Of the Threefold Life

particular matter in the world, just as is to be seen in the earth: and the Salt-spirit is primarily the greatness in the corporal beings, (for it holds the corpus body so that it does not decay) so they have rightly set this Gate (as the mother of nature) alone: for out of this form in the creation, the earth, stones, water, and all kinds of metal have become, yet no less with the mixing-in of the other forms; just as you shall see hereafter: My beloved Reader, understand us thus, according to our sense and grasp.

44. The four forms are the wrath and the severity of God in eternal nature.

44. The four forms in themselves are the wrath and the severity of God in eternal nature: and they are in themselves nothing else than only such a quael source-quality or torment which stands in the darkness, and is not material, but the origin of the Spirit, otherwise it would be nothing.

45. Why many a creature is so poisonously evil.

45. For the four forms are a cause of all things, just as you can consider, how all kinds of life have poison, the poison itself is the life: therefore many a creature is so poisonously evil, because it is from a poisonous origin. And you must know (even though these are the head-causes of nature) that nature still consists in very many more other forms: for the wheel of the essences makes such, which makes innumerable essences: where every essence is again the center: so that a whole birth of an entirely different shape may appear.

46. The power of God is unsearchable / an admonition from the Author.

46. Therefore the power of God is unsearchable: our description is not to the end that we want to fathom the Godhead in eternal nature to the bottom: no, that cannot be: but we want to show the blind the way which he himself must walk: we cannot walk with his feet, but want (as a Christian) to lead him gladly, and to communicate to him what we have: not to our own glory, but to help plant the great body with its members in Christ: of which we want to relate to you hereafter; to that end these very high things are related, so that we may show you the right aim in the origin: so that you may see yourself, and may learn to understand the course of the world, how everything is so blind to God, and what the cause and the end [of this blindness of the world] might be.

47. Further explanation of the working of the four forms.

47. We give you this to know, so that you will rightly consider: for these four forms are in all things: yet in this world (as in the third principle) in their quite serious essences [they are not] understood [or they do not have their absolute dominion there.] For the power of the Sun in the Elements tempers everything, so that the essences [or the outgoing essential powers of the four forms] do not stand in such a manner in the fierce quael source-quality or torment [or in the severe property], so that it is like a rejoicing

of Man.

rejoicing of a friendly life: just as the light from the second principle (which is the light from the word and the heart of God the Father) enlightens the four forms in the centro center of the Angelic spirits, so that they are in their own center friendly, lovely, and quite cheerful.

48. How the Devils have lost the light of God: and now stand in the four forms.

48. And you may well consider the fall of the Devils, who have lost the light of the heart of God, they must stand in the four forms of the origin (in such an anguished quael source-quality or torment [or property]), just as we have related above.

49. Of the soul its light / its fall / and how it must go into the light again.

49. Thus the soul of man is also breathed into man out of this eternal bond, and [was] enlightened by the light of God: but in the fall of Adam, it went out from the eternal light of the heart of God, into the light of this world: and it has now this to expect (unless it goes back into the light of God, and then the light of this world breaks off from it [in dying]) that it [then] must remain naked in the four forms (outside the light) in the first birth of life with the Devils.

50. The state of Hell / and the damned / in the four forms.

50. For the four forms (without the eternal light) are the Abyss, the wrath of God, Hell, and the terrible fire-flash in the wheel of breaking or shattering, in the rising of Mercury [or in the properly rising sound.] Their light is in the Sulphur-spirit, which they must awaken in themselves: otherwise their spirit stands in eternal darkness, and its living form of the abyss is a regiment of the serious quael source-quality or torment, which thus climbs up in the fire-flash [up] over God and the Kingdom of Heaven, and yet not being able to reach, see, nor feel the same: for it is a principle which neither this, nor the Angelic world understands: and yet is not divided [or separated] in place and site.

51. Similitude / how hell is not divided in place or site.

51. For we give you this same thing to consider: just as we humans with our eyes of this world cannot see God and the Angels: who yet are every moment before us (yes even the Godhead in us) and we yet are not able to grasp them, unless it be then that we set our imagination and serious will in God, then God appears to us in the will, and fills the mind: where we then feel God, and see him with our eyes [of the mind].

52. How the mind and the poor soul see the Devil and the wrath of God: and how many are in despair.

52. Thus also likewise, if it be that we set our imagination and will in evil, then we receive the quael source-quality or torment of Hell in the wrath: and the Devil catches us (in the wrath of God) even into the heart, and we do not see him with these eyes, only the mind and poor soul in the eternal quael source-quality or torment of the origin, they understand the same and tremble from the severity: so that also many a soul desponds, and thrusts itself into the quael source-quality or torment,