(42) And so now the Angels and blessed Men [will] remain in the Birth of the Light; and the Spirits of Alteration out of Light into the Source [or Torment,] together with the Spirits of the wicked Men [will remain] in the eternal Darkness, where no Recalling is to be found; for the Spirits cannot go into the Corruptibility [or Transitoriness] again. They are created out of the aLimbus of God, out of the harsh Matrix, out of which the Light of God exists from Eternity; and not like the Beasts out of the Out-Birth, which went forth out of the Limbus of the conceived Purpose of God, which is finite [or takes an End,] and has been [or appeared] here, only that it might be an eternal Shadow and Figure.

(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;

(74) Seeing then that they stood in Heaven in the Time of their Creation, therefore their Quality was also manifold; and all should have been and continued Angels, if the great Fountain Lucifer (from whence they proceeded) had not destroyed them. And so now also every one in his Fall continues in his own Essences, only the second Principle is extinguished in them; and so it is also with the Soul of Man, when the Light of God goes out in it; but so long as that shines therein, it is in Paradise, and eats of the Word of the Lord, of which shall be clearly spoken in its due Place.

(26) And ninety days and nights the heavenly angels were contending in the world with the confederate demons of the evil spirit, and hurled them confounded to hell; and the rampart of the sky was formed so that the adversary should not be able to mingle with it.

(65) Behold, O Child of Man! All the Angels were created in the first Principle, and by the outflowing Spirit were formed, and made a Body in a true angelical and spiritual Manner, and enlightened from the Light of God, that they might increase the paradisical Joy, and abide [therein] eternally. But seeing they were to abide eternally, they must be figured [or formed] out of the indissoluble Band, out of the first Principle, which is an indissoluble Band; and they ought to look upon the Heart of God, and feed upon the Word of God, and this Food would be their holy Preservation, and would make their Image clear and light; as the Heart of God, in the Beginning of the second Principle, enlightens the Father, (that is, the first Principle;) and there the divine Power, Paradise, and the Kingdom of Heaven spring up.

(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.

(41) Now the Anguish has the first Principle iin Possession; seeing it stands in the Darkness, it is another Essence than the Essence in the Light is, where there is nothing else but mere Love and Meekness, where no Source [or Torment] is discovered; and the Quality which is generated in the Center of the Light, is now no Quality, but the eternal Skill and Wisdom of whatsoever was in the Anguish before the Light [broke forth:] This Wisdom and Skill now always comes to help the conceived Will in the Anguish, and makes in itself again the Center to the Birth, that so the Sprout may generate itself in the Quality, viz. the Virtue, and out of the Virtue the Fire, and out of the Fire the Spirit, and the Spirit makes in the Fire the Virtue again, that thus there [may] be an indissoluble Band. And out of this Mind which stands in the Darkness, God generated the Angels, which are Flames of Fire, yet shining through and through with the divine Light. For in this Mind a Spirit can and may be generated, and not else; for before it in the Heart and Light of God, there can no Spirit be generated, for the Heart of God is the End of Nature, and it has no Quality; therefore also nothing comes out of it more, but it continues unchangeably in the Eternity, and it shines in the Mind of the Quality of the Darkness, and the Darkness cannot comprehend it.

(46) But the Angels and the Devils, as also the Soul of Man, are merely and purely out of the same Spirit. The Devils and the Angels, in the Time of their Corporization, continued therein; and the Soul of Man, in the Time of the creating of the Body, [is] breathed in from the Spirit of God, in the Root of the third Principle, and now continues therein, in Eternity, inseparately and immoveably in the eternal Substance or Essence of GOD. And as little as the pure eternal Birth and the indissoluble Band of the Father ends or vanishes, so little also will such a Spirit have an End.

(10) Behold, we understand by Jerusalem the Paradise, and by the Way to Jericho the Going forth out of Paradise into this World, where then the World captivated us in her Garden, where continually the great Sea of Misery is wherein our Soul swims. Also the Devil is therein, who has bound us with the Chains of the Anger of God, and he leads the poor Soul captive (in the dark Garden of Flesh and Blood) into his fierce Garden of Anger; where the new-born Souls continually break out of his Garden, and break his hellish Kingdom in Pieces; also they have taken Possession of his royal Throne, where he was an Angel, and with their Horns (which are the Spirit of God) have broken in Pieces his hellish Kingdom which he set up; also they oppose him with their Storm out of Hell into Heaven, and assault his Kingdom; but he holds the poor Soul captive with the Chains of the Anger, in this evil Flesh and Blood, and continually sets on the Crew of the Wicked, that they seduce it, and baptize it in the Anger of God up to the very Lips; and there the poor Soul stands up to the Neck in the Sea of Misery, ready to be drowned; and there the Devil thrusts it down with the Vices and Sins of the Body, and would drown the poor Soul in the Anger of God in the Abyss of Hell.

(22) But neither is the Evil in Angels; for if the good-like angel proclaims the goodness of God, being by participation in a secondary degree that which the Announced is in the first degree as Cause, the Angel is a likeness of Almighty God--a manifestation of the unmanifested light--a mirror untarnished--most transparent--without flaw--pure--without spot-- receiving, if I may so speak, the full beauty of the Good-stamped likeness of God--and without stain, shedding forth undefiledly in itself, so far as is possible, the goodness of the Silence, which dwells in innermost shrines. The Evil, then, is not even in Angels. But by punishing sinners are they evil? By this rule, then, the punishers of transgressors are evil, and those of the priests who shut out the profane from the Divine Mysteries. And yet, the being punished is not an evil, but the becoming worthy of punishment; nor the being deservedly expelled from Holy things, but the becoming accursed of God, and unholy and unfit for things un-defiled.

(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.

(2) In addition to these things, also, the manifestation of the Gods imparts truth and power, rectitude of works, and gifts of the greatest goods; but the manifestation of other powers is appropriately accompanied by such things as are commensurate to their several orders. Thus the manifestation of archangels imparts truth, not simply about all things, but definitely of certain things; and this not always, but sometimes; nor indefinitely to all, or every where, but with limitation, in a certain place, or to a certain individual. In like manner it does not impart a power effective of all things, nor always without distinction, nor every where; but a power which is effective sometimes, and in a certain place. But the manifestation of angels, in a still greater degree than that of archangels, divides, in imparting good, the circumscriptions which are always defined by them in more contracted boundaries.

(2) Thence come to them the supermundane orders, the unions amongst themselves, the mutual penetrations, the unconfused distinctions, the powers elevating the inferior to the superior, the providences of the more exalted for those below them; the guardings of things pertaining to each power; and unbroken convolutions around themselves; the identities and sublimities around the aspiration after the Good; and whatever is said in our Treatise concerning the angelic properties and orders. Further also, whatever things belong to the heavenly Hierarchy, the purifications befitting angels, the supermundane illuminations, and the things perfecting the whole angelic perfection, are from the all-creative and fontal Goodness; from which was given to them the form of Goodness, and the revealing in themselves the hidden Goodness, and that angels are, as it were, heralds of the Divine silence, and project, as it were, luminous lights revealing Him Who is in secret. Further, after these--the sacred and holy minds--the souls, and whatever is good in souls is by reason of the super-good Goodness--the fact that they are intellectual--that they have essential life--indestructible--the very being itself--and that they are able, whilst elevated themselves to the angelic lives, to be conducted by them as good guides to the good Origin of all good things, and to become partakers of the illuminations, thence bubbling forth, according to the capacity of each, and to participate in the goodlike gift, as they are able, and whatever else we have enumerated in our Treatise concerning the soul. But also, if one may be permitted to speak of the irrational souls, or living creatures, such as cleave the air, and such as walk on earth, and such as creep along earth, and those whose life is in waters, or amphibious, and such as live concealed under earth, and burrow within it, and in one word, such as have the sensible soul or life, even all these have their soul and life, by reason of the Good. Moreover, all plants have their growing and moving life from the Good; and even soulless and lifeless substance is by reason of the Good, and by reason of It, has inherited its substantial condition.

(66) Thus it is with those Angels that continued in the Kingdom of Heaven in the true Paradise, they stand in the first Principle in the indissoluble Band, and their Food is the divine Power, in their Imagination (or Imagining) [in their Thoughts and Mind] is the Will of the Holy Trinity in the Deity; the Confirmation [or Establishing] of their Life, Will, and Doings, is the Power of the Holy Ghost; whatsoever that does in the generating of Paradise, the Angels rejoice at, and they sing the joyful Songs of Paradise, concerning the pleasant saving Fruit, and eternal Birth. All they do is an Increasing of the heavenly Joy, and a Delight and Pleasure to the Heart of God, a holy Sport in Paradise, a [satisfying of the Desire or] Will of the eternal Father; to this End their God created them, that he might be manifested, and rejoice in his Creatures, and the Creatures in him, so that there might be an eternal Sport of Love, in the Center of the Multiplying (or eternal Nature) in the indissoluble eternal Band.

(95) And now when these two, thus captivated by the Devil and this World, stood before God with Fear and great Horror, and felt the Anger of God, and the severe Judgment; then the Heart of God, which had made them; pitied them, and it looked whether there was any [Remedy or] Counsel that might help poor Man, and redeem [or deliver] him from the Bands of the eternal [Fierceness or] Wrath, and from the mortal Body of this World. But there was nothing found, neither in Heaven, nor in this World, that could make them free; there was no Principality or Throne- Angel, which had the Ability to do it; all was lost, they were in the eternal Judgment of the temporal and eternal Death. For the first Principle had captivated them, in the Spirit of the Soul, and qualified [or mingled] with the Soul; the Kingdom of Heaven in the Light was shut up, [and there was a firm Enclosure] of a whole Principle between, and 1 it could not reach the Kingdom of Heaven again, except it were born of God again; otherwise there was no Council, nor Help, nor Refuge in any Thing at all.

(2) For if it so be, that they either read, or hear read or spoken, how that men should lift up their hearts unto God, as fast they stare in the stars as if they would be above the moon, and hearken when they shall hear any angel sing out of heaven. These men will sometime with the curiosity of their imagination pierce the planets, and make an hole in the firmament to look in thereat. These men will make a God as them list, and clothe Him full richly in clothes, and set Him in a throne far more curiously than ever was He depicted in this earth. These men will make angels in bodily likeness, and set them about each one with diverse minstrelsy, far more curious than ever was any seen or heard in this life. Some of these men the devil will deceive full wonderfully. For he will send a manner of dew, angels’ food they ween it be, as it were coming out of the air, and softly and sweetly falling in their mouths; and therefore they have it in custom to sit gaping as they would catch flies. Now truly all this is but deceit, seem it never so holy; for they have in this time full empty souls of any true devotion. Much vanity and falsehood is in their hearts, caused of their curious working. Insomuch, that ofttimes the devil feigneth quaint sounds in their ears, quaint lights and shining in their eyes, and wonderful smells in their noses: and all is but falsehood. And yet ween they not so, for them think that they have ensample of Saint Martin of this upward looking and working, that saw by revelation God clad in his mantle amongst His angels, and of Saint Stephen that saw our Lord stand in heaven, and of many other; and of Christ, that ascended bodily to heaven, seen of His disciples. And therefore they say that we should have our eyes up thither. I grant well that in our bodily observance we should lift up our eyes and our hands if we be stirred in spirit. But I say that the work of our spirit shall not be direct neither upwards nor downwards, nor on one side nor on other, nor forward nor backward, as it is of a bodily thing. For why, our work should be ghostly not bodily, nor on a bodily manner wrought.

(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.

(18) 1 set you a deep Consideration; behold, how the angelical Thrones and Principalities were in the Beginning beheld [apprehended or aspected] by the Wisdom of God; which Aspect [Manifestation or Idea] the Fiat took to create; and in the angelical Throne the infinite Multiplicity, according to the eternal Wisdom in the Wonders of God. All which was so created in the Fiat of God, according to all the Essences of the eternal gLimbus of God, so that all Angels, in every Throne, gave their Will unto the angelical Throne or Arch-Angel; as it is sufficiently to be known by the Fall of Lucifer; and also may be discerned in the Regions of the kingly Governments of this World; if the Devil did not so destroy the right Union, as is very clearly to be seen. Thus likewise (understand us, I pray thee, thou very precious and noble Mind) this second surpassing excellent Creation is in the Fiat; when God saw and took Notice of our miserable Fall, he did illustrate [or manifest] himself by the holy eternal Virgin of his Wisdom in the eternal Wonders, in i Mercy which always flows out of his Heart, and comprehended with his Speculation [or Manifestation] the Throne; and further illustrated himself in the Throne into many Millions without Number, and established his Covenant with his Oath therein, with his precious Promise of the Woman's Seed.

(8) For as the Soul of Man moves and swims between the Virtue of the Stars and Elements, so the created Heaven also moves between Paradise and the Kingdom of Hell, and it swims in the eternal Matrix; its Limit reaches as far as the Ethera [Skies or Receptacle] has yielded itself up to the Creation, so far as the Kingdom of Lucifer did reach, where yet no End is to be found: For the Virtue or Power of God is without End, but our Sense reaches only to the fiery Heaven of the Stars, which are a Propagation in the fifth Form of the eternal Mother, (or third Principle, (or in the Beginning of this World,) the Virtue or Power of the Matrix was separated, where now the Separation is thus moved: And then every Essence in the Propagation, in the manifold Centers of the Stars, have a longing Desire one after the other, and a continual Will to infect, [impregnate, or mix Influences;] and the one Essence, or Virtue, is the oMeat and Drink, as also the Chest [Case, or Receptacle] of the other. Or Outbirth, or Offspring.

(17) But we should not here again wholly set down the Ground of the Deity, so far as it is otherwise meet and known by us, we account that needless [here,] for you may find it before the Incarnation of a Child in the Mother's [Womb or] Body. We set down thus much here, to the End that the Region of his World may be understood. And thus we give the Reader exactly to understand and know how the Region of Good and Evil are in one another, and how it is an imperishable Thing [or Substance,] so that one is generated out of the other, and that also the one goes forth out of the other into another Substance [or Being,] which it was not in the Beginning; as you may learn to understand this in Man, who in his Beginning, in the Will of Man and Woman, viz. in the Limbus, and in the Matrix, is conceived in the Tincture, and sown in an earthly Soil; where then the first Tincture A Desiring or Attracting. Dispels. (in the Will) breaks, and his own Tincture springs forth out of the anxious [or aching] Chamber of Darkness, and of Death, out of the anxious Source [or Property,] and blossoms out of the Darkness, in the broken Gate of the Darkness in it, as a pleasant Habitation, and so generates its Light out of the anxious Fierceness out of itself; where then (in the Light) there goes forth again the endless Source of the [Thoughts or] Senses, which make a Throne and Region of Reason, which governs the whole House, and desires to enter into the Region of Heaven, out of which it proceeded not. And therefore now this is not the original Will, which there desires to enter into the Region of the Heaven; but it is the preconceived Will out of the Source of the Anxiety, [which Will is a Desire to] enter through the deep Gate of God.