PREFACE.

...qualities, which at death enter into the four elements. This threefold life with its properties is not divided, nor does it make three people, just as there are not three Gods, but it makes together one single being, just as the fire, the light, and the air together make one single candle.

4. Let the Reader be warned, alongside the reading of this book, to put the little book of Repentance and of True Resignation into practice, in order not only to read and understand them, but to follow the Author in his process, which is clearly evident in them. Yet, it shall happen to the earnest soul in reading these writings just like one who wants to make a piece of coarse, rusty iron bright. In the beginning, there is little hope, but in perseverance lies the victory. The earnest will and the eager desire are capable of much to come to grace and to high knowledge, just as such was without doubt the only high School and study of the Fathers, of the Prophets, and of the Apostles of Christ.

5. For the Fathers, from Adam until the times of the Rabbis Jewish teachers and scholars, they had their study in the eternal Heavenly light, and through the same they saw with their own eyes and walked on their own feet. Also, through the great book of Heaven and Earth, they made the true God, His Being and His Will, known to Men. Such an Academy was also the Pentecostal school of the Apostles. But their descendants, feeling the weakness and the corruption of man, and fearing that this Light would entirely and completely darken, put everything into writing and onto paper, so that the coming ages might keep a memory and a rule of the study of the Fathers, and that the same study would not be entirely extinguished. But, alas! The wisdom of reason has established high Schools and Academies in ickheydt I-ness or ego-centeredness and selfsheydt self-ness or selfishness, and has made books out of books. It has become entirely drunk and blind in itself, in histories, in the letter, and in art, so that one has had to see with another's eyes, as if through glasses, and walk on another man's feet, as if on crutches and stilts. Thus, the study of reason has been given to us as a sign of our misery, just like Adam’s clothing.

PREFACE.

6. It is true, we are very clever and learned in the school of literal reason and art, but in the School and Academy of the Fathers, we are entirely blind and without understanding. According to the words of our Author in the Misterium magnum original Latin: "Great Mystery", Babel says: "The Spirit of Christ does not work as powerfully in our words now as He did in the words of the Apostles." Babel says: "We presently have the knowledge of the kingdom of Christ; it is not necessary now to use such powerful words in the teaching office. We only need to believe the legacy of the words of Christ’s Apostles, that is enough. Otherwise, if we wanted to teach so powerfully, we would also have to live as poorly and leave the world as the Apostles of Christ did; such is currently unnecessary." The kingdom of Christ must, in these times, show itself with a great appearance in splendor, authority, and glory. Oh! How the poor Christ, who had nothing on earth whereon he laid his head, will scold you to your face, that you have taken His covenant in your false mouths. At no time has earnestness and zeal been more necessary than now in these times, where all good ways are overturned and are in great confusion, etc.

7. What do you think, God-loving soul, does our Author speak the truth or not? But do you know what the reason of this world says? It says this description is for fools. It says the writer is drunk from the new wine of pride. It says these are the writings of a mad Kase-bol literally "cheese-head," a 17th-century term for a blockhead or simpleton, a heretic, a heretic, he has the devil in him, to the fire with these. Oh! We do not even consider how we, in our "I-ness" and "self-ness" before God, have become fools. We do not see how we are drunk in pride, mad "cheese-heads" in disputes and arguments, and how we have become heretics and apostate Anthe-Christen Anti-Christs in all our doings. We do not see how we are in the power of the devil, in the fire of the wrath of God, which wants to entirely consume and devour us.

8. Truly, our Author says quite rightly that it is most highly necessary that we learn to know ourselves, because the devil lives with us in this world. He is the enemy of God and man, who daily misleads and deceives us to make us fall away from God our Father, just as he has done from the beginning, thereby making his kingdom large and taking away our eternal...