(67) Therefore the Soul (when it departs from the Body) needs not to go far; for at that Place where the Body dies, there is Heaven and Hell; and the Man Christ dwells every where. God and the Devil is there, yet each of them in his own Kingdom. The Paradise is also there; and the Soul needs only to enter through the deep Door in the Center. Is the Soul holy? Then it stands in the Gate of Heaven, and the earthly Body has but kept it out of Heaven; and now when the Body comes to be broken, then the Soul is already in the Heaven; it needs no going out or in, Christ has it in his Arms, for where the four Elements break, there the Root of them remains, which is the holy Element, and therein the Body of Christ stands, and also Paradise, which stands in the springing Source of Joy; and that Element is the soft still Habitation.

(25) But there is a great Difference in Souls, and therefore a the going to Heaven is very unlike; some of them are through true Repentance and Sorrow for their Misdeeds, through their Faith (in the Time of their Bodies) set [or ingrafted] into the Heart of God, [and] new regenerated through the Birth of Jesus Christ; and they instantly (with the Breaking of their Bodies) leave all that is earthly, and instantly also lay off the Region of the Stars; and they comprehend, in their Essences of the first Principle, the Mercy of God the Father in the kind Love of Jesus Christ; and these] also stand, in the Time of their Bodies, according to the Essences of the Soul, (which they receive from the Passion and Death of Christ) in the Gate of the Heaven; and their Departure from the Body is a very pleasant Entering into the Element before God, into a still Rest, expecting their Bodies, without [irksome] Longing; where then the Paradise shall flourish again, which the Soul tastes very well, but effects no Source [or Work] till the first Adam, [as he was] before the Fall, dbe again upon it.

(89) And there now was no earthly Meat or Drink; and the Soul of Christ understood now very well what Inn [or House] it was in, that it was in God, and that it could of Stones make Bread, seeing there was none there; but it must eat no earthly Bread, but heavenly [Bread] out of the holy Ternary, in its heavenly Body; and the earthly Body must be hungry, that the Soul might be rightly tempted. For the earthly Body was hungry, as the Text in the Gospel says very right.

(80) When he was here upon Earth in the earthly Man, his outward Body was circumscribed and limited, as our Bodies are, but the inward Body is unlimited; for we also (in the Resurrection in the Body of Jesus Christ) are unlimited, yet visible and palpable or comprehensible, in the heavenly Flesh and Blood, as the Prince of Life himself is; we can in the heavenly Figure [or Shape] be great or little, and yet nothing be hurt or wanting in us; there is no Need of compressing the Parts of that Body. 81.0 dear Christians, leave off your Contentions about the Body of Jesus Christ; he is every where in all Places, a yet in the Heaven; and the Heaven (wherein God dwells) is also every where. God dwells in the Body of Jesus Christ, and in all holy Souls of Men, even when they depart from this outward Body; and if they be regenerated, then they are in the Body of Jesus Christ even while they are in this earthly Body. A Soul here in our Body upon Earth has not the Body of Christ in a palpable Substance, but in the Word of Power [or Virtue,] which comprehends all Things. In Christ indeed Body and Power is one [Thing,] but we must not understand [this of the four Elementary] Creature, [which is] in this World.

(7) Now if the Soul eats of the clear Deity, what [Food] has the Body then? For thou knowest that the Soul and the Body are not one and the same Thing; it is indeed a [very] Body, but the Soul is a Spirit, and must have spiritual Food, and the Body must have bodily Food. Or wilt thou give the new Man earthly Food? If thou meanest so, thou art yet far from the Kingdom of God. The heavenly Body of Christ did not eat earthly Food, but the outward Body only did eat that. Is not Christ's Body now in the tholy Ternary, and eats paradisical Food? Why then shall not our new Man do so? Did he not eat heavenly Food forty Days in the Wilderness, and always afterwards? And did he not tell his Disciples at Jacob's Well, / have Meat to eat that ye know not of; and further, It is my Meat to do the Will of my Father which is in Heaven? Is the Will of God his Food, why then is it not ours, if we live in him? Has not the Deity of Christ put on the Kingdom of Heaven for a Body? Is not the pure Element (wherein the Deity dwells) his Body?

(28) And it is not hard for the holy Souls, which are departed from the Body, to appear to a strong Faith of one that is living; for the firm Faith of the Living (if it be born of God) reaches also unto the Kingdom of Heaven, into the holy Element, where the separated Souls have their Rest.

(6) Thou sayest, Christ is ascended into Heaven, how then can he be in this World? And when thou reachest furthest, thou thinkest that he is present only with his holy Spirit, here in his Testaments, and that the Testaments are only Signs of his Merits. What sayest thou then of thy new Man? When indeed the Soul is fed with the Holy Ghost, what [Food] has thy new Man then? For each Life feeds upon its Mother.

(90) Secondly, we intimate also how Christ conversed upon Earth forty Days after his Resurrection, understand, in the Kingdom of this World, whereas yet he was in Heaven, yet he bore that Image without any outward Glory or Clarity before the Eyes of Men, and he had the Body wholly with every Essence, as it hung on the Cross, except the Source of the Principle, which he had not; but else he had all Essences in Flesh and Blood, and yet the outward Flesh stood in the Might [and Power] of the heavenly. This we see, by his going in to his Disciples, the Door being shut, and he passed with his Body through the Wood of the Door. Thus you may understand, that the World is as nothing to him, and that he has Power over all Things.

(67) You must not say that whole Christ with Body and Soul came from Heaven. He brought no Soul out of the holy Ternary; the heavenly Virgin was the Soul in the holy Ternary; and that he brought with him for a Bride to our Soul, as this whole Book does treat of it. For what would it help me, if he had brought a strange Soul with him? Nothing at all. But that he has brought my Soul into the holy Ternary, I rejoice at that; and thus I can say, that Christ's Soul is my Brother, and his Body is the Food of my Soul; as he says in the sixth Chapter of John, My Flesh is Meat indeed, and my Blood is Drink indeed.

(31) The Souls departed do not present our Wants before God; for God is nearer to us than the Souls departed are; and [besides] if they should do so, then they must have Bodies, as also paradisical Sources [or flowing Properties] springing up and working, whereas they are in the still Humility and meek Rest, and do not suffer our sour Miseries to enter into them, but one holy Tincture takes hold of another, to [increase] the Love and Delight. But they make not of Christ (their great Prince) a deaf Hearer, as if he did neither hear, feel, nor see any Thing himself; who stretches out his Arms, and himself without ceasing calls with his holy Spirit, and invites all the Children of Men to the Wedding; he will readily accept all, if they would but come.

(57) But that they have hitherto ascribed such acute Knowledge to the Soul, after the Departure of the Body, that thing is very various, according as the Soul is variously armed. It it here (in this Body) entered into the new Birth, and if itself was entered, with its noble Champion [Jesus Christ,] through the Princely Potentates, Gates of the Deep, to God, so that it has received the Crown of the high Wisdom from the noble Virgin, then indeed it has great Wisdom and Knowledge, even above the Heavens, for it is in the Bosom of the Virgin, through whom the eternal Wonders of God are opened. This [Soul] has also great Joy and Clarity, [Brightness or Luster,] above the Heavens of the Elements; for the Glance of the holy Trinity shines from it, and clarifies, [brightens, or glorifies] it.

(62) Therefore now if we will speak of our native Country, out of which we are wandered with Adam; and will tell of the Resting- Place of the Souls; we need not to scast our Minds far off; for far off and near is all one and the same Thing with God; the Place of the Holy Trinity is all over. Heaven and Hell is [every where] all over in this World, and the Man (Christ) dwells all over, for he has laid off the Corruptibility, and has swallowed up Death, as also that which is [fragile or] temporal, and he lives in God; his Body is the substance of the Element, which out of the Word of the Mercifulness, is from Eternity generated out of the Gates of the Deep; it is the Habitation, where the Sharpness of God breaks open the Darkness, where the eternal Virtue [or Power] appears in Wonders; and it is the Tincture of the Deity, which is before God, out of which the heavenly Virtues are generated; its name is wonderful; the earthly Tongue cannot express it.

(45) Make me no Absence of the Body and Blood of Christ, the Soul needs not run far for it; and besides, the Body of Christ in his Blood (in this Testament) is not the Food of the Soul; but the mere Deity is the Food of the Soul; and the Body of Christ is the Food of the new Man, which the Soul has put on from the Body of Jesus Christ, and the Body and the Blood of Jesus Christ feeds the new Man; and if the new Man abides faithful in the Body of Jesus Christ, then the noble Pearl of the Light of God is given to him, so that he can see the noble Virgin of the Wisdom of God; and that Virgin takes the Pearl into her Bosom, and goes continually with the Soul into the new Body, and warns the Soul of the false [or evil] Way. But what Manner of Pearl this is, I would that all Men might know it. But how much it is known, is plain before our Eyes. It is brighter than the splendor of the Sun, and of more Worth than the whole World; but how clear soever it is, yet it is also secret.

(8) It hath been asked whether it be possible for the soul, while it is yet in the body, to reach so high as to cast a glance into eternity, and receive a foretaste of eternal life and eternal blessedness. This is commonly denied; and truly so in a sense. For it indeed cannot be so long as the soul is taking heed to the body, and the things which minister and appertain thereto, and to time and the creature, and is disturbed and troubled and distracted thereby. For if the soul shall rise to such a state, she must be quite pure, wholly stripped and bare of all images, and be entirely separate from all creatures, and above all from herself. Now many think this is not to be done and is impossible in this present time. But St. Dionysius maintains that it is possible, as we find from his words in his Epistle to Timothy, where he saith: “For the beholding of the hidden things of God, shalt thou forsake sense and the things of the flesh, and all that the senses can apprehend, and all that reason of her own powers can bring forth, and all things created and uncreated that reason is able to comprehend and know, and shalt take thy stand upon an utter abandonment of thyself, and as knowing none of the aforesaid things, and enter into union with Him who is, and who is above all existence and all knowledge.” Now if he did not hold this to be possible in this present time, why should he teach it and enjoin it on us in this present time?

(76) Thou shouldst not think that the Soul of Christ these forty Hours was in any other Place than in the Father, and in his Body, where it sprung up in great Meekness upon the Persecution [it had,] as a Rose, or fair Flower out of the Earth; as also our Souls in our Rest, in the Body of Jesus Christ, at the last Judgment-Day in the Destruction of this World, shall in the new Body break forth again out of the Old; and in the mean While the Soul grows up in the holy Element, in the Body of Christ, till our forty Hours also come about, and not one Hour longer than the appointed Time is. Thus is the Body of Christ in the Power or Virtue of the Father (through the Soul) risen again and gone forth, and has in it the Light of the Holy Trinity.

(88) Speaking then of the true Resurrection of Christ, we will also show [somewhat] concerning his Conversation (those forty Days) after his Resurrection, before his Ascension. Because we know that he is become a real Lord over Heaven, Earth, and Hell, therefore we show you how the Kingdom of this World, with all the Essences and Qualities thereof, has been subjected to him. And though he did not always converse visibly with his Disciples, yet many Times he showed himself to them visibly, palpably, and staying with them, according to the Kingdom of this World, according to his Body which he had here, which was swallowed up by the new Body, which he must present again, as God would have it to be presented; for God is Lord of every Thing, and every Thing must be changed (as he pleases) that he might thus show his Disciples his real Body, and the Print of his Nails, which stand in the Holy Christ, in his holy Body in Eternity, as

(92) The Deity in Christ in the holy Ternary said, Eat of the Word of the Lord, and go forth from the outward Man, rest in the Kingdom of Heaven, and live in the new Man, and then the old Man is dead, for the new Man's Sake; on the contrary, the Devil said to the Soul, Thy earthly Body does hunger (because there is no Bread for it) therefore make Bread of Stones, that thou mayest live; and the strong Soul in Christ as a Champion stood and said; Man lives not by Bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds out of the Mouth of God: And he rejected the earthly Bread and Life, and put his Imagination into the Word of God, and did eat of the Word of the Lord, and then the Soul in the Kingdom of Heaven was predominant, and the earthly Body was as it were dead for the Kingdom of Heaven's Sake; whereas yet it was not dead, but it became the Servant of the heavenly Body, and lost its potent Dominion.

(96) 1 let it pass, and it is true, that she may be in Heaven with Body and Soul; but with such a Body as Moses and Elias had upon Mount Tabor, in the Apparition before Christ [at his Transfiguration,] viz. that new Body out of the Element; the transitory [corruptible Body] belongs to the Earth, for if we could have subsisted in God, with this [transitory and corruptible] Body, God would not have become Man, and have died for us. Even as all the Apostles of Christ are dead, and yet live; and so may it also be, that the Body of the Virgin was changed into a heavenly, and laid off the earthly. What does that avail us? She is no Goddess.

(11) Christ’s soul must needs descend into hell, before it ascended into heaven. So must also the soul of man. But mark ye in what manner this cometh to pass. When a man truly Perceiveth and considereth himself, who and what he is, and findeth himself utterly vile and wicked, and unworthy of all the comfort and kindness that he hath ever received from God, or from the creatures, he falleth into such a deep abasement and despising of himself, that he thinketh himself unworthy that the earth should bear him, and it seemeth to him reasonable that all creatures in heaven and earth should rise up against him and avenge their Creator on him, and should punish and torment him; and that he were unworthy even of that. And it seemeth to him that he shall be eternally lost and damned, and a footstool to all the devils in hell, and that this is right and just and all too little compared to his sins which he so often and in so many ways hath committed against God his Creator. And therefore also he will not and dare not desire any consolation or release, either from God or from any creature that is in heaven or on earth; but he is willing to be unconsoled and unreleased, and he doth not grieve over his condemnation and sufferings; for they are right and just, and not contrary to God, but according to the will of God. Therefore they are right in his eyes, and he hath nothing to say against them. Nothing grieveth him but his own guilt and wickedness; for that is not right and is contrary to God, and for that cause he is grieved and troubled in spirit. This is what is meant by true repentance for sin. And he who in this Present time entereth into this hell, entereth afterward into the Kingdom of Heaven, and obtaineth a foretaste there of which excelleth all the delight and joy which he ever hath had or could have in this present time from temporal things. But whilst a man is thus in hell, none may console him, neither God nor the creature, as it is written, “In hell there is no redemption.”11 Of this state hath one said, “Let me perish, let me die! I live without hope; from within and from without I am condemned, let no one pray that I may be released.” Now God hath not forsaken a man in this hell, but He is laying His hand upon him, that the man may not desire nor regard anything but the Eternal Good only, and may come to know that that is so noble and passing good, that none can search out or express its bliss, consolation and joy, peace, rest and satisfaction. And then, when the man neither careth for, nor seeketh, nor desireth, anything but the Eternal Good alone, and seeketh not himself, nor his own things, but the honour of God only, he is made a partaker of all manner of joy, bliss, peace, rest and consolation, and so the man is henceforth in the Kingdom of Heaven. This hell and this heaven are two good, safe ways for a man in this present time, and happy is he who truly findeth them. For this hell shall pass away, But Heaven shall endure for aye.

(111) This Word has brought the Souls of Men which have a inclined their Minds to it, ever since the Beginning of the World (when their Bodies have been dead) into the Bosom of Abraham, into the Element, into the Rest, [which is] without Source, [or Pain,] and there the Soul, [being yet] without a Body, has no Paradisical Source, [or active Property or Faculty,] but dwells in the broken Gate, in the meek Element, in the Bosom of the Virgin, in the Presence of their Bridegroom, after the long Strife of Unquietness, and waits for its Body without Pain. And as to the Soul there is no Time, but it is in Stillness; it sleeps not, but it sees (without Disturbance) in the Light of the Word.