(47) Now therefore the Anguish, Bitterness, and Woe in the [Sting or] Prickle, are like a Brimstone-Spirit, and all Spirits in Nature are Brimstone: They [torment, or] cause the Anguish in one another, till that the Light of God comes to help them; and then there comes to be a Flash, and there is its End, for it can climb no higher in Nature; and this is the Fire, which becomes shining in the Flash, in the Soul, and also in the Mind. For the Soul reaches the Virtue of the Light, which puts it into Meekness; and in this World it is the burning Fire: In Hell it is immaterial, and there it is the eternal Fire, which burns in the P Quality.

(84) And so instead of the paradisical Joy and Refreshment, there has been a mere Brimstone-Spirit, which stands in Anguish and Trembling, of Corruption [or Fragility,] which kindles the Tincture of the Blood, wherein Tearing, Stinging, and Tormenting is wrought; and if the Fire in the Brimstone-Spirit be too much kindled, then it burns the Tincture up, and the Light of Life goes out, and then the Body falls away to be a dead-Carcase; and if the tart Sourness be kindled too much by the hard Attracting and Holding, then also the Light of Life goes out, and the Body perishes; so also of the Water; if the Tincture kindles itself in the Meekness, then it becomes windy, gross, swelled, wholly dark, also infectious.and corrupt, wherein the Flash of the Life is as a pricking Thorn. And so Man's Life is every where begirt with Enemies, and the poor Soul is always in a close Prison fettered with many Chains, and is continually in Fear that (when the Body shall [die or] break) it may fall into the Kingdom of the Executioner, the Devil.

(10) Here observe, the Shriek or Crack of the Fire is kindled in the Anguish in the Brimstone Spirit, and then the Shriek flies up triumphantly; and the aching, or anxious Harshness, or Brimstone- Spirit, is made thin and sweet by the Light. For as the Light or the Flash becomes clearer or brighter from the Crack of the Fire in the vanquished harsh Tartness, and loses its wrathful fierce Property, so the Tartness loses its Authority by the Infection or Mixture of the Light, and is made thin or transparent, and sweet by the white Light: For in the Original the Harshness or Astringency was altogether dark, and aching with Anguish, by Reason of its hardness and attracting; but now it is wholly light, and thereupon it loses its own Quality or Property, and out of the wrathful Harshness there comes to be an Essence that is sharp, and the Light makes the Sharpness altogether sweet. The Gates of God.

(22) And we find greater Mysteries yet in Evidence of the horrible Fall; for after that the four Elements had thus set themselves every one in a several Region, then they made themselves Lords over the Spirit of the Soul, which was generated out of the Essences, and they have taken it into their Power, and qualify with it. The Fire, viz. the mightiest of them, has taken it into its Region [or Jurisdiction] in the Heart; and there it must mkeep, and the Blossom and Light thereof goes out of the Heart, and moves upon the Heart, as the kindled Light of a Candle, where the Candle resembles the fleshly Heart, with the Essences out of which the Light shines. And the Fire has set itself over the Essences, and continually reaches after the Light, and it supposes that it has the Virgin, viz. the divine Virtue [or Power.]