love than this; for if ye look narrowly into it, nature as nature loveth nothing beside herself. On this wise something may be seen to be good and not loved. But true Love is taught and guided by the true Light and Reason, and this true, eternal and divine Light teacheth Love to love nothing but the One true and Perfect Good, and that simply for its own sake, and not for the sake of a reward, or in the hope of obtaining anything, but simply for the Love of Goodness, because it is good and hath a right to be loved. And all that is thus seen by the help of the True Light must also be loved of the True Love. Now that Perfect Good, which we call God, cannot be perceived but by the True Light; therefore He must be loved wherever He is seen or made known.

(13) The Soul of Man, which God has breathed into him, is out of the Eternal Father; yet understand it right; there is a Difference [to be observed, you must] understand, [that it is] out of his unchangeable Will, out of which he generates his Son and Heart from Eternity, out of the divine Center, from whence the Fiat goes forth, which makes Separation, and has in fit all the Essences of the eternal Birth, [or all Manner of Things which are in the eternal Birth.] Only the Birth of the Son of God, that very Center which the Son of God himself is, he has not; for that Center is the End of Nature, and not creaturely. That is the highest Center of the fire-burning Love and Mercy of God, the Perfection [or Fulness.] Out of this Center no Creature comes, but it appears [or shines] in the Creature, viz. in Angels, and in the Souls of holy Men; for the Holy Ghost, and the Omnipotence which frames the eternal Will in the eternal Father, go forth out of this [Center.]

(13) This [Image] is not the Heart of God, but it reaches into the Heart of God, and it receives Virtue, Light and Joy from the Heart and Light of God. For it is in the eternal Will of the Father, out of which he [the Father] continually generates his Heart and Word from Eternity; and ehis Essences, which, in the Element of his Body, viz. [in the Element] of Ignorance in the eternal Wonders of God now breathed into him, they (in respect of the high triumphing Light, out of the Heart and Light of God) were Paradise; his Meat and Drink was Paradise, out of the Element, in his Will; whereby then he drew the Virtue of the eternal Wonders of God into him, and generated the Noise [Voice] Sound, or the eternal Hymn of the eternal Wonders of God, out of himself before the Will; and all this stood before the chaste, high, noble, and blessed Virgin, the divine Wisdom, in a pleasant Sport, and was the right Paradise.

(1) The love of God is the highest of all topics, and is the final aim to which we have been tending hitherto. We have spoken of spiritual dangers as they hinder the love of God in a man's heart, and we have spoken of various good qualities as being the necessary preliminaries to it. Human perfection resides in this: that the love of God should conquer a man's heart and possess it wholly, and even if it does not possess it wholly it should predominate in the heart over the love of all other things. Nevertheless, rightly to understand the love of God is so difficult a matter that one sect of theologians have altogether denied that man can love a Being who is not of his own species, and they have defined the love of God as consisting merely in obedience. Those who hold such views do not know what real religion is.

(26) And if the Love of God (which so dearly loved the Image of Man, that itself is become Man) did not stand in the Center of the Mind in the [Midst or] Point of Separation, then Man had been a living Devil, and he is indeed such a one, when he despises the Regeneration, and i goes on according to the inbred Nature of the first and third Principles.

(41) We see this in the Evil Spirit; he perceiveth and knoweth good and evil, right and wrong, and the like; but since he hath no love for the good that he seeth, he becometh not good, as he would if he had any love for the truth and other virtues which he seeth. It is indeed true that Love must be guided and taught of Knowledge, but if Knowledge be not followed by love, it will avail nothing. It is the same with God and divine things. Let a man know much about God and divine things, nay, dream that he seeth and understandeth what God Himself is, if he have not Love, he will never become like unto God, or a “partaker of the divine nature.” But if there be true Love along with his knowledge, he cannot but cleave to God, and forsake all that is not God or of Him, and hate it and fight against it, and find it a cross and a sorrow. And this Love so maketh a man one with God, that he can nevermore be separated from Him.

(4) Again: If I am in a higher place and say to some one, "Come up hither," that might be difficult for him. But if I say, "Sit down," that would be easy. Thus God dealeth with us. When man humbles himself, God cannot restrain His mercy; He must come down and pour His grace into the humble man, and He gives Himself most of all, and all at once, to the least of all. It is essential to God to give, for His essence is His goodness and His goodness is His love. Love is the root of all joy and sorrow. Slavish fear of God is to be put away. The right fear is the fear of losing God. If the earth flee downward from heaven, it finds heaven beneath it; if it flee upward, it comes again to heaven.

The earth cannot flee from heaven: whether it flee up or down, the heaven rains its influence upon it, and stamps its impress upon it, and makes it fruitful, whether it be willing or not. Thus doth God with men: whoever thinketh to escape Him, flies into His bosom, for every corner is open to Him. God brings forth His Son in thee, whether thou likest it or not, whether thou sleepest or wakest; God worketh His own will. That man is unaware of it, is man's fault, for his taste is so spoilt by feeding on earthly things that he cannot relish God's love. If we had love to God, we should relish God, and all His works; we should receive all things from God, and work the same works as He worketh.

(36) But the divine Answer in the Light of Nature says to me; Behold, out of what art thou grown? Have I planted thee? Art thou not grown in my wild Garden? When Adam went into the wild Garden, there he a planted thee. How art thou grown so great? Who has given thee Virtue [or Sap,] thou wild Tree? My Love never stirred thee up, all thy Branches are wild, and thy Fruit is wild. Dost thou think that my Soul lusts after thy Food? I will not eat of thy Fruit: I am strong, and the Kingdom is mine; he that comes under my Wings, I will shelter him, no Storm can touch him; moreover, the Country is mine. I have left it to you, to be used in unanimous Love; and have set you out of one [and the same] Root, that you should be alike, and love one another, and prevent one another in chaste Love.

(56) For behold, the Father is the original Essence of all Essences. And if now the second Principle did not break forth and spring up in the Birth of the Son, then the Father would be a dark Valley. And thus you see, that the Son (who is the Heart, the Love, the Brightness and the mild Rejoicing of the Father,) [in whom he is well-pleased,] opens another Principle in his Birth, and makes the angry and wrathful Father (as I may say, as to the Originality of the first Principle) reconciled, pleased, loving, and as I may say, merciful; and he is another [Manner of] Person than the Father; for in his a Center there is nothing else but mere Joy, Love, and Pleasure. And yet you may see that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, for when the Heart or Light of God is generated in the Father, then there springs up (in the Kindling of the Light in the fifth Form) out of the Water-Source in the Light, a very pleasant sweet smelling and sweet tasted Spirit; and this is that Spirit which in the Original was the bitter Sting or Prickle in the Harshness [or Tartness;] and that makes now in this Water-Source many thousand of the Water.

(29) Beloved Mind, put such Thoughts away from thee, or else thou wilt make of the kind and loving God, an unmerciful and hostile Will, but leave off such Thoughts of God, and consider thyself what thou art; in thyself thou shall find the Tree of the Temptation, and also the Will to have it, which made it spring up; yea the Source [Lust or Quality] whence it sprung up, stands in thee, and not in God; [this must be understood] that when we will speak of the pure Deity (which manifests itself in the second Principle through the Heart of God) it is thus, and not otherwise.

(7) The Father and the Son have one Will, and that Will is the Holy Ghost, Who gives Himself to the soul so that the Divine Nature permeates the powers of the soul so that it can only do God-like works. Just as a spring, which perpetually flows and waters the roots of the flowers, so that the flowers bloom and receive their colours from the water of the spring, so the Godhead imparts Itself to the capacities of the soul that it may grow in the likeness of God. The more that the soul receives of the Divine Nature, the more it grows like It, and the closer becomes its union with God. It may arrive at such an intimate union that God at last draws it to Himself altogether, so that there is no distinction left, in the soul's consciousness, between itself and God, though God still regards it as a creature. Wherefore let yourselves not be misled by the light of nature. The higher the degree of knowledge which the soul attains to in the light of grace, the darker seems to it the light of nature.

If the soul would know the real truth it must examine itself, whether it has withdrawn from all things, whether it has lost itself, whether it loves God purely with His love and nothing of its own at the same time, so that it may not be separated from Him by anything, and whether God alone dwells in it. If it has lost itself, it is as when the Virgin Mary lost Christ. She sought Him for three days, and yet was sure that she would find Him. All the while Christ was in the highest class in the school of His Father, unconscious of His mother's seeking Him. Thus happens it to the noble soul which goes to God to school, and learns there what God is in His essence, and what He is in the Trinity, and what He is in man, and what is most acceptable to Him. St Augustine saith that the righteousness of God in the Godhead and in the Trinity and in all creatures is the source of the chief joy which is in heaven. God in human nature is a lamp of living light, and "the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not." The darkness must ever more flee the light, as the night flees day.

Thus the soul learns to know God's will. St Paul saith, "This is God's will, our sanctification." And this is our sanctification, to know what we were before time; what we are in time, and what we shall be after time. Thus the soul loses itself in these three, and recketh naught of the body, till it comes to it in the temple, and obeys it without murmuring. The Father is a revelation of the Godhead, the Son is an image and countenance of the Father, and the Holy Ghost is an effulgence of that countenance, and a mutual love between Them, and these properties They have always possessed in Themselves. The Three Persons have stooped out of pity down to human nature, and the Son became man, and was the most despised man on the earth, and suffered pain at the hands of the creatures whom He Himself created with the Father, through Whose will He became man. Thus was Christ till His death, and when He rose from the dead then was seen the most despised of all men united with the Godhead in the Person of Christ.

(65) Behold, O Child of Man! All the Angels were created in the first Principle, and by the outflowing Spirit were formed, and made a Body in a true angelical and spiritual Manner, and enlightened from the Light of God, that they might increase the paradisical Joy, and abide [therein] eternally. But seeing they were to abide eternally, they must be figured [or formed] out of the indissoluble Band, out of the first Principle, which is an indissoluble Band; and they ought to look upon the Heart of God, and feed upon the Word of God, and this Food would be their holy Preservation, and would make their Image clear and light; as the Heart of God, in the Beginning of the second Principle, enlightens the Father, (that is, the first Principle;) and there the divine Power, Paradise, and the Kingdom of Heaven spring up.

(15) Therefore, O noble Man, let not Antichrist ahd the Devil befool you, who tell you that the Deity is far off from you, and direct you to a Heaven that is situated far above you; whereas there is nothing nearer to you than the Heaven is. You only stand before the Door of Heaven, and you are gone forth with Adam out of the paradisical Heaven into the third Principle; yet you stand in the Gate, do but as the eternal Mother does, which by great desiring and longing after the Kingdom of God, attains the Kingdom of Heaven, wherein God dwells, wherein Paradise springs up; do you but so, set all your Desire upon the Heart of God, and so you will pass in by Force, as the eternal Mother does; and then it shall be with thee as Christ said, The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth Violence, and the Violent take it by Force: So you shall make to yourself Friends in Heaven with your unrighteous Mammon, and so you come to be the true Similitude and Image of God, and his proper own; for all the three Principles, with the Eternity, are in you, and the holy Paradise is again generated in you, wherein God dwells. Then where will you seek for God? Seek him in your Soul only that is proceeded out of the eternal Nature, wherein the divine Birth stands.

(56) The Light of Nature shows us now (in the Love of God) quite another Throne, which God the Father with his Son Jesus Christ has established; the same is the eternal Throne in [or of] Grace, where our Soul may be new regenerated, and not in the antichristian Throne; that is nothing else but the Throne of Babel the Confusion, where he may continue to be the Ape of Christ upon Earth with his brave Hood; where of late we saw a young Lad, [Disciple, or Scholar,] who plucked the Pearl from his a Hatband, and his Hatband broke; and then he became as another earthly Man, and none saluted [reverenced or regarded] him. The Difference [or Distinction] between the Virgin Mary, and her Son JESUS CHRIST. The Earnest and true Gate of Christian Religion; and of the Articles of Belief, earnestly to be considered for the Sake of Man's Salvation, and because of the Inventions and Opinions of Heretics and Schismatics, forged by the confused Babel of Antichrist. The high and deep Gate of the Aurora and Day-spring in the Root of the Lily.

(11) As God can only be seen by His own light, so He can only be loved by His own love. The merely natural man is incapable of this, because nature by itself is incapable of responding to the Divine Love and is confined within its own circle. Therefore it is necessary for Grace, which is a simple supernatural power, to elevate the natural faculties to union in God above the merely temporal objects of existence. The possibility of love to God is grounded in the relative likeness between man and God. If the soul is to reach its moral goal, i.e.

Godlikeness, it must become inwardly like God through grace, and a spiritual birth which is the spring of true morality. The inner work that man has to do is the practical realization of Grace: without this, all outward work is ineffectual for salvation. Virtue is never mere virtue, it is either from God, or through God, or in God. All the soul's works which are to inherit an everlasting recompense must be carried on in God. They are rewarded by Him in proportion as they are carried on in Him, for the soul is an instrument of God whereby He carries on His work.

(37) And the Will of the Heart of God in the Father, is from the Heart entered into the Will of the Wisdom, before the Father, into an eternal Contract; and the same Virgin in the Wisdom of God, in the Word of God, has in the Bosom of the Virgin Mary given itself into her virgin Matrix, and united itself, as a Propriety, not to depart in Eternity; [you must] understand, into the Essences, and into the Tincture of the Element, which is pure and undefiled before God. In that, the Heart of God is become an angelical Man, as Adam was in the Creation; and the going forth out of the Heart of God, with the whole Fulness of the Deity (out of which also the holy Spirit of God, and out of the Spirit the Virgin, goes forth) makest his high angelical Image greater than Adam, or ever any Angel was; for it is the Blessing, and the Might of all Things, which are in the Father eternally.

(41) Some may ask, “What is it to be a ‘partaker of the divine nature,’ or a Godlike man?” Answer: he who is imbued with or illuminated by the Eternal or divine Light, and inflamed or consumed with Eternal or divine love, he is a Godlike man and a partaker of the divine nature; and of the nature of this True Light we have said somewhat already. But ye must know that this Light or knowledge is worth nothing without Love. This ye may see if ye call to mind, that though a man may know very well what is virtue or wickedness, yet if he doth not love virtue, he is not virtuous, for he obeyeth vice. But if he loveth virtue he followeth after it, and his love maketh him an enemy to wickedness, so that he will not do or practise it, and hateth it also in other men; and he loveth virtue so that he would not leave a virtue unpractised even if he might, and this for no reward, but simply for the love of virtue. And to him virtue is its own reward, and he is content therewith, and would take no treasure or riches in exchange for it. Such an one is already a virtuous man, or he is in the way to be so.