(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.

(22) If now it be hard captivated in Sins, and still goes on in sinning from Day to Day, so that it is cloathed with the Anger of God, and has loaded itself with mocking the Children of God, and so sticks over Head and Ears in the Anger of God, and scarce hangs by a Thread [to Christ,] O! how hard it is with that Soul, Must not that Soul needs swelter a tedious While in the Scorn which it has put upon the Children of God? How can it suddenly reach the noble Virgin in the Love and Mercy of God? And then where is the noble Tree of Pearl [in the mean While,] which is sown as a small Grain of Mustard-seed, and in the Growing of it comes to flourish like a Bay-tree? Whence has it its Sap, if the Soul stands thus in the Bath of the Anger? O! it will (in many) not grow green in Eternity. And therefore says Christ, In the Resurrection they shall excel one another in Glory, as the Sun, Moon, and Stars.

(50) Now if you ask; Why came not the Love of God to help them again? No, Friend, their Mind had elevated itself, even to the End of Nature, and it would fain have gone out above the Light of God; their Mind was become a kindled Source of Fire in the fierce Wrath, the Meekness of God cannot enter into it, the Brimstone-Spirit burns eternally: In this Manner he is an Enemy to God, he cannot be helped; for the Center is burning in the Flash: His Will is still, that he would fain go out above the Meekness of God; neither can he get [frame, or create] any other [Will,] for his Source has revealed the End of Nature in the Fire, and he remains an unquenchable Source of Fire; the Heart of God in the Meekness, and the Principle of God, is close shut up from him, and that even to Eternity.

(35) It presents indeed the Wrath of God to itself, and trembles at its Fall, but it knows not what has happened to it; it only presents the Disobedience before itself, and makes [as if] God was an angry malicious Devil, that cannot be reconciled, having indeed put on the Garment of Anger (in Adam and Eve) on to itself in Body and Soul, and has set itself (against the Will of God) in the Bath [or Lake] of Anger, on which God took such Pity [or Compassion,] that he has not spared his own Heart, to send it into the Depth of Anger, into the Abyss of Hell, [as also] into the Death and Breaking of the four Elements from the eternal holy Element, to help fallen Man, and to deliver him out of the Anger and Death.

(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.

(13) Also the Devils tremble at the Kindling of the Wrath, whose Faces appear before the Eyes of the Ungodly; for they see the angelical World before them, and the hellish Fire in them; and they see how every Life burns, and every one in its own Source, in its own Fire. The angelical World burns in Triumph, in Joy, in the Light of the Glory, and it shines as the clear Sun, which neither Devil, nor any of the Wicked dare look upon, and there is Praise [and Hallelujahs] that the Driver is overcome.

(24) Or what thinkest thou, if thy Twig be thus very dry and withered, and that thou must eternally swelter in the Anger of God, where instantly thy human Image will be taken away, and thou wilt be in the a Shape of the most abominable Beasts, Worms, and Serpents, all according to thy Deeds and Practice here, where then all thy Deeds will stand in the Figure in the Tincture eternally before thy Eyes, and will gnaw thee sufficiently, so that thou wilt continually think, if thou hadst not done this or that, thou shouldst have attained the Grace of God? Thy Mocking stands before thy Eyes, and thou art ashamed to let the least good Thought into thy Soul; for Good is as an Angel before thee, and thou darest not (for great Shame) so much as to touch it with thy Mind, much less look upon it. But thou must eternally devour into thyself thy great Scorning, with all thy Vices and Sins, and thou must eternally despair; and though thou thinkest to go forth after Abstinence, yet the Light strikes thee down again, and so thou goest but forth aloft (in thy devouring fretting Worm, in thyself) without the Thrones of God; and it is with thee, as with one who stands upon a high stony Cliff of a Rock, and would cast himself into a bottomless Gulf; and the further he sees, the deeper he falls. Thus thy own Sins, Scornings, Deridings, Cursings in Contempt of God, are thy Hell-fire, which gnaws thee eternally; this I speak in the Word of Life.

(47) On the contrary, many a one is in great Anguish, and longs after it, and generates very painfully, he would fain have uit; but then the Devil rushes upon him, and stirs up Irksomeness [Vexation] and Discontent, and also overwhelms him with great Sins, so that he knows not himself, and then dejects him with Impatience and Doubting; and his Heart stands continually in Anguish, it would fain get out of Evil, and endeavours continually for Abstinence or Forbearance, many Times with Groans, Sighing, and Longing, but then the Devil holds his Sins before him, and bars up the Door of the Grace of God, that he might despair.

(105) Yet God would not have it so, but kkindled the Anger in Cain, which rested before in the swelled Kingdom of the four Elements, and was only climbed up in great and mighty Joy, whereas Cain did not know the Anger, nor understand any Thing of it; only the Essences of the Soul knew that they dealt falsly, but they knew not the fierce Source in the Kindling of the Fire, till they went forth from the Center of God into the Horror, Trembling, and Crying; for they were gone out from Or Wickedness. God, and neither saw nor felt the heavenly Source any more; and therefore they despaired, because they found [or felt] themselves in the Source of the Wrath; and the Body with all its Essences cried; My Sins are greater than that they can be forgiven.

(32) And as the fierce [wrathful] Essence of the Anger of God pressed into Adam, whereby he entered into Death, of which God spoke, saying, If thou eatest of the Tree, thou shalt die the Death, understand the Death in the Flesh, even while they were in the earthly Life, so the sharp Nails must pierce through the Hands and Feet of Christ, and so he must enter into Death; and as there is in the human Essences (before the Light of God) a Cross-Birth, so when the Light of God shines therein, all is turned into a pleasant flourishing Blossom, wherein the sharp Essences are not found or perceived.

(60) And the Hardening is not so wholly in the Birth, that the Soul (from the Mother' Womb) should be quite dead to God, or that God did not desire it. The Anger is in the Flowing [Working or Boiling] of the Father, and the Father is God indeed, and generates his dear Heart and Love (in the Breaking of the Gate in the Habitation) out of himself. Should he then be at odds with himself, because his Anger is under the Root of his Love? Should he be at Enmity against himself? his Anger is his Strength and Omnipotence, and consuming Fire; and his Heart in the Love is his Meekness; and so now, that which approaches and enters into his Anger, is captivated in the Anger.

(36) Here in this Life he must stick between the Door and the Hinges, between the Kingdom of Hell, and the Kingdom of this World, and the noble Image must suffer much Wrong, [or be wounded,] for he has not only Enemies outwardly, but also in himself; he bears the bestial and also the hellish Image of Wrath in him, so long as this House of Flesh endures. Therefore that causes Strife and Division against himself, and also without him, against the Wickedness of the World, which the Devil mightily presses against him, and tempts him on every Side, misleads, and distorts him every where, and his own Household in his Body are his worst Enemies; therefore the Children of God are Bearers of the Cross in this World, in this evil earthly Image.

(15) As is mentioned before, the eternal Mind stands thus lin the Darkness, and vexes itself, and longs after the Light, to generate that; and the Anguish is the Source, and the Source has in it many Forms, till it reaches the Fire in its Substance, viz. [it has] Bitter, Sour, Hard, Cold, Strong, Darting forth, or Flashing; in the Root of itself sticks the Joy and Pain alike; viz. when it comes to the Root of the Fire, and can reach the Light, then out of the Wrath [or Sternness] comes the great Joy. For the Light puts the stern Form into great Meekness; on the contrary, that Form which comes only to the Root of the Fire, that continues in the Wrath.

(23) Has it wrought Good here? then it shall eat that Good; for all Sins stand before it in its Tincture: If it thinks inwardly in itself of the Kingdom of Heaven, which yet it neither sees nor knows, then it sees the Causes why it is in such a Source [or Misery;] for itself has made that. And there all the Tears of the Oppressed and Afflicted are in its Tincture, and they are fiery, stinging and burning in a hostile Manner, fretting and gnawing in themselves, and make an eternal Despair in the Essences, and an hostile Will against God; the more it thinks of

(61) This is their Course one among another, one reproaches and condemns this, the other that, and it is a continual Howling of Devils; all Manner of Love, Charity, and Union, is extinct; the Mouth speaks one Thing, and the Heart thinks another; they all cry out one among another, and none knows where the Woe lies. And Christ must thus take all this upon him. Many ignorantly cried (by the Instigation of the High-Priests) Crucify him, Crucify him, he has made Uproars and Disturbances among the People, and yet knew not any Cause why they said so. And so it is at this Day, if Antichrist entraps any in his Fierceness, he cries out upon him for a Sectary, a Schismatic, a Disturber of the Peace, and Maker of Uproars; and then all cry, A Heretic! A Heretic! and yet their Hearts can say no Evil of him.