(15) Now observe, the Heaven is the whole Deep so far as the Ethera, or Skies have given up themselves to the Birth of this World, and that Heaven is the Matrix, out of which Earth, Stones, and the material Water are generated. And there God separated the material Water from the Matrix; and here it is very plainly discerned, that the material Water is as it were dead, or has Death in it; for it could not abide in the moving Mother, but was created [to be] upon the Globe of the Earth, and God called it Sea, [Meer;] in which [Word] is understood in the Language of Nature, as it were a Springing [or Growing] in Death, or a Life in Corruption: Although herein I shall be as one that is dumb to the Reader, yet I know it very well, and I am very well satisfied therewith. But because the bestial Man is not worthy to know it, therefore I will not here cast the Pearl before the Swine; but for the Children of God, which will be benefited by it, the Spirit of God will certainly teach and instruct them in it. Note.

(4) That water extinguishes fire and fire consumes other things should not astonish us. The thing destroyed derived its being from outside itself: this is no case of a self-originating substance being annihilated by an external; it rose on the ruin of something else, and thus in its own ruin it suffers nothing strange; and for every fire quenched, another is kindled.

In the immaterial heaven every member is unchangeably itself for ever; in the heavens of our universe, while the whole has life eternally and so too all the nobler and lordlier components, the Souls pass from body to body entering into varied forms- and, when it may, a Soul will rise outside of the realm of birth and dwell with the one Soul of all. For the embodied lives by virtue of a Form or Idea: individual or partial things exist by virtue of Universals; from these priors they derive their life and maintenance, for life here is a thing of change; only in that prior realm is it unmoving. From that unchangingness, change had to emerge, and from that self-cloistered Life its derivative, this which breathes and stirs, the respiration of the still life of the divine.

The conflict and destruction that reign among living beings are inevitable, since things here are derived, brought into existence because the Divine Reason which contains all of them in the upper Heavens- how could they come here unless they were There?- must outflow over the whole extent of Matter.

Similarly, the very wronging of man by man may be derived from an effort towards the Good; foiled, in their weakness, of their true desire, they turn against each other: still, when they do wrong, they pay the penalty- that of having hurt their Souls by their evil conduct and of degradation to a lower place- for nothing can ever escape what stands decreed in the law of the Universe.

This is not to accept the idea, sometimes urged, that order is an outcome of disorder and law of lawlessness, as if evil were a necessary preliminary to their existence or their manifestation: on the contrary order is the original and enters this sphere as imposed from without: it is because order, law and reason exist that there can be disorder; breach of law and unreason exist because Reason exists- not that these better things are directly the causes of the bad but simply that what ought to absorb the Best is prevented by its own nature, or by some accident, or by foreign interference. An entity which must look outside itself for a law, may be foiled of its purpose by either an internal or an external cause; there will be some flaw in its own nature, or it will be hurt by some alien influence, for often harm follows, unintended, upon the action of others in the pursuit of quite unrelated aims. Such living beings, on the other hand, as have freedom of motion under their own will sometimes take the right turn, sometimes the wrong.

Why the wrong course is followed is scarcely worth enquiring: a slight deviation at the beginning develops with every advance into a continuously wider and graver error- especially since there is the attached body with its inevitable concomitant of desire- and the first step, the hasty movement not previously considered and not immediately corrected, ends by establishing a set habit where there was at first only a fall.

Punishment naturally follows: there is no injustice in a man suffering what belongs to the condition in which he is; nor can we ask to be happy when our actions have not earned us happiness; the good, only, are happy; divine beings are happy only because they are good.

(14) Now therefore we say (as the Scripture informs us) that God dwells in Heaven, and it is the Truth. Now mark, Moses writes, that God created the Heaven out of the Midst of the Waters, and the Scripture says, God dwells in Heaven; therefore we may now observe, that the Water has its Original from the Longing of the eternal Nature after the eternal Light of God; but the eternal Nature is made manifest by the Longing after the Light of God, as is mentioned before; and the Light of God is present every where, and yet remains hidden to Nature; for Nature receives only the Virtue of the Light, and the Virtue is the Heaven wherein the Light of God dwells and is hid, and so shines in the Darkness. The Water is the Materia, or Matter that is generated from the Heaven, and therein stands the third, which again generates a Life, and comprehensible Essence, or Substance, out of itself, viz. the Elements and other Creatures.

(24) Understand it thus, that Water is the Water of the eternal Life in the mLimbus of God in the Holy Ternary; and that is the Water which baptizes the Soul, when we keep the Use of his As by an Example. Testament, for the Soul in his Covenant is dipped and washed in that Water, it is rightly the Bath [or Laver] of Regeneration, for by its dipping in the holy Water, it is received and quickened by the holy Water, and comes (in the Covenant of Christ) into the Soul of Christ; indeed not fully into his Soul, but into his Body, and becomes the Brother of the Soul of Christ; for Christ's Soul is a Creature, (as our Souls are,) and is in the Body of the Mercifulness in the Trinity, being surrounded therewith, and has the same in it for Food and Strength [or Refreshment.] So also our Souls in the Covenant, if they be faithful and continue in God, they are the Brethren of Christ's Soul.

(12) And so the Woman (in whom the eternal Life springs) stands upon the earthly Moon, and despises that which is earthly, for that which is earthly perishes; and then there remains (of that which is earthly) the hard [frozen] Death; and so now the Word of God (as a living a Fountain) is entered into Death, and has generated the Soul in itself, and springs forth out of the Soul through Death like a new Flower; and that Flower is the new Body in Christ.

(2) Let every soul recall, then, at the outset the truth that soul is the author of all living things, that it has breathed the life into them all, whatever is nourished by earth and sea, all the creatures of the air, the divine stars in the sky; it is the maker of the sun; itself formed and ordered this vast heaven and conducts all that rhythmic motion; and it is a principle distinct from all these to which it gives law and movement and life, and it must of necessity be more honourable than they, for they gather or dissolve as soul brings them life or abandons them, but soul, since it never can abandon itself, is of eternal being.

How life was purveyed to the universe of things and to the separate beings in it may be thus conceived:

That great soul must stand pictured before another soul, one not mean, a soul that has become worthy to look, emancipate from the lure, from all that binds its fellows in bewitchment, holding itself in quietude. Let not merely the enveloping body be at peace, body's turmoil stilled, but all that lies around, earth at peace, and sea at peace, and air and the very heavens. Into that heaven, all at rest, let the great soul be conceived to roll inward at every point, penetrating, permeating, from all sides pouring in its light. As the rays of the sun throwing their brilliance upon a lowering cloud make it gleam all gold, so the soul entering the material expanse of the heavens has given life, has given immortality: what was abject it has lifted up; and the heavenly system, moved now in endless motion by the soul that leads it in wisdom, has become a living and a blessed thing; the soul domiciled within, it takes worth where, before the soul, it was stark body- clay and water- or, rather, the blankness of Matter, the absence of Being, and, as an author says, "the execration of the Gods."

The Soul's nature and power will be brought out more clearly, more brilliantly, if we consider next how it envelops the heavenly system and guides all to its purposes: for it has bestowed itself upon all that huge expanse so that every interval, small and great alike, all has been ensouled.

The material body is made up of parts, each holding its own place, some in mutual opposition and others variously interdependent; the soul is in no such condition; it is not whittled down so that life tells of a part of the soul and springs where some such separate portion impinges; each separate life lives by the soul entire, omnipresent in the likeness of the engendering father, entire in unity and entire in diffused variety. By the power of the soul the manifold and diverse heavenly system is a unit: through soul this universe is a God: and the sun is a God because it is ensouled; so too the stars: and whatsoever we ourselves may be, it is all in virtue of soul; for "dead is viler than dung."

This, by which the gods are divine, must be the oldest God of them all: and our own soul is of that same Ideal nature, so that to consider it, purified, freed from all accruement, is to recognise in ourselves that same value which we have found soul to be, honourable above all that is bodily. For what is body but earth, and, taking fire itself, what is its burning power? So it is with all the compounds of earth and fire, even with water and air added to them?

If, then, it is the presence of soul that brings worth, how can a man slight himself and run after other things? You honour the Soul elsewhere; honour then yourself.

(86) Now when the poor Soul was thus bathed in the Water of eternal Life (out of the pure Element) which is in the Holy Ternary, that it not only enjoyed the same outwardly, but was also filled [or impregnated] therewith, as the Holy Ghost impregnated Mary in the Holy Ternary; then it stood [inclined] forward, viz. right forward towards God, and into God, as a new half generated and washed Creature, and behind it was the Anger of the Darkness in the Kingdom of this World still fast bound to it, so that it could not be wholly freed from it, except it entered into Death, and quite broke off the Kingdom of this World. Of the Temptation of Christ.

(14) But that we may so speak of the Heaven, that the Reader might come to understand what that [Heaven] is which God then created, [consider] what Moses writes of it. God made a Firmament between the Waters, and separated the Waters beneath the Firmament from the Waters above the Firmament, and the Firmament he called Heaven, which is very right; but hitherto it has been very ill understood.

(12) Or take it another way: Since in our view this universe stands to that as copy to original, the living total must exist There beforehand; that is the realm of complete Being and everything must exist There.

The sky There must be living and therefore not bare of stars, here known as the heavens- for stars are included in the very meaning of the word. Earth too will be There, and not void but even more intensely living and containing all that lives and moves upon our earth and the plants obviously rooted in life; sea will be There and all waters with the movement of their unending life and all the living things of the water; air too must be a member of that universe with the living things of air as here.

The content of that living thing must surely be alive- as in this sphere- and all that lives must of necessity be There. The nature of the major parts determines that of the living forms they comprise; by the being and content of the heaven There are determined all the heavenly forms of life; if those lesser forms were not There, that heaven itself would not be.

To ask how those forms of life come to be There is simply asking how that heaven came to be; it is asking whence comes life, whence the All-Life, whence the All-Soul, whence collective Intellect: and the answer is that There no indigence or impotence can exist but all must be teeming, seething, with life. All flows, so to speak, from one fount not to be thought of as one breath or warmth but rather as one quality englobing and safeguarding all qualities- sweetness with fragrance, wine- quality and the savours of everything that may be tasted, all colours seen, everything known to touch, all that ear may hear, all melodies, every rhythm.

(18) But though we speak of the paradisical Essence, and also of the Principle of this World, of its Power and wonderful Birth, and what the divine and eternal Wisdom is, yet it is impossible, for us to utter and express it [all;] for the Lake of the Deep can be comprehended in no Spirit, (whether it be Angel or Man,) therefore the innumerable eternal Birth and Wisdom makes a wonderful eternal Joy in Paradise. This innumerable Power and Wisdom may now also be known by us Men, in the third Principle, if we will take it into our Consideration; if we look upon the starry Heaven, the Elements and living Creatures, also upon Trees, Herbs, and Grass, we may behold in the material World, the Similitude of the paradisical incomprehensible World; for this World is proceeded out of the first Root, wherein stand both the material, and also the paradisical spiritual World, which is without Beginning or Transitoriness.

(14) Now therefore the Soul stands in two Gates, and touches the two Principles, viz. the eternal Darkness, and the eternal Light of the Son of God, as God the Father himself does. Now as God the Father holds his unchangeable eternal Will to generate his Heart and Son, so the Angels and Souls keep their unchangeable Will in the Heart of God. Thus it [the Soul] is in Heaven and in Paradise, and enjoys the unutterable Joy of God the Father which he has in the Son, and it hears the inexpressible Words of the Heart of God, and rejoices at the eternal, and also at the created Images, which are not in Essence [or Substance,] but in Figure.

(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.

(16) If, then, in the deluge all sinful flesh perished, punishment having been inflicted on them for correction, we must first believe that the will of God, which is disciplinary and beneficent, saves those who turn to Him. Then, too, the more subtle substance, the soul, could never receive any injury from the grosser element of water, its subtle and simple nature rendering it impalpable, called as it is incorporeal. But whatever is gross, made so in consequence of sin, this is cast away along with the carnal spirit which lusts against the soul.

(2) ’Twixt Heaven and Earth, upon the waves of Cosmos, is it dragged in contrary directions, for ever racked with ceaseless pains ; so that in this its deathless nature doth afflict the soul, in that because of its unceasing sense, it hath the yoke of ceaseless torture set upon its neck. Know, then, that we should dread, and be afraid, and [ever] be upon our guard, lest we should be entangled in these [toils]. For those who do not now believe, will after their misdeeds be driven to believe, by facts not words, by actual sufferings of punishment and not by threats.

(15) And consider attentively, I pray, with what appropriateness the holy symbols are presented. For since death is with us not an annihilation of being, as others surmise, but the separating of things united, leading to that which is invisible to us, the soul indeed becoming invisible through deprivation of the body, and the body, through being buried in earth in consequence of one of its bodily changes, becoming invisible to human ken, appropriately, the whole covering by water would be taken as an image of death, and the invisible tomb. The symbolical teaching, then, reveals in mystery that the man baptized according to religious rites, imitates, so far as Divine imitation is attainable to men, by the three immersions in the water, the supremely Divine death of the Life-giving Jesus, Who spent three days and three nights in the tomb, in Whom, according to the mystical and secret teaching of the sacred text, the Prince of the world found nothing.

(10) And thus yet the one must be parted from the other, viz. the Kingdom of this World, which is a Root, or Stirrer up of the Root of the Fierceness, and therefore it was necessary that God should pass with the new Body into the Separation of the Root, and of the Kingdom of this World, as into the Death of the Fierceness, and should destroy Death, and spring with its own Virtue and Power through Death, as a Flower springs out of the Earth, and so hold the inward Fierceness captive xin his own Virtue of the new Body. 1 1. And this we understand of Christ, who is truly entered in such a Manner, and has taken the strong Anger (and the Devil in it) captive, and has sprung with his holy heavenly Body through Death, and has destroyed Death, so that the eternal Life springs forth through Death; and thus Death was taken captive by the new eternal Body, and it is an eternal Imprisonment; so that an eternal Life is grown in Death, and the new Body treads upon the Head of Death, and of the Fierceness; the Property of Death stands in the Prison of the new eternal Life.

(25) But there is a great Difference in Souls, and therefore a the going to Heaven is very unlike; some of them are through true Repentance and Sorrow for their Misdeeds, through their Faith (in the Time of their Bodies) set [or ingrafted] into the Heart of God, [and] new regenerated through the Birth of Jesus Christ; and they instantly (with the Breaking of their Bodies) leave all that is earthly, and instantly also lay off the Region of the Stars; and they comprehend, in their Essences of the first Principle, the Mercy of God the Father in the kind Love of Jesus Christ; and these] also stand, in the Time of their Bodies, according to the Essences of the Soul, (which they receive from the Passion and Death of Christ) in the Gate of the Heaven; and their Departure from the Body is a very pleasant Entering into the Element before God, into a still Rest, expecting their Bodies, without [irksome] Longing; where then the Paradise shall flourish again, which the Soul tastes very well, but effects no Source [or Work] till the first Adam, [as he was] before the Fall, dbe again upon it.

(7) So that when the Heaven, and the Birth of the Elements are spoken of, it is not a Thing afar off, or that is distant from us, that is spoken of; but we speak of Things that are done in our Body and Soul; and there is nothing nearer us than this Birth, for we live and move therein, as in the House of our Mother; and when we speak of Heaven, we speak of our native Country, which the enlightened Soul can well see, though indeed such Things are hidden from the Body.

(34) This I have here shown very briefly and summarily, and not according to all the Circumstances, that it might thereby be somewhat understood [by the Way, what] the Life [is.] In its due Place all shall be explained at large, for herein is very much contained, and there might be great Volumes written of it; but I have set down only this, that the Overcoming and the Sleep might be apprehended. The Gate [or Explanation] of the heavenly Tincture, how it was in Adam before the Fall, and how it shall be in us after this Life.

(45) And thus the Body of Christ (on the Soul) was the pure Element before God, out of which the Sun of this World is generated, and the same Body included the whole World, and then the Nature of this World trembled, and the stony Rocks cleft in sunder; for the fierce wrathful Death had (in the Fiat) congealed and concreted the stony Rocks together; and now the holy Life went into the fierce wrathful Death, whereupon the Stones did cleave asunder, to show that the Life stood up again in Death, and sprung forth through Death.