(96) Then the Devil mocked the Image, and Hell opened its The Soul. Jaws wide, and had the Bridle in their Essences, and continually drew them therewith towards the hellish Fire of the fierce Wrath; and then there was Trembling and Horror in the Mind, and they could not reach the Love of God. Heaven was their Enemy, no Angel came near them, but the horrible Devils, they showed themselves, and hopped, crying, Ho, ho! we have gotten the Game, we are Princes over Men, we will torment them soundly, because they would have possessed our Throne; we should have been their Footstool, and now we are their Judges; what Care we for God, he dwells not in our Kingdom; why has he thrust us out? we will be sure to wreak our Spleen upon his Image. The most pleasant, and most lovely Gate [or Explanation] of the Promise of the Treader upon the Serpent, highly to be considered.

(69) Besides, the Kingdom of Hell, and of [fierce] Wrath, always gape after the Soul, and set their Jaws wide open to devour the captive Soul; which is held fast fettered with two strong Chains; the one of the Kingdom of Hell; the other of the Kingdom of this World; and it is continually led by the heavy, lumpish, bestial, and sickly Body, as a Thief who is often led to the Place of Execution, and still by a Petition reprieved, and laid in Prison again, and the poor Soul must lie thus in Prison the whole Time of the Body; where the Devil on the one Side very suddenly rushes upon it with his devouring Fierceness, Wrath, and Malice, and would carry it into the Abyss. Then instantly [it is beat upon by] the glistering [flattering] World, with Pomp, Bravery, Covetousness, and Voluptuousness of Perdition; presenting [again come upon it] Sickness and Fear, and it is continually trembling and quaking; and when Man goes but in the Dark, how is it amazed, and continually afraid that the Executioner will take it, and tdo Execution upon it! The Gate [or Explanation] of the great Sin, and Contrariety of Will against God, in Man.

(42) O thou blind Mind, with thy Might and Stateliness, full of Wickedness and devilish fierce Wrath, [wilt thou know where thou art after that thy Body perishes?] Thou art even with all the Devils, in the Abyss of Hell, if thou dost not turn, and by earnest unfained Sorrow and Repentance for thy Abominations, enter into the angelical Footsteps, that the Saviour and Treader upon the Serpent of fierce Wrath, Wickedness, Lying, and Deceit, may meet thee, and embrace thee in his Arms, and [that thou] mayest be new-born in him, and be yielded up into the Bosom of the chaste Virgin, and become an Angel; or else thou art in the eternal Death, in the eternal Darkness, and canst not in all Eternity reach the Kingdom of God any more.

(27) There is nothing that is nearer you than Heaven, Paradise, and Hell, unto which of them you are inclined, and to which of them you rend [or walk,] to that in this [Life] Time you are most near: You are between both. And there is a Birth between each of them; you stand in this World between both the Gates, and you have both the Births in you: God beckons to you in the one Gate, and calls you; and the Devil beckons you in the other Gate, and calls you; with whom you go, with him you enter in. The Devil has in his Hand Power, Honour, Pleasure, and [worldly] Joy, and the Root of these is Death and Hell-fire. On the contrary, God has in his Hands, Crosses, Persecution, Misery, Poverty, Ignominy, and Sorrow; and the Root of these is a Fire also, and in the Fire [there is] a Light, and in the Light the Virtue, and in the Virtue [or Power] the Paradise, and in the Paradise [are] the Angels, and among the Angels Joy. The gross Eyes cannot behold it, because they are from the third Principle, and see only by the Splendor of the Sun; but when the Holy Ghost comes into the Soul, then he regenerates it anew in God, and then it becomes a paradisical Child, and gets the Key of Paradise, and that Soul sees into the Midst thereof.

(106) And here is apparently seen the Glass of the Abyss of Hell, and [of the] eternal Despair; when the Anger of God rises up in the Source, that the Malice [and Wickedness] is made stirring, and there begins Trembling, Galling, and Crying, and Despair in itself as to God; there the Soul seeks Abstinence in the Kingdom of this World, and finds mnone; and then it leaves the Kingdom of this World also, and runs also into the Originality into the Root of the eternal Birth, and seeks Abstinence, and yet finds nothing; and then casts itself into the abominable Deep, supposing to reach the Original of the Abstinence, or the Gate of the Breaking in; but it mounts only above the Heaven, out (into the most outermost) into the fierce [wrathful, grim] Eternity.

(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.

(75) Thus thou shalt know in what Manner it is Sin before God; thou hast in thyself the [one eternal pure] Element, which is a Joy in the Presence of God; and now if thou ragest and ravest with the Source [Quality or Property] of Hell, then thou touchest [or troublest] the Element; and thou stirrest up the did, when he awakened [or stirred up,] and kindled the Fierce and Stones; thou sinnest [piercing] into the Heaven in the Presence of God, upon which the Prophets complained in many Places, That the Disobedient did grieve their God. Though (in himself) he felt no Pain, yet his Wrath was kindled in the first Principle, in the Gate of the Deep, wherein the Soul stands, and that is a mere Abomination before him.

(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.

(23) And now because the Devil had so highly triumphed, and had Man in the eternal Prison, therefore it was now permitted to the Spirit of this World, that they (viz. the Pharisees, who lived only according to the Spirit of this World) all of them might do and bring to pass whatsoever the Devil had brought into the Essences, in the Garden of Eden; and there all was turned into to [show] us, that all (whatsoever we suffer to come into the Soul, and fill the Soul full of with a total Will) stands in the Figure, and must come to Light at the Judgment of God.

(24) For there is no Light, neither of this World, nor of God, but its own fiery Kindling in itself, and that is its Light, which stands in the horrible Flash of the Grimness, which also is an Enmity to itself; yet the Source is very unlike, all according to that which the Soul has here burdened itself with. For such a Soul there is no [Remedy or] Counsel, it cannot come into the Light of God; and although St. Peter had left many thousand Keys upon Earth, yet none of them could open the Heaven for it; for it is separated from the Band of Jesus Christ, and there is between it and the Deity, a whole Birth y; and it is as with the zrich Man, where those that would come from thence to us cannot. And this must be understood of the unrepenting Souls, which thus in Hypocrisy [or Show of Holiness] depart from the Body, being unregenerated.

(36) Beloved Reader, open the Eyes of your Mind here, and know, that no other [anguish] Source will spring up in him [and torment him] than his own a Quality; for that is his Hell out of which he is created and made; and the Light of God is his eternal Shame, and therefore he is God's Enemy, because he is no more in the Light of God.

(74) If it stretches to God, then the Devil holds it on one Side with one Band, and the World with another Band; and they set upon it; the Devil handles it in Fierceness, [Sternness, Frowardness, or Wrath, which is a Source [or Quality] and Sin, which cannot attain to the Kingdom of God; and the World leads it into Pride, Covetousness, and fleshly Lust, so that the Essences of the Soul grow full [or impregnated] with the fleshly Will; for the Will of the Mind draws these Things into the Soul, and so the Soul (from that which is attracted) becomes wholly unclean, a swelled and dark, and cannot attain the Light of God; its Essences, that should give up themselves to God, cannot: For they are too rough, and cannot get into the Light, that kindles not itself in its Essences. The Gates of the Deep must be broken open first, and then the Essences [of the Soul may] press into the Liberty, without the Darkness; but if the Mind be filled, then it cannot [come into the Liberty,] and then begins Horror, Fear, Distress, and Despair of the Kingdom of God, and this makes mere Torment, [Woe, Pain, and Smart,] in the Soul.

(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.

(25) And thus thou earthly Man mayest see, how thou livest here in three Principles, if thy Mind inclines itself to God; but if it gives up itself to the Source of this World, then thou standest before Heaven, and thou sowest two Principles, viz. the Spirit of this World, and the fierce Source of Eternity. The Weil-Spring [or Fountain] of the Antichristian Kingdom.

(11) Christ’s soul must needs descend into hell, before it ascended into heaven. So must also the soul of man. But mark ye in what manner this cometh to pass. When a man truly Perceiveth and considereth himself, who and what he is, and findeth himself utterly vile and wicked, and unworthy of all the comfort and kindness that he hath ever received from God, or from the creatures, he falleth into such a deep abasement and despising of himself, that he thinketh himself unworthy that the earth should bear him, and it seemeth to him reasonable that all creatures in heaven and earth should rise up against him and avenge their Creator on him, and should punish and torment him; and that he were unworthy even of that. And it seemeth to him that he shall be eternally lost and damned, and a footstool to all the devils in hell, and that this is right and just and all too little compared to his sins which he so often and in so many ways hath committed against God his Creator. And therefore also he will not and dare not desire any consolation or release, either from God or from any creature that is in heaven or on earth; but he is willing to be unconsoled and unreleased, and he doth not grieve over his condemnation and sufferings; for they are right and just, and not contrary to God, but according to the will of God. Therefore they are right in his eyes, and he hath nothing to say against them. Nothing grieveth him but his own guilt and wickedness; for that is not right and is contrary to God, and for that cause he is grieved and troubled in spirit. This is what is meant by true repentance for sin. And he who in this Present time entereth into this hell, entereth afterward into the Kingdom of Heaven, and obtaineth a foretaste there of which excelleth all the delight and joy which he ever hath had or could have in this present time from temporal things. But whilst a man is thus in hell, none may console him, neither God nor the creature, as it is written, “In hell there is no redemption.”11 Of this state hath one said, “Let me perish, let me die! I live without hope; from within and from without I am condemned, let no one pray that I may be released.” Now God hath not forsaken a man in this hell, but He is laying His hand upon him, that the man may not desire nor regard anything but the Eternal Good only, and may come to know that that is so noble and passing good, that none can search out or express its bliss, consolation and joy, peace, rest and satisfaction. And then, when the man neither careth for, nor seeketh, nor desireth, anything but the Eternal Good alone, and seeketh not himself, nor his own things, but the honour of God only, he is made a partaker of all manner of joy, bliss, peace, rest and consolation, and so the man is henceforth in the Kingdom of Heaven. This hell and this heaven are two good, safe ways for a man in this present time, and happy is he who truly findeth them. For this hell shall pass away, But Heaven shall endure for aye.

(14) We have seen above that one kind of spiritual hell is the forcible separation from worldly things to which the heart cleaves too fondly. Many carry about within them the germs of such a hell without being aware of it; hereafter they will feel like some king who, after living in luxury, has been dethroned and made a laughing stock. The second kind of spiritual hell is that of shame, when a man wakes up to see the nature of the actions he committed in their naked reality. Thus he who slandered will see himself in the guise of a cannibal eating his dead brother's flesh, and he who envied as one who cast stones against a wall, which stones, rebounding, put out the eyes of his own children.