(48) Now, thou dear Soul, here you see in a Glass how very near God is to us, and that he himself is the Heart of all Things, and gives to all Virtue, [Power,] and Life. Here Lucifer was very heedless, and became so very proud, that when this Brimstone- Spirit in the Will of the Mind of God was created, then he would fain have flown out above the End of Nature, and would drive the Fire out above the Meekness; he would fain have had all burn in the Fire; he would have ruled [or domineered:] The Sparks of Fire in the Brimstone-Spirit elevated themselves too high; and these Spirits pleased not the Creator, or the Spirit in the Fiat, and [therefore] were not [established] Angels, although in the first Mind (when the Center was opened to the [Creation of the] Spirits) he came to help them, and [beheld] them as well as the other Angels: But they indeed generated a fiery Will, when they should have opened their Center to the Regeneration of their Minds, and so should have generated an angelical Will.

(6) Thus the Devil is the Fault, and guilty of his own Fall, for he suffered himself to be moved by the Matrix of the Sternness, [Fierceness, Sourness, or Wrath,] whereas he yet had his own Will to take hold of Light or Darkness. And Lucifer was a Throne (that is, a Source [or Fountain] of a great Essence) from whence went forth all his Servants [or Ministers,] and they did like him; and also they were thrust back into the Darkness, for the Light of God goes not into the [Grimness, Wrath or] Fierceness.

(22) Yet if the Soul elevates its Imagination forward into the Light, in Meekness and Comeliness or Humility, and does not (as Lucifer did) use the strong Power of its Fire, in its Qualification, [or Breathing,] then it will be fed by the Word of the Lord, and gets Virtue, Power, Life, and Strength, in the Word of the Lord, which is the Heart of God; and its own original strong [fierce wrathful] Source of the Birth of the eternal Life becomes paradisical, exceeding pleasant, friendly, humble, and sweet, wherein the Rejoicing and the Fountain of the eternal Angel and a Child of God, and it beholds the eternal Generating of the indissoluble Band; and thereof it has Ability to speak, (for it is its own Essence or Substance,) but [it is] not [able to speak] of the infinite Generating, for that has neither Beginning nor End.

(21) For these three Births are [inbred or] generated together with every one in the Mother's [Womb or] Body, and none ought to say, I am not elected; for it is a Lie, [and he] belies the Element, wherein Man also lives; and besides [he] belies the Virgin of Wisdom, which God gives to every one which seeks her with Earnestness and Humility. So [likewise] the Possibility of Seeking is also in every one, and it is inbred [or generated] in him with the all-possible hidden Element, [to which all Things are possible,] and there is no other Cause of Perdition in Man, than [was in or] with Lucifer, whose Will stood free; he must either reach into God in Humility, Chastity, and Meekness, or into the dark Mind, in the Climbing up of Malice and Fierceness [or Grimness,] which yet (cin its Flowing forth) desires not to lift itself up above God, but it inclines itself only above the Meekness, in the Fire-flash, in the stern [or fierce] Regeneration: But the Devils would (as Creatures) be above all, and be Lords wholly [of themselves,] and so it is also with Man here.

(9) Behold, the three Essences, (viz. [Sourness or] Harshness, Bitterness and Fire) are the Worm or Spirit [that dies not.] God's eternal Will; and in the Attracting of the [sour] Harshness is the Sting [or Prickle] of the Bitterness, which the [sour] Harshness cannot endure, but attracts continually the more forcibly to it, from whence the Prickle continually grows greater, which yet the [sour] Harshness holds Prisoner; and this together is the great Anxiety, which was there in the dark Mind of God the Father, when the Darkness was anxious [or longed] after the Light; from whence in the Anxiety (from the Glance of the Light) it attained the Twinkling Flash: Out of which the Angels were created, which afterward were enlightened from the Light of God (mby their Imagination into the Heart of God;) and the other (like Lucifer) for their Haughtiness [or Pride's] Sake, remained in the Flash of Fire and Anxiety.

(25) Now when God had created great potent princely Angels, and that in the Place of the fourth Form in the Matrix, where the Source of Fire has its Original, they stood not, neither did they cast their Imaginations forward into the fifth Form, wherein the sprouting forth of Paradise consists; but they cast their Imaginations back into themselves, and formed [or created] the Light of God and Paradise. For the fiery Matrix (viz. the Abyss of Hell) moved itself in the Creation so hard, that Lucifer (that great Prince) has formed his Will out of it, and is continued therein, supposing that so he should be a great and terrible Lord in his whole Place [of Dominion.]

(47) Yet in this Principle there is nothing else but the most horrible Begetting, the greatest Anguish and hostile Quickening, like wherein Prince Lucifer (at the extinguishing of his Light) continued; and wherein (viz. in the same Abyss of Hell) the Soul continues, which is separated from the second Principle, and whose Light ([which shines] from the Heart of God) is extinguished, and for which Cause also, at the End of this Time, there will be a Separation or Parting asunder of the Saints of Light from the Damned, whose i Source will be without the Light of God.

(28) Yet it could not be (how vigorously soever it was sought after) that Man (in his own Power) could enter into Paradise. And therefore poor captive Man must sit in this World in the Devil's murdering Den; where now the Devil has built his Chapel close by the Christian Church, and has quite destroyed the Love of Paradise, and has in the Stead of it set up mere covetous, proud, self-willed, [or self-conceited,] faithless, sturdy, malicious Blasphemers, Thieves and Murderers, which lift themselves up against Heaven and Paradise, and have built themselves a Kingdom according to the Dominion of the fierce sour [Stars or] Constellations, wherein they domineer (with Silver and Gold) and consume the Sweat one of another; whosoever is but able, oppresses the other to the Ground. And though he flies before him, yet then he only puts forth his Dragon's Tongue, and spits Fire upon him; he terrifies him with his harsh Voice, and plagues him Day and Night.

(15) But Lord Lucifer would (in the Creation) have fain been above the Meekness of the Heart of God, above the End of Nature; therefore he would fain also have persuaded the Son of the Virgin to fly without Wings, above the End of Nature, in Pride; of which shall be handled in its due Place at large. I have brought this in thus, but in brief, that my Writing may be the better understood, and how it stands with [or upon] the Ground, [or Foundation] of the Scripture, and is not any new Thing, neither shall there be any Thing new [in them,] but only the true Knowledge, in the Holy Ghost, of the Essence of all Essences. Of Adam 's Sleep.

(61) And in the sour [or harsh] Essence of the Tincture of the Worm of the Soul, he infects the sour harsh Essence, whereby it becomes sharply attractive, and gets a Will to draw all to itself, and yet is not able to do it; for the conceived Will is not easily filled, but is a dry hellish thirsty Hunger to have all; and if it did get all, yet the Hunger would not be the less, but it is the eternal Hunger and Thirst of the Abyss, the Will of Hell-fire, and of all Devils, who continually hunger and thirst, and yet eat nothing; but it is their satiating, that they [suck or], draw into themselves, the strong Source of the Essences of the harsh, bitter Might of the Fire, wherein consists their Life and Satiating; and the Abyss of the Wrath and of Hell is also such [a Thing.]

(59) And in this Tincture of the first Principle, the Devil tempted Man; for it is his Source, [Well-spring, or Property,] wherein he also lives. Herein he reaches into the Heart of Man, into his Soul's Essences, and leads him away from God, into the Desire to live in the sharp (viz. in the fiery) Essences, that it might be elevated above the Humility and the Meekness of the Heart of God, and above the Love and Meekness of the Creatures, [on Purpose to seem] to be the only fair and glistering Worm in the Fire-flash, and to domineer over the second Principle. And [thus] he makes the Soul of Man so extremely proud, as not to vouchsafe himself to be in the least like any Meekness, but to be like all whatsoever lives in a Quality [or Property] contrary to it.

(12) But the Bitterness being so very much affrighted at the Flash of Fire in the Sourness, it catches its Mother (the Sourness) which is become material from the Crack, and flies out, and is clouded or swelled from the material Sourness, as if it also was material, and moves, and strengthens itself continually in the Mother; and that is the Element called Air in this World, which has its Original in the watery Mother, and the Water has its Original from the Air, and the Fire has its Original from the longing Anguish; and the Earth and Stones took their Beginning in the strong Attraction at the Fall of Lucifer, when the Sourness was so fierce, strong, rising, and attractive, which Attraction is stopped again by the Light in the third Principle.

(86) And so should the angelical Man also set his Will in the broken Gates of the Darkness, through the Will of the Father, wherewith the Soul qualifies [or mingles] in the Meekness of the Heart of God, and then the Source [or Quality] of the Darkness, in the [fierce] Wrathfulness, should not have stirred him, but he should have continued a glorious Prince of Paradise, in Triumph over the Kingdom of Hell and of this World.

(5) These the Fiat created to a Similitude and Image of God, and overshadowed the same in the Fiat with the overflowing Virtue of God; and the Will of God i set itself [right] against the Image and Similitude, and they now which received the Will, they became Angels, for they set their Imagination, in the Will, in the Heart of God, and they did eat of the Verbum Domini [of the Word of the Lord;] but they that set their Imagination in the dark Mind, as Lucifer [did, that he might] fly out above the Deity and Meekness in the Might of the Fire in the Flash, in the sharp Might of God, and be Lord alone, they became Devils, and they have that Name from their being thrust [or driven] out of the Light; for they were in the Light when the Fiat created them, for the Fiat which created them stood in the Light.

(11) Now the Sourness (in its Lust or great Longing [or Panting] after the Light) attracts continually, and in its own Substance it is nothing else but a vehement Hunger, very dry, and as [a Vacuum or] nothing at all, a desiring Will, as the Darkness after the Light; and its Hunger, or Attracting, makes the Bitterness, the Woe [or Lamentation] that it cannot be satiated, or mollified, from whence the Anguish rises, so that the Will, or Prickle, [or Sting] is rubbed, [or struck] in itself, from the Lust of the Desiring, and it will not yield itself to the dark Nothing, or dead Will, but sets its Desire and Anguish, and also its [eager or] strong Will so very hard towards the hidden Light of God, that thereby the Will becomes a twinkling Flash, like a sparkling or crackling Fire, whereby the Sourness, that is so very aching, is continually filled, and as it were deadened, whereby the sour Spirit comes to be soft, sweet, and material, even Water.

(3) For you find in the Root of the Original of the Spirit of the Soul, in itself, in the Substance of the eternal Birth and incorruptible eternal Band of the Soul, the most exceeding horrible enemicitious irksome Source, wherein the Soul (without the Light of God) is like all Devils, wherein their eternal Source consists, being an Enmity in itself, a Will striving against God [and Goodness,] it desires nothing that is pleasant or good, it is a climbing up of Pride in the Strength of the Fire, a bitter, [fierce, odious, Malice, or] Wrathfulness against Paradise, against God, against the Kingdom of Heaven; also against all Creatures in the second and third Principle, lifting up themselves alone, [against all this,] as the Bitterness in the Fire does.

(1) NOW the highest Question is, What that is which caused the Mind of the Devil so to elevate itself, and that so great a Number of them are fallen in their High-mindedness, [or Pride?] Behold, when God set the Fiat in the Will, and would create Angels, then the Spirit first separated all Qualities, after that Manner, as now you see there are many Kinds of Stars, and so the Fiat created them [several.] Then there were created the princely [Angels,] and the throne Angels, according to every Quality, (as hard, sour, bitter, cold, fierce, soft, and so on zin the Essences, till to the End of Nature) out of the Source of the Fire;

(2) And though it is not very good for us to know the austere, earnest, [strong, fierce, severe,] and original Birth, into the Knowledge, Feeling and Comprehensibility of which our first Parents have brought us, through the Infection [Instigation] and Deceit of the Devil, yet we have very great Need of this Knowledge, that thereby we may learn to know the Devil, who dwells in the most strong [severe or cruel] Birth of all, and [that we may learn to know] our own enemy Self, which our first Parents awakened and purchased for us, which we carry within us, and which we ourselves now are.

(41) Behold, thou seeking Mind, that which thou seest before thy Eyes, that it not the Element, neither in the Fire, Air, nor Earth; neither are there four, but one only, and that is fixed and invisible, also imperceptible: For the Fire which burns is no Element, but [it is] the fierce [stern Wrath,] which comes to be such in the Kindling of the Anger, when the Devils fell out of the Element: The Element is neither hot nor cold, but it is the Inclination [to be] in God, for the Heart of God is Barm [that is, Warmth] and its Ascension is attractive and always finding; and then the hertz [that is, the Heart] is the Holding the Thing before itself, and not in itself; and then the ig [the last Syllable of the German Word Barm-hertz-ig, (that is, warm-hearted, or merciful) explained according to the Language of Nature] is the continual Discovering of the Thing, and this is altogether ewig [eternal;] and that is the Ground of the inward Element, which makes the Anger substantial, so. that it was visible and palpable, which [Anger] Lucifer with his Legions did awaken; and thereupon he now remains to be the Prince in the Anger [or Wrath] (in the kindled Element) as Christ (according to this Form) calls him a Prince of this World.

(10) Seeing then that the eternal Wisdom of God (viz. in the chaste Virgin of the divine Virtue) had discovered itself in the Principle of this World, in which Place the great Prince Lucifer stood in the Heaven, in the second Principle, therefore the same Discovering was eternal, and God desired to shed forth the Similitude out of the Essences, which the Fiat created according to the Kind of every Essence, that they should (after the Breaking [or Dissolution] of the outward Substance) be a Figure and Image in Paradise, and a Shadow of this Substance. 1 1. And that there should go nothing in Vain out of the Substance of God, therefore God created Beasts, Fowls, Fishes, Worms, Trees and Herbs out of all Essences; and besides [created] also figured Spirits out of the Quinta Essentia, in the Elements, that so, after the completing of the Time (when the Out-Birth [shall] go into the Ether) they should appear before him, and that his eternal Wisdom in his Works of Wonder might he known.