Jakob Böhme

“ For when God's Love in the Humanity entered into God's Anger, the angry Father bewailed our Sins and Misery, and Jacob with his Humility drove forth mournful Tears out of his brother Esau; that is, the Love in the Humanity brought forth the great compassion out of and through the angry Father; so that the angry Father in the midst of his enkindled Wrath in the Humanity did set open a Gate of Mercy for Adam and all his Children; for his Love broke the Anger, which [Love] put itself into Death, and made an open Gate for poor Sinners in the Death to his Grace. ”

“ Even so all Things are sprung forth out of the divine Desire, and created into an Essence, where in the Beginning there was no such Essence present, but only that same Mystery of the eternal Generation, in which there has been an eternal perfection. ”

“ Many who are in Christ's Line are also brought through Imagination and Lust, as Adam was, into Iniquity; they are indeed called, but they persevere not in the Election, for the Election is set upon him who departs from Sin; he is elected that dies to Sin in Christ's Death, and rises in Christ's Resurrection, who receives God in Christ, not only in the Mouth, but in divine Desire in the Will and new-Birth, as a new fiery Generation: Knowledge apprehends it not, only the earnest Desire and Breaking of the sinful Will, that apprehends it. ”

“ The first Mystery wherein the Creature consists is the all-essential Mystery, and the other in the forth-going Spirit is its Propriety, and a self-ful Will. Has not every Angel its own peculiar Spirit, which is generated out of its own Mystery, which has its Original out of Eternity? ”

“ Every Creature must remain in its Place wherein it was apprehended in its Creation and formed into an Image, and not depart out of that same Harmony, or else it becomes an Enemy of the Being of all Beings.
23. And thus Hell is even an Enemy of the Devil, for he is a strange guest therein, viz. a perjured Fiend cast out of Heaven: he will be Lord in that wherein he was not created; the whole Creation accuses him for a false perjured apostate Spirit, which is departed from his Order; yea even the Nature in the Wrath is his Enemy though he be of the same Property ”

“ Of all whatever this World is an earthly Type and Resemblance, that is in the divine Kingdom in great Perfection in the Spiritual Essence; not only Spirit, as a Will, or Thought, but Essence, corporeal Essence, Sap and Power ”

“ Now it is commanded the poor Sinner, whom the Anger has chosen to the Condemnation of eternal Death, that he enter into this same Death, and die in Christ's Death to Sin, and then Christ drowns it in his Blood, and chuses him again to be God's Child. ”

“ Therefore we are to know this, and it is no otherwise, that the Will-Spirit which takes its Original out of Love and Anger, out of both eternal Principles, has given itself into the Wrath, whereby the Wrath has Powerfully got the upper Hand and Dominion, and put itself out of the equal Harmony into a Dissonance or Discord, and so he must be driven into his Likeness ”

“ But who are the Righteous, for we are all become Sinners in Adam? Answer, They are those whom the Line of Christ in the Humanity apprehends in the Life's Rise [or at the first Point of Opening of Life in them] , not that they cannot fall as Adam, but that they are apprehended in Christ's Will-Spirit in the wrestling Wheel, where Love and Anger are counterpoised, and chosen to Life ”

“ Jacob must be filled with God's Blessing, that he might bless the First-Born of angry Adam and Esau; for the Blessing, that is, Christ must be born in our Flesh and Soul, that the Seed of the Woman might bruise the Head of the Serpent.
32. The Anger must be drowned and appeased in the Humanity; an Offering did not do it, but this resigning into the Wrath, that the Love might drown the Wrath. Jacob in Christ must drown Esau in the Love-Power in his Blood, that Esau might also become a Jacob in Christ: But Esau was not willing to receive his brother Jacob, and contended about the first Birth ”

“ This Reason most ignorantly gainsays, and says, God is omnipotent, and omniscient, he has made it: Even he hath done with his Work as he hath pleased, who will contend with the Most High? Yes, dear Reason, now thou thinkest thou hittest it right ”

“ Thus in the Eternity there is only one Spirit in the whole Work of the divine Manifestation, which is the Manifestator in the expressed Voice and also in the speaking Voice of God, which is the Life of the grand Mystery, and of all that is generated from thence ”

“ Hell, viz. the dark World has also its Generation of Fruits; and there is even such an Essence and Dominion in them as in Heaven, but in Nature and Manner of the wrathful Property; for the fiery Property makes all Evil in the Darkness, and in the Light it makes all Things good ”

“ And as the Joyful Melody is in itself in the Spirit of the eternal Generation, so likewise is the Instrument, viz. the expressed Form in itself, which the living eternal Voice guides, and strikes with his own eternal Will-Spirit, that it Sounds and melodises; as an Organ of divers and various Sounds or Notes is moved with one only Air, so that each Note, yea every Pipe has its peculiar Tune, and yet there is but one Manner of Air or Breath in all Notes, which Sounds in each Note or Pipe according as the Instrument or Organ is made. ”

“ Therefore all whatever is in this World is a Type and Figure of the Angelical World: not that the Evil, which is alike manifest with the Good in this World, is also manifest in Heaven; no, they are separated into two Principles; in Heaven all is Good which is Evil in Hell; whatever is Anguish and torment in Hell, that is Good and a Joy in Heaven ”

“ This Birth of the Astrum begets in the four Elements, viz. in its Body or Essence, Joy and Sorrow, and all is very good in itself; only the Alteration of the Creature proceeds from the lustful Imagination, whereby the Creature elevates the Wrath of the Fire in the Properties, and brings them forth out of the Likeness of their Accord: Nothing is evil which remains in the equal Accord ”

“ So likewise do the Stars in the Firmament, which are altogether one only Dominion in Power under them, where the great Stars bear the Name and the Office of the Forms in the Mystery of the seven Properties, and the other after them, as a particularity of Houses or Divisions, where every one is a peculiar Harmony or Operation, like a Kingdom, and yet all proceeds in one Harmony; like a Clock-Work, which is entirely composed in itself, and all the pieces Work mutually together in one ”

“ The Anger and Wrath of God are now his Joy, not as if he feared, sorrowed, and lived in Impotency; no, but in great Strength and fiery Might, as a potent King and Lord, yet only in the same Property of which he himself is, viz. ”

“ The like also we are to know concerning the Angelical World, viz. the second Principle, where God's Light and glorious Beauty shine in every Being [or Thing] , and the divine Voice or Sound rises up in all Creatures in great Joyfulness; where the Spirit proceeding from the divine Voice makes a Joyfulness, and an incessant continual Love-Desire in those Creatures, and in all the divine Angelical Beings: As there is an Anguish-Source and trembling in the painful Fire, so in like Manner there is a trembling Joyfulness in the Light and Love-Fire, viz. ”

“ With Glosses and Self-Wit none shall apprehend it in its own Ground; but it may well embrace the real Seeker, and create him much Profit and Joy, and even be helpful to him in all natural Things, provided he applies himself right, and seeks it in the Fear of God, seeing it is now a Time of Seeking ”