(2) And look thou have no wonder of this: for mightest thou once see it as clearly, as thou mayest by grace come to for to grope it and feel it in this life, thou wouldest think as I say. But be thou sure that clear sight shall never man have here in this life: but the feeling may men have through grace when God vouchsafeth. And therefore lift up thy love to that cloud: rather, if I shall say thee sooth, let God draw thy love up to that cloud and strive thou through help of His grace to forget all other thing.

(28) My dear and loving Reason, bring thy five Senses hither, and consider thyself, according to the Things above-mentioned, what thou art, how thou wast created the Image of God, and how thou in Adam (by the Infection of the Devil) didst let thy Spirit of this World take Possession of thy Paradise which now sits in the Room of Paradise. Wilt thou say that thou wast created thus [as] as to this World in Adam at the Beginning? Then behold and consider thyself; and thou shalt find another Image in thy Mind and Speech.

(20) If you will meditate on God, take before you the eternal Darkness, which is without God; for God dwells in himself, and the Darkness cannot in its own Power comprehend him; which Darkness has a great [Desire of] longing after the Light, caused by the Light's beholding itself in the Darkness, and shining in it. And in this Longing or Desiring, you find the Source, and the Source takes hold of the Power or Virtue of the Light, and the Longing makes the Virtue material, and the material Virtue is the Inclosure to God, or the Heaven; for in the Virtue stands the Paradise, wherein the Spirit which proceeds from the Father and the Son works. All this is incomprehensible to the Creation, but not impossible to be found in the Mind; for Paradise stands open in the Mind of a holy Soul.

(14) But now, what this is, my Pen cannot describe. I rather long after it, to comprehend it more in Perfection, and to live therein; which we here in the Light of Nature (in the Gate of the Deep) hknow and behold; but we cannot raise our threefold Mind into it, till our i rough Garment be put off, and then we shall behold it without Molestation.

(15) Therefore, O noble Man, let not Antichrist ahd the Devil befool you, who tell you that the Deity is far off from you, and direct you to a Heaven that is situated far above you; whereas there is nothing nearer to you than the Heaven is. You only stand before the Door of Heaven, and you are gone forth with Adam out of the paradisical Heaven into the third Principle; yet you stand in the Gate, do but as the eternal Mother does, which by great desiring and longing after the Kingdom of God, attains the Kingdom of Heaven, wherein God dwells, wherein Paradise springs up; do you but so, set all your Desire upon the Heart of God, and so you will pass in by Force, as the eternal Mother does; and then it shall be with thee as Christ said, The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth Violence, and the Violent take it by Force: So you shall make to yourself Friends in Heaven with your unrighteous Mammon, and so you come to be the true Similitude and Image of God, and his proper own; for all the three Principles, with the Eternity, are in you, and the holy Paradise is again generated in you, wherein God dwells. Then where will you seek for God? Seek him in your Soul only that is proceeded out of the eternal Nature, wherein the divine Birth stands.

(1) BUT now peradventure thou sayest, that how should it then be? For thee thinkest that thou hast very evidence that heaven is upwards; for Christ ascended the air bodily upwards, and sent the Holy Ghost as He promised coming from above bodily, seen of all His disciples; and this is our belief. And therefore thee thinkest since thou hast thus very evidence, why shalt thou not direct thy mind upward bodily in the time of thy prayer?

(17) Now if we will lift up our Minds, and seek after the Heaven wherein God dwells, we cannot say that God dwells only above the Stars, and has inclosed himself with the Firmament which is made out of the Waters, in which none can enter except it be opened (like a Window) for him; with which Thoughts Men are altogether befooled [and bewildered.] Neither can we say (as some suppose) that God the Father and the Son are only with Angels in the uppermost inclosed Heaven, and rule only here in this World by the Holy Ghost, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. All these Thoughts are void of the very Knowledge of God. For then God should be divided and circumscriptive, like the Sun that moves aloft above us, and sends its Light and Virtue to us, whereby the whole Deep becomes light and active all over.

(19) The true Heaven, wherein God dwells, is all over, in all Places [or Corners,] even in the Midst [or Center] of the Earth. He comprehends the Hell where the Devils dwell, and there is nothing without God. For wheresoever he was before the Creation of the World, there he is still, viz. in himself; and is himself the Essence of all Essences: All is generated from him, and is originally from him. And he is therefore called God, because he alone is the Good, the Heart, or [that which is] best; understand, he is the Light and Virtue, [or Power,] from whence Nature has its Original.

(30) Beloved Reason, leave off your Thoughts, for with these Thoughts and Conceits you know not God, nor the Eternity. Then how will you with such Thoughts know the Similitude which God generated out of the eternal Mind? It has here been several Times mentioned to you, that the Mind (which yet is the greatest Essence in Man) does not stand in a Source.

(6) Now we have, as I think, sufficiently contemplated, in the description of the super-heavenly Hierarchy, the incorporeal properties of the Seraphim, Divinely described in the Scriptures under sensible figures explanatory of the contemplated Beings, and we have made them evident to thy contemplating eyes. Nevertheless, since now also they who stand reverently around the Hierarch, reflect the highest Order, on a small scale, we will now view with most immaterial visions their most Godlike splendour.

(1) BECAUSE I may happen not to be understood clearly enough by the desirous Reader, and shall be as one that is altogether dumb to the unenlightened, (for the eternal and indissoluble Band, wherein the Essence of all Essences stands, is not easily nor in haste to be understood,) therefore it is necessary that the desirous Reader do the more earnestly consider himself what he is, and from whence his Reason and Senses proceed, wherein he finds the Similitude of God, especially if he considers and meditates what his Soul is, which is an eternal incorruptible Spirit.

(2) And therefore swink and sweat in all that thou canst and mayest, for to get thee a true knowing and a feeling of thyself as thou art; and then I trow that soon after that thou shalt have a true knowing and a feeling of God as He is. Not as He is in Himself, for that may no man do but Himself; nor yet as thou shalt do in bliss both body and soul together. But as it is possible, and as He vouchsafeth to be known and felt of a meek soul living in this deadly body.