(53) as the excellent, precious, and amiable blessed Savour or Smell goes forth from all the Powers of the Father and of the Son, and tempers itself with all the Powers of the Holy Ghost, whence the Holy Spirit and most precious Savour rises up from the Fountain of the Holy Ghost; and flows or boils in all the Powers of the Father, and kindles all the Powers of the Father, whereby they are impregnated again with the amiable blessed Savour, or Saving Smell, and so generate it in the Son and Holy Ghost;

(56) For behold, the Father is the original Essence of all Essences. And if now the second Principle did not break forth and spring up in the Birth of the Son, then the Father would be a dark Valley. And thus you see, that the Son (who is the Heart, the Love, the Brightness and the mild Rejoicing of the Father,) [in whom he is well-pleased,] opens another Principle in his Birth, and makes the angry and wrathful Father (as I may say, as to the Originality of the first Principle) reconciled, pleased, loving, and as I may say, merciful; and he is another [Manner of] Person than the Father; for in his a Center there is nothing else but mere Joy, Love, and Pleasure. And yet you may see that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, for when the Heart or Light of God is generated in the Father, then there springs up (in the Kindling of the Light in the fifth Form) out of the Water-Source in the Light, a very pleasant sweet smelling and sweet tasted Spirit; and this is that Spirit which in the Original was the bitter Sting or Prickle in the Harshness [or Tartness;] and that makes now in this Water-Source many thousand of the Water.

(57) Now you may well perceive that the Birth of the Sun takes its Original in the Fire, and attains his Personality and Name in the Kindling of the soft, white, and clear Light, which is Himself; and Himself makes the pleasant Smell, Taste, and Satisfaction [or Reconciliation and Well-pleasing] in the Father, and is rightly the Father's Heart, and another Person; for he opens and produces the second Principle in the Father; and his own Essence is the Power or Virtue and the Light; and therefore his is rightly called the Power or Virtue of the Father.

(71) Father begotten Light, which alone hath gathered from the strength of the Father the Flower of mind, and hath the power of understanding the Paternal mind, and doth instil into all Fountains and Principles the power of understanding and the function of ceaseless revolution.

(7) The Father and the Son have one Will, and that Will is the Holy Ghost, Who gives Himself to the soul so that the Divine Nature permeates the powers of the soul so that it can only do God-like works. Just as a spring, which perpetually flows and waters the roots of the flowers, so that the flowers bloom and receive their colours from the water of the spring, so the Godhead imparts Itself to the capacities of the soul that it may grow in the likeness of God. The more that the soul receives of the Divine Nature, the more it grows like It, and the closer becomes its union with God. It may arrive at such an intimate union that God at last draws it to Himself altogether, so that there is no distinction left, in the soul's consciousness, between itself and God, though God still regards it as a creature. Wherefore let yourselves not be misled by the light of nature. The higher the degree of knowledge which the soul attains to in the light of grace, the darker seems to it the light of nature.

If the soul would know the real truth it must examine itself, whether it has withdrawn from all things, whether it has lost itself, whether it loves God purely with His love and nothing of its own at the same time, so that it may not be separated from Him by anything, and whether God alone dwells in it. If it has lost itself, it is as when the Virgin Mary lost Christ. She sought Him for three days, and yet was sure that she would find Him. All the while Christ was in the highest class in the school of His Father, unconscious of His mother's seeking Him. Thus happens it to the noble soul which goes to God to school, and learns there what God is in His essence, and what He is in the Trinity, and what He is in man, and what is most acceptable to Him. St Augustine saith that the righteousness of God in the Godhead and in the Trinity and in all creatures is the source of the chief joy which is in heaven. God in human nature is a lamp of living light, and "the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not." The darkness must ever more flee the light, as the night flees day.

Thus the soul learns to know God's will. St Paul saith, "This is God's will, our sanctification." And this is our sanctification, to know what we were before time; what we are in time, and what we shall be after time. Thus the soul loses itself in these three, and recketh naught of the body, till it comes to it in the temple, and obeys it without murmuring. The Father is a revelation of the Godhead, the Son is an image and countenance of the Father, and the Holy Ghost is an effulgence of that countenance, and a mutual love between Them, and these properties They have always possessed in Themselves. The Three Persons have stooped out of pity down to human nature, and the Son became man, and was the most despised man on the earth, and suffered pain at the hands of the creatures whom He Himself created with the Father, through Whose will He became man. Thus was Christ till His death, and when He rose from the dead then was seen the most despised of all men united with the Godhead in the Person of Christ.

(42) Behold! what the Deity does, that they also do; when the Spirits of God lovingly generate one in another, and rise up one in another, as in a loving, saluting, embracing, kissing, and feeding one another; in which Taste and Smell the Life rises up, and the eternal Refreshing; of which thou mayest read before at large;

(119) When the astringent or harsh Quality, as the Father, forms the Word or Son, or Spirit, then it stands captive in the Center of the Heart, and is examined or tried by the other Spirits, whether it be good or no. Now if it pleases the Fire, then the Fire lets the Flash (in which the bitter Spirit stands) go through the sweet Water, wherein it conceives the Love, and goes with it into the astringent Quality.

(90) Understanding the works of the Father, they avoid the shameless Wing of Fate; they are placed in God, drawing forth strong light-bearers, descending from the Father, from whom as they descend, the Soul gathereth of the empyræan fruits the soul-nourishing flower.

(39) The Mind of the Father whirled forth in reechoing roar, comprehending by invincible Will Ideas omniform ; which flying forth from that one fountain issued; for from the Father alike. was the Will and the End (by which are they connected with the Father according to alternating life, through varying vehicles). But they were divided asunder, being by Intellectual Fire distributed into other Intellectuals. For the King of all previously placed before the polymorphous World a Type, intellectual, incorruptible, the imprint of whose form is sent forth through the World, by which the Universe shone forth decked with Ideas all various, of which the foundation is One, One and alone. From this the others rush forth distributed and separated through the various bodies of the Universe, and are borne in swarms through its vast abysses, ever whirling forth in illimitable radiation. They are intellectual conceptions from the Paternal Fountain partaking abundantly of the brilliance of Fire in the culmination of unresting Time. But the primary self-perfect Fountain of the Father poured forth these primogenial Ideas.

(10) And so the Kingdom of Heaven is his own Body, and the whole princely Throne of his Principle is Paradise, wherein the blessed Fruit in the Virtue of God springs up, for the Holy Ghost is the Virtue [and Power] of the Fruit; as the Air in this World is, so the Holy Ghost is the Air and Spirit of the Soul in Christ, and of all his Children; for there is no other Air in Heaven, in the Body of Christ; and God the Father is all in all. Thus we live and are (in Christ) all in the Father, and there is no Soul that searches out to the Depth; but we live all in Singleness of Heart, and in great Humility and Love one towards another, and rejoice one with another, as Children do before their Parents; and to this End God created us.

(10) All Power and Virtue is in God the Father; and proceeds also forth from him, as Light, Heat, Cold, Soft, Gentle, Sweet, Bitter, Sour, Astringent or Harsh, Sound or Noise, and much more that is not possible to be spoken or apprehended. All these are in God the Father, one in another as one Power, and yet all these Powers move in his Exit or going forth.