(18) The eternal Generating is an unbeginning Birth, and it has neither Number nor End, and its Depth is bottomless, and the Band of Life incorruptible: The syderial and elementary Spirit cannot discern it, much less comprehend it; it only feels it, and sees a Glimpse of it in the Mind; which [Mind] is the Chariot of the Soul, upon which it rides in the first Principle in its own Seat in the Father's eternal Generating [or Begetting;] for its own Substance is altogether crude, without a Body, and yet it has the Form of the Body in its own spiritual Form, understand according to the Image; which Soul, if it be regenerated in the Light of God, it sees in the Light of the Father, (which Light is his Glance, Luster, or Son,) in the eternal Birth, wherein it lives and remains eternally.

(17) As we have, in the Beginning of this Book, mentioned the eternal Birth in the Originality, so we have mentioned the Birth of the Essences, and the seven Spirits of the eternal Nature; and therein we showed how there is a Cross-Birth in the eternal Birth in the fourth Form, where the Essences in the turning Wheel make a Cross-Birth, because they cannot go out from themselves, but that the eternal Birth is every where so in all Things, in the Essence of all Essences.

(36) Thus also is the eternal Birth, wherein the Virtue [or Power] is continually generated from Eternity; and out of the Virtue the Light; and the Light causes and makes the Virtue. And the Light shines in the eternal Darkness, and makes in the eternal Mind the [desiring] and attracting Will; so that the Will Well-spring. in the Darkness generates the Thoughts, the Lust and the Desiring, and the Desiring is the attracting of the Virtue, and in the Attracting of the Virtue is the Mouth that expresses the Fiat, and the Fiat makes the Materia [or Matter,] and the Spirit separates it, and forms it according to the Thoughts.

(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.

(7) Created was the matter which they have; Created was the informing influence Within these stars that round about them go. The soul of every brute and of the plants By its potential temperament attracts The ray and motion of the holy lights; But your own life immediately inspires Supreme Beneficence, and enamours it So with herself, it evermore desires her. And thou from this mayst argue furthermore Your resurrection, if thou think again How human flesh was fashioned at that time When the first parents both of them were made."

(2) 'But how could it be thus, my dear?' the father continued. 'How could that which is, be born of that which is not? No, my dear, only that which is, was in the beginning, one only, without a second.

(9) The Birth of the eternal Nature is like the [Thoughts or] Senses in Man, as when a [Thought or] Sense is generated by something, and afterwards propagates itself into infinite many [Thoughts,] or as a Root of a Tree generates a Stock and many Buds and Branches, as also many Roots, Buds, and Branches from one Root, and all of them from that one first Root. Therefore observe what is mentioned before, whereas Nature consists of six Forms [or Properties,] so every Form generates again a Form out of itself of the same Quality and Condition of itself, and this Form now has the Quality and Condition of all the Forms in itself.

(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.

(2) Nay, we have it clearly and plainly to be seen in ourselves, and in all Things, if we would not be so mad, blind, and self- conceited, and would not be so drawn and led by a School-boy, but did stick close to the Schoolmaster himself, who is the Master of all Masters; for we see indeed that all Things spring out of the eternal Mother, and as she is in her own Birth, so she has generated this World, and so is every Creature also generated. And as that [Mother] is in her springing forth in Multiplication, where every Fountain [or Source] has another Center in it from the Genetrix, and a Separation [or Distinction,] but undivided and not asunder, so also this World is generated out of the eternal Mother, which now is such another Genetrix, and yet is not separated from the eternal Mother, but is come to be in a material Manner, and it has through the Sun attained another Light and Life; which [Light and Life] is not the wise Master himself, but the wise Master (who is God) he keeps that Light and Life, so that it stands and continues in the eternal Matrix, and yet it is not the eternal Wisdom itself.

(53) And there begins the unfathomable [or unsearchable] Multiplication; for the flowing and springing Spirit, that proceeds from the first and second Principle, confirms, fixes and establishes all; and in the whole Birth it is as a Growing or Multiplying uin one Will; and the Birth attains here the seventh Form, vis. the Multiplication into an Essence of Love. And in this Form consists Paradise, or the Kingdom of God, or the numberless divine Birth, out of one only Essence xinto all Essences.

(49) But that the Soul of Christ could be generated both in the new, and also in the old earthly Creature, it is because the Gate of the Soul in the first Principle stands in the Source [or Quality] of the Eternity, and reaches into the deep Gate of the Eternity, in the Father's original Will, wherewith he breaks open the Gate of the Deep, and shines [or appears] in the eternal Light.

(3) Ever illuminated, receiving light unfailing, the All-Soul imparts it to the entire series of later Being which by this light is sustained and fostered and endowed with the fullest measure of life that each can absorb. It may be compared with a central fire warming every receptive body within range.

Our fire, however, is a thing of limited scope: given powers that have no limitation and are never cut off from the Authentic Existences, how imagine anything existing and yet failing to receive from them?

It is of the essence of things that each gives of its being to another: without this communication, The Good would not be Good, nor the Intellectual-Principle an Intellective Principle, nor would Soul itself be what it is: the law is, "some life after the Primal Life, a second where there is a first; all linked in one unbroken chain; all eternal; divergent types being engendered only in the sense of being secondary."

In other words, things commonly described as generated have never known a beginning: all has been and will be. Nor can anything disappear unless where a later form is possible: without such a future there can be no dissolution.

If we are told that there is always Matter as a possible term, we ask why then should not Matter itself come to nothingness. If we are told it may, then we ask why it should ever have been generated. If the answer comes that it had its necessary place as the ultimate of the series, we return that the necessity still holds.

With Matter left aside as wholly isolated, the Divine Beings are not everywhere but in some bounded place, walled off, so to speak; if that is not possible, Matter itself must receive the Divine light .

(10) This Birth [or active Property] with the indissoluble Band, is generated in every Soul; and there is no Soul before the Kindling of the Light in the Child in the Mother's Body. For with the Kindling, the eternal Band is knit [or tied,] so that it stands eternally, and this Worm of the three Essences does not die, nor separate itself; for it is not possible, [because] they are all three generated out of one [only] Fountain, and have three Qualities, and yet are but one Being [or Substance;] as the Holy Trinity is but in one only Essence [or Substance;] and yet they have three Originalities in one Mother, and they are one [only] Being [or Substance] in one another. Thus also (and not a whit less) is the Soul of Man, but only one Degree in the first Going forth; for it is generated out of the Father's eternal Will (and not out of the Heart of God) yet the Heart of God is the nearest to it of all.

(1) NOW if we consider of the eternal Will of God, [and] of the Essence of all Essences; then we find in the Originality but one [only Being, Substance, or] Essence, as is mentioned above. Out of this [only] Essence is generated from Eternity the other [Being, Substance, or] Essence, viz. the divine Essence, and we find that both the [Beings, Substances or] Essences stand in divine Omnipotence, but not in one Source, neither do they mix together, nor can either of them both be [destroyed, dissolved, corrupted, or] broken.

(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.

(2) For truly first of all, eternal and transcending birth, is God the universals' Maker. Second is he "after His image", Cosmos, brought into being by Him, sustained and fed by Him, made deathless, as by his own Sire, living for aye, as ever free from death. Now that which ever-liveth, differs from the Eternal; for He hath not been brought to being by another, and even if He have been brought to being, He hath not been brought to being by Himself, but ever is brought into being. For the Eternal, in that It is eternal, is the all. The Father is Himself eternal of Himself, but Cosmos hath become eternal and immortal by the Father.

(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.

(11) And then we know also, that this World (wherein we now are and live) was generated out of the eternal Original in Time (through the pure Element) in the Fiat, and so created; and so, it is not the Substance of the holy Element, but an Out-Birth out of the eternal Limbus of God, wherein the eternal Element consists, which is before the clear Deity, wherein consists Paradise, and the Kingdom of Heaven; and yet the Limbus, together with the pure Element, is not the pure Deity, which is alone holy in itself, and has the Virtue of the eternal Light shining in it, but has no Essences (in the Light of the Clarity) in it; for the Essences are generated from the Virtue, according to the Light, as a Desire; and the Desire attracts to it, from whence the Essences proceed, as also the eternal Darkness in the Source, as is before mentioned.

(18) Know, therefore, generally, my son, that all that is in Cosmos is being moved for increase or for decrease. Now that which is kept moving, also lives; but there is no necessity that that which lives, should be all same. For being simultaneous, the Cosmos, as a whole, is not subject to change, my son, but all its parts are subject unto it; yet naught [of it] is subject to corruption, or destroyed. It is the terms employed that confuse men. For 'tis not genesis that constituteth life, but 'tis sensation; it is not change that constituteth death, but 'tis forgetfulness. Since, then, these things are so, they are immortal all - Matter, [and] Life, [and] Spirit, Mind [and] Soul, of which whatever liveth, is composed.

(3) What, then, can this be, this something in virtue of which we declare the entire divine Realm to be Eternal, everlasting? We must come to some understanding of this perpetuity with which Eternity is either identical or in conformity.

It must at once, be at once something in the nature of unity and yet a notion compact of diversity, or a Kind, a Nature, that waits upon the Existents of that Other World, either associated with them or known in and upon them, they collectively being this Nature which, with all its unity, is yet diverse in power and essence. Considering this multifarious power, we declare it to be Essence in its relation to this sphere which is substratum or underlie to it; where we see life we think of it as Movement; where all is unvaried self-identity we call it Repose; and we know it as, at once, Difference and Identity when we recognize that all is unity with variety.

Then we reconstruct; we sum all into a collected unity once more, a sole Life in the Supreme; we concentrate Diversity and all the endless production of act: thus we know Identity, a concept or, rather, a Life never varying, not becoming what previously it was not, the thing immutably itself, broken by no interval; and knowing this, we know Eternity.

We know it as a Life changelessly motionless and ever holding the Universal content in actual presence; not this now and now that other, but always all; not existing now in one mode and now in another, but a consummation without part or interval. All its content is in immediate concentration as at one point; nothing in it ever knows development: all remains identical within itself, knowing nothing of change, for ever in a Now since nothing of it has passed away or will come into being, but what it is now, that it is ever.

Eternity, therefore- while not the Substratum - may be considered as the radiation of this Substratum: it exists as the announcement of the Identity in the Divine, of that state- of being thus and not otherwise- which characterizes what has no futurity but eternally is.

What future, in fact, could bring to that Being anything which it now does not possess; and could it come to be anything which it is not once for all?

There exists no source or ground from which anything could make its way into that standing present; any imagined entrant will prove to be not alien but already integral. And as it can never come to be anything at present outside it, so, necessarily, it cannot include any past; what can there be that once was in it and now is gone? Futurity, similarly, is banned; nothing could be yet to come to it. Thus no ground is left for its existence but that it be what it is.

That which neither has been nor will be, but simply possesses being; that which enjoys stable existence as neither in process of change nor having ever changed- that is Eternity. Thus we come to the definition: the Life- instantaneously entire, complete, at no point broken into period or part- which belongs to the Authentic Existent by its very existence, this is the thing we were probing for- this is Eternity.