(144) For as the will of the heart infects and stirs all the members of the body, so that the whole body does as the heart has decreed or concluded; or as the Holy Ghost riseth up in the centre of the heart, and enlighteneth all the members in the whole body; so the Cherubim with his whole glance or lustre and will infects all his angels, so that they all are together as one body, and the king is the heart therein.

(49) So I will now write of the second Principle, of the clear pure Deity, of the Heart of God. In the first Principle (as I have mentioned above) is Harshness, Bitterness, and Fire; and yet they are not three Things, but one only Thing, and they one generate another. Harshness is the first Father, which is strong, [fierce or tart,] very sharp and attracting to itself; and that Attracting is the [Sting] or Prickle, or Bitterness, which the Harshness cannot endure, and it will not be captivated in Death, but rises and flies up like a strong fierce Substance, and yet cannot remove from off its Place: And then there is a horrible Anguish, which finds no Rest; and the Birth is like a turning Wheel, pulling so very hard, and breaking or bruising as it were furiously, which the Harshness cannot endure, but attracts continually more and more, harder and harder; as when Steel and a Flint are struck one against another, from which the twinkling Flash of Fire proceeds; and when the Harshness perceives mit, nit starts and sinks back, as if it were dead and overcome. And so when the Flash of Fire comes into its Mother, the Harshness, and finds her thus soft and overcome, then it is much more terrified [than the Harshness,] and becomes in the Twinkling of an Eye white and clear. And now when the harsh Tartness attains the white clear Light in itself, it is so very much terrified that it [falls or] sinks back as if it were dead and overcome, and expands itself, and becomes very thin and [pliable or] vanquished: For its own Source was dark and hard, and now is become light and soft; therefore now it is first rightly become as it were dead, and now is the Water-Spirit.

(12) According to another tradition, know the heart is like So every moment a fresh purpose occurs to the heart, Not proceeding from itself, but from its situation. Why, then, are you confident about the heart's purposes? Why make you vows only to be covered with shame? All these changes proceed from the effect of God's will; Although you see the pit, you cannot avoid it. The strange thing is, not that winged fowl Fall into the deadly snare without seeing it, But that they see the snare and the limed twig, And yet fall into it, whether they will or no;

(1) Therefore hath God commanded, "Make an exception, Couple the words 'If God will' with your vows. Because the governance of actions is in my hands, Every moment I impart a fresh bias to the heart, Every instant I set a fresh mark on the heart; Each day I am engaged in a fresh work, There is naught that swerves from my purpose." There is a tradition, "The heart is like a feather In the desert, which is borne captive by the winds; The wind drives it everywhere at random, Now to right and now to left in opposite directions."

(3) When men are set free from the womb the primordial spirit dwells in the square inch (between the eyes), but the conscious spirit dwells below in the heart. This lower leshly heart has the shape of a large peach: it is covered by the wings of the lungs, supported by the liver, and served by the bowels. This heart is dependent on the outside world. If a man does not eat for one day even, it feels extremely uncomfortable. If it hears something terri ying it throbs; if it hears something enraging it stops; if it is faced with death it becomes sad; if it sees something beautiful it is dazzled. But the Heavenly Heart in the head, when would it have been in the least moved? Dost thou ask: Can the Heavenly Heart not be moved? Then I answer: How could the true thought in the square inch be moved? If it really moves, it is not well. For when ordinary men die, then it moves, but that is not good. It is best indeed if the Light has. already forti ied itself in a spirit-body and its life-force gradually penetrated the instincts and movements. But that is a secret which has not been revealed for thousands of years.

(35) Thus also is the heart or light of God always generated in the body of this world, and that generated heart is one heart with the eternal, unbeginning, infinite heart of God, which is in and above all heavens.

(5) For this Heart of mine is the Heart of the god of mighty names, of the great god whose words are in his members, and who giveth free course to his Heart which is within him

(13) This [Image] is not the Heart of God, but it reaches into the Heart of God, and it receives Virtue, Light and Joy from the Heart and Light of God. For it is in the eternal Will of the Father, out of which he [the Father] continually generates his Heart and Word from Eternity; and ehis Essences, which, in the Element of his Body, viz. [in the Element] of Ignorance in the eternal Wonders of God now breathed into him, they (in respect of the high triumphing Light, out of the Heart and Light of God) were Paradise; his Meat and Drink was Paradise, out of the Element, in his Will; whereby then he drew the Virtue of the eternal Wonders of God into him, and generated the Noise [Voice] Sound, or the eternal Hymn of the eternal Wonders of God, out of himself before the Will; and all this stood before the chaste, high, noble, and blessed Virgin, the divine Wisdom, in a pleasant Sport, and was the right Paradise.

(37) And the Will of the Heart of God in the Father, is from the Heart entered into the Will of the Wisdom, before the Father, into an eternal Contract; and the same Virgin in the Wisdom of God, in the Word of God, has in the Bosom of the Virgin Mary given itself into her virgin Matrix, and united itself, as a Propriety, not to depart in Eternity; [you must] understand, into the Essences, and into the Tincture of the Element, which is pure and undefiled before God. In that, the Heart of God is become an angelical Man, as Adam was in the Creation; and the going forth out of the Heart of God, with the whole Fulness of the Deity (out of which also the holy Spirit of God, and out of the Spirit the Virgin, goes forth) makest his high angelical Image greater than Adam, or ever any Angel was; for it is the Blessing, and the Might of all Things, which are in the Father eternally.

(1) O ye gods who seize upon Hearts, and who pluck out the Whole Heart; and whose hands fashion anew the Heart of a person according to what he hath done; lo now, let that be forgiven to him by you

(6) everyday feelings, such as anger, pain, pleasure, or love. They are thought-concepts, and cannot be recognised by the senses; whereas quality, quantity, etc., are sense-concepts. Just as the ear cannot take cognizance of colour, nor the eye of sound, so, in conceiving of the ultimate realities, God and the soul, we find ourselves in a region in which sense-concepts can bear no part. So much, however, we can see, that, as God is Ruler of the universe, and, being Himself beyond space and time, quantity and quality, governs things that are so conditioned, so that soul rules the body and its members, being itself invisible, indivisible, and not located in any special part. For how can the indivisible be located in that which is divisible? From all this we see how true is the saying of the Prophet, "God created man in His own likeness."

(9) Think, and I will give." For we have heard that God knows the heart, not judging the soul from [external] movement, as we men; nor yet from the event, For it is ridiculous to think so. Nor was it as the architect praises the work when accomplished that God, on making the light and then seeing it, called it good.

(75) For the Creator has extracted the heart out of the Salitter and Mercurius of the divine powers; ["Understand he has composed it by the Fiat, viz. the centre of nature."]

(18) Therefore I say now, if thy heart does not qualify, mix or cooperate with God in thy knowledge, out of a true purpose of love, then thou art a dissembler, liar and murderer in the sight of God. For God does not hear any man's prayer, unless his heart be fully directed and bent in obedience to God.

(25) And though those imagings were transitory, seeing they were not pure before God, yet God would, at the end of this time, extract and draw forth the heart and the kernel out of the new birth or geniture, and separate it from death and wrath; and the new birth should eternally spring up in God, without, distinct from this place, and bear heavenly fruits again.

(56) This signifieth that the heart of God had a loathing against the corruption, and so thrust away the corrupted being from himself, but laid hold on it again in the midst or centre at the heart.

(17) God intended that the Body which he should get from the Infection of the four Elements, must die; and it did also presently (in his tender 1 virgin Mind) die to the Paradise, and got the Mind of this World, wherein sticks nothing but patching and piecing, as also Frailty, and at last Death.

(90) In thy heart, in thy veins, and in thy brain, thou hast thy spirit; and all the powers which move in thy heart, in thy veins, and in thy brain, wherein thy life consisteth, signify God the Father.

(5) So we come to the scope of the purification: that understood, the nature of Likeness becomes clear. Likeness to what Principle? Identity with what God?

The question is substantially this: how far does purification dispel the two orders of passion- anger, desire and the like, with grief and its kin- and in what degree the disengagement from the body is possible.

Disengagement means simply that the soul withdraws to its own place.

It will hold itself above all passions and affections. Necessary pleasures and all the activity of the senses it will employ only for medicament and assuagement lest its work be impeded. Pain it may combat, but, failing the cure, it will bear meekly and ease it by refusing assent to it. All passionate action it will check: the suppression will be complete if that be possible, but at worst the Soul will never itself take fire but will keep the involuntary and uncontrolled outside its precincts and rare and weak at that. The Soul has nothing to dread, though no doubt the involuntary has some power here too: fear therefore must cease, except so far as it is purely monitory. What desire there may be can never be for the vile; even the food and drink necessary for restoration will lie outside of the Soul's attention, and not less the sexual appetite: or if such desire there must be, it will turn upon the actual needs of the nature and be entirely under control; or if any uncontrolled motion takes place, it will reach no further than the imagination, be no more than a fleeting fancy.

The Soul itself will be inviolately free and will be working to set the irrational part of the nature above all attack, or if that may not be, then at least to preserve it from violent assault, so that any wound it takes may be slight and be healed at once by virtue of the Soul's presence, just as a man living next door to a Sage would profit by the neighbourhood, either in becoming wise and good himself or, for sheer shame, never venturing any act which the nobler mind would disapprove.

There will be no battling in the Soul: the mere intervention of Reason is enough: the lower nature will stand in such awe of Reason that for any slightest movement it has made it will grieve, and censure its own weakness, in not having kept low and still in the presence of its lord.

(20) So also the whole, full and perfect knowledge of God does not stand in the angelical body, but in the spirit, which is generated in the heart, which goeth forth from the light, which qualifieth or operateth also with the heart and. spirit of God, wherein the whole, full and perfect knowledge of God stands. But the body cannot apprehend that animated or soulish spirit; as also the seventh nature-spirit comprehendeth not the deepest birth or geniture of God.