(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.

(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.

(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.

(38) Hast thou been a proud vain-glorious, selfishly Potent, and one that has for thy Pleasure Sake oppressed the Needy, then such a Spirit goes forth from thee, and then so it is in the Eternity, where it can neither keep nor get any Thing for [to feed] its Covetousness, neither can it adorn its Body with any Thing, but with that which is there, and yet it climbs up eternally in its Pride, for there is no other Source in it; and thus in its Rising it reaches into nothing else but the stern Might of the Fire in its Elevation; it inclines itself in its Will continually in such a Purpose as it did in this World; as it was wont to do here, so all appears in its Tincture, therein itclimbs up eternally in the Abyss of Hell.

(11) Also let a man mark, when he is in this hell, nothing may console him; and he cannot believe that he shall ever be released or comforted. But when he is in heaven, nothing can trouble him; he believeth also that none will ever be able to offend or trouble him, albeit it is indeed true, that after this hell he may be comforted and released, and after this heaven he may be troubled and left without consolation. Again: this hell and this heaven come about a man in such sort, that he knoweth not whence they come; and whether they come to him, or depart from him, he can of himself do nothing towards it. Of these things he can neither give nor take away from himself, bring them nor banish them, but as it is written, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof,” that is to say, at this time present, “but thou knowest not whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth.”12 And when a man is in one of these two states, all is right with him, and he is as safe in hell as in heaven, and so long as a man is on earth, it is possible for him to pass ofttimes from the one into the other; nay even within the space of a day and night, and all without his own doing. But when the man is in neither of these two states he holdeth converse with the creature, and wavereth hither and thither, and knoweth not what manner of man he is. Therefore he shall never forget either of them, but lay up the remembrance of them in his heart.

(33) Only, the spirit here setteth open for thee the gates of hell, that thou may see what is the condition of the devils and of hell, and what is the condition of man, when the divine light extinguished in him, so that he sitteth in the wrath of God and liveth in such a generating, in such an anguish, in such smarting pains, in such woe and misery.

(129) Thus it is also with those creatures that will continually sow and reap in the hellish fire, especially that man who liveth in a continual desire of pride, covetousness, envy and wrath, and will at no time fight and strive against them with the spirit and fire of love; such a one himself attracteth the wrath of God, and the burning hellish fire, upon his body and soul.

(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.

(99) This modern world would do well to speculate on this pride and covetousness, and to consider how it is an enmity against God; and that thereby they go headlong to the devil, and there must have their jaws and throats open eternally to rob and devour, and yet find nothing but hellish abomination. Of the Third Son, Envy. [Spite]

(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.

(12) Thus one of the Wicked curses the other, who has caused him to commit such Wickedness; the Inferior his Superior that has given him Offence, [and been a Stumbling-block to him;] the Laity curse the Clergy or Priests, who have given them evil Examples, and seduced them with false Doctrine; the wicked Curser, Swearer, and Blasphemer, bites and gnaws his Tongue, which has so murdered him; the Mind beats the Head against the Stones; and the Ungodly hide themselves in the Caves and Holes of the Earth, before the Terror of the LORD; for there is great Quaking and Stirring in the Essences of the Anger and fierce Wrath of the LORD; and the Anguish breaks the Heart, and yet there is no Dying; for the Anger is stirring, and the Life of the Ungodly flows up in the Anger. There the Ungodly curses the Heaven and the Earth that bore him, as also the Constellation [or Stars] that led him, and the Hour of his Birth; all his Uncleanness stands before his Eyes, and he sees the Cause of his Horror, and condemns himself; he cannot look upon the Righteous for very Shame; all his Works stand in his Mind, and in the Essences cry, Woe to him that did them, they accuse him; the Tears of those he has afflicted and oppressed are like a fiery stinging Serpent; he desires Rest or Ease, but there is no Comfort, Despair rises up in him, for Hell terrifies him.

(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.

(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

(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.

(25) Now, after that a man hath walked in all the ways that lead him unto the truth, and exercised himself therein, not sparing his labour; now, as often and as long as he dreameth that his work is altogether finished, and he is by this time quite dead to the world, and come out from Self and given up to God alone, behold! the Devil cometh and soweth his seed in the man’s heart. From this seed spring two fruits; the one is spiritual fulness or pride, the other is false, lawless freedom. These are two sisters who love to be together. Now, it beginneth on this wise: the Devil puffeth up the man, till he thinketh himself to have climbed the topmost pinnacle, and to have come so near to heaven, that he no longer needeth Scripture, nor teaching, nor this nor that, but is altogether raised above any need. Whereupon there ariseth a false peace and satisfaction with himself, and then it followeth that he saith or thinketh: “Yea, now I am above all other men, and know and understand more than any one in the world; therefore it is certainly just and reasonable that I should be the lord and commander of all creatures, and that all creatures, and especially all men, should serve me and be subject unto me.” And then he seeketh and desireth the same, and taketh it gladly from all creatures, especially men, and thinketh himself well worthy of all this, and that it is his due, and looketh on men as if they were the beasts of the field, and thinketh himself worthy of all that ministereth to his body and life and nature, in profit, or joy, or pleasure, or even pastime and amusement, and he seeketh and taketh it wherever he findeth opportunity.

(34) Now the Mind thinks, that if all the Works of a Soul (which it wrought here) shall follow it in the Figure, then how shall it be, if a Soul here has for a long Time committed great Abominations, but that they will be great Shame to it, if they must stand in the Figure before its Eyes? This is a great Stumbling- Block of the Devil's, which plagues the poor Soul, and usually forces it thereby into Despair, so that itself continually presents its Sins before it, and despairs of the Grace of God.

(3) It is also a fellowship with the Devil, for everything hath fellowship with its like; and sin maketh the soul and Satan resemble each other. It is also an expulsion of Christianity, for it depriveth the sinner of all the profit that comes from Christianity. It is also a dungeon of hell, for if the soul remain in the purity in which God created her, neither angel nor devil may rob her of her freedom. But sin confines it in hell. Sin is also an eternity of hell, for eternity is in the will, and were it not in the will, it would not be in the consciousness.

(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.

(94) But because he beguiled Adam and Eve with his Sugar, therefore God has prepared such a Dwelling-House for him, as Adam lets forth (from the earthly Sugar) at the nethermost Exit; and that shall be left for him at the Corruption of the Earth, when it goes into its Ether; and then that pleasant Smell of the Stink of Sin and Abominations (in the Kingdom of the fierce Wrath) shall remain for him, and that Sugar he shall eat eternally, and frame his Will continually therein to get other Sugar in the i Furnace of the Fire, and then he may make that ready for him, as may best suit with his Palate; at which he quakes and trembles, when he hears the Spirit declare such Things. And hereby it is also signified to all the Ungodly, that they shall also eat the same Sugar eternally, which they have continually baked here, with their Blaspheming, Cursing, Covetousness, Scorn, Backbiting, [Thorny-taunting,] Murdering, Robbing, and taking the Sweat of the Needy and Miserable to maintain their haughty stately Pride.

(22) As also all Words (both the evil and the good) which were here spoken by a human Tongue, they continue standing in the Shadow and figured Similitude, and the good reach Paradise in the Holy Ghost; and the false [evil] and wicked Ones reach the Abyss of Hell. And therefore it is that Christ said, Man must give an Account of every idle [or unprofitable] Word; and when the Harvest comes, then all shall be separated. For the Scripture saith also, That every one's Works shall follow them, and all shall be tried by the Fire of Nature; and all false [or evil] Works, Words, and Deeds, shall remain in the Fire of Nature (which shall be the Hell;) at which, when the Devils hear it, they tremble and quake.