Mercury; the Father's love and anger must become one thing, and then this one thing is called the kingdom of joy; so long as it is separated, there is in the thing only anguish and torment, and mere desire; but when it burns in one will, it is a joyful proceeding forth from itself: And this egressive property is called the Holy Ghost, viz. the life of the Deity.
44. Therefore know that the virgin's and young man's blood must be both shed together, that the fire-lion might die; which was manifest in the human property, that the love of the virgin might change his wrath in her dear love-blood into her property, and obtain the soul from the young man; for in Adam the virgin disappeared, for the soul departed out of its love-will out of the resignation into its own, and became disobedient to God.
45. Here the virgin does again take the soul into herself, and gives it her crown of pearl, as to a noble champion, and calls him in his own name the white lion or champion. O ye children of men, observe it, I beseech you; open the gates of the world in your heart; Open them wide that the King of Glory may come in, even the great champion in battle, who hath deprived death of its might, and destroyed the hell in God's anger, and made of the world paradise.
46. O ye wise seekers, how does the Lord open his windows! Why do you sleep in the desire of much increase [in your covetousness], which is multiplied in the wrath? Do but enter only into the divine resignation; you may partake of that which the powers of heaven are able to afford: If you do but forsake your selfishness, then the earth shall become heaven to you, says the spirit of wonders; but you shall not obtain it in your wicked ways and covetous doings.
47. And when Jesus through the shedding of his blood had given the wrath of God in man to the love, that the Father had received the love in the human property into the wrath; then the kingdom of the devil in the wrath, and the kingdom of love did immediately part asunder; they were divided: And this figure did hang with Christ on the cross, viz. the wicked mocker at the left hand, who reviled Jesus, and was not capable of his blood-shedding; and the other at the right hand, who was converted from his sins to Jesus, and said, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom;" to whom Jesus answered, "Verily, to-day thou shalt be with me in paradise."
48. Thus we are rightly to consider, that when the wrath of God is drowned in the blood of Christ, so that it changes its might into love, that even then paradise is again open; for when Jesus had tinctured the human blood which was corrupted in sin with the virgin's blood in the love, then the virgin received the manhood, viz. the self-hood, into her virgin's love. This was the paradise, and an habitation of God, with and in man, where God dwells in the humanity, and is all in all in it.
49. Thus it falls out also in the philosophic work, when Mars and Mercury die according to the property of the dark impression of Saturn, then Venus takes them into her love-blood, and Venus gives her love into the poisonful fire-desire: She wholly gives herself in unto the fire of Mars in Mercury, and she yields herself fully to be their own; but seeing Mars and Mercury become impotent (as to the might of the fire and poison) in the love, the love and anger thereupon change themselves into one essence, into one desire; and here, when the fire, viz. the fire-desire, gives in its desire to the love; then saith the love, "To-day thou shalt be with me out of thy fire-anguish in paradise," viz. in joy, that is, thou shalt be changed in me: And here Venus gets the soul in the philosophic work, so that Mars and Mercury become her soul, and the strife ceases; for the enmity is appeased and quelled: And thus the child subsists in the fire immoveably without any change; for Mars does not at all annoy it, and so likewise Mercury and Saturn hurt it not, for they are in the child at the end of nature, where there is no turba any more.
50. Mercury is pure in Saturn, he has no more poison, whereby to make soil [or rust] in the water, viz. in the salt of Saturn: And let the philosopher and divine also well observe this, that in paradise there is a perfect life without any shadow of change, also without any false evil desire, and a continual day, where the paradisical man is clear as a transparent glass, in whom the divine sun shines through and through, as gold that is thoroughly bright and pure, without any spot or foulness.
51. "And when Jesus knew that all was finished, he seeth his mother and John his disciple standing by under the cross, and saith unto his mother, Woman, to! this is thy son; and to the disciple, Behold thy mother, and forthwith the disciple took her unto his own home."
52. This is an excellent type, how Christ has forsaken this world, viz. the human self-hood, and is again gone to the Father; for he saw his mother according to this world, and his disciple, viz. his uncle, according to the outward humanity from his mother's side, and yet said to his mother, "Woman, behold, there is thy son," I am no more thy son according to my outward humanity; it is changed into God's Son, and is no longer of the world, but it lives to God; But seeing thou art to be yet in the world, take John, who is not yet changed, to be thy guardian; and thou John take thy mother; and he presently took her to himself.
53. This is the type of the Christian Church upon earth: For we the poor children of Eve are not presently wholly changed according to the outward man; but we must also pass into death, and putrify, that the wrath also in the flesh may rot and putrify, and the spirit might rest in the death of Christ till the general resurrection and transmutation of the outward man; in which the earth of man shall be transformed into heaven, and the mirror [or type] of the wonders shall appear therein.
54. Thus he commanded his disciple to take care of his mother: His mother is the Christian Church upon earth, wherein the children of God are begotten according to the spirit, whom he should take care for, and guide and lead them, till the number of the humanity out of the flesh shall be accomplished, and then the spiritual body shall arise, and shall be proved in Christ's death, in his entrance into the anger, where he changed the anger into love; and the kingdom with the source of darkness shall be separated from it.
55. But in this life-time, though the spirit be changed in the divine power, and the spirit be baptized with the virgin's baptism, and puts on the image of Christ internally, viz. Venus's body in the love; yet Adam is not capable of it till he also enters into the transmutation of Christ, which comes to pass in death [or in the dying to this mortal life].
56. But in the meanwhile, John, as the teacher of Christ in Christ's stead, must provide for the outward mother according to the outward man, and feed and teach the lambs of Christ with Christ's spirit: And it exactly shews us how the outward man is not God's mother; for Christ separates himself from his outward mother, and gives her to John; he has put on the eternal mother, viz. the Father of the eternal birth, and therefore they do very ill that honour and worship the outward mother of Christ for God's mother.
57. The whole true Christendom is Christ's mother, which bears Christ in her: And John, viz. the servants of Christ are her nurses, which take care for the mother of Christ as John did; he presently received the mother of Christ and provided for her, as her son, and not as her lord; for Christ said to him, "Behold, she is thy mother: "So should all the disciples and teachers of Christ do, and take care of the poor Christendom, as sons, with great humility towards the mother, provide for, and cherish her with diligence and circumspection, and serve her with all discreet modesty, courtesy, and humility; feed and comfort her with the spirit of Christ, not as the priests in Babel do, who ride over her as wealthy, rich, domineering masters, and will be lords over the mother, and only seek honours, and to fatten their bellies in pleasure, and live in strife and contention: These, one with the other, of what name or title soever they be, are not all Johannites, but they are the poisonful mercurial Pharisees, in whom there is nothing but mere anguish, vexation, pain, and torment, where one property does continually torment, envy, and hate the other, and hold it out for false; and yet they are all only out of one root, and have all only one will, except that one colour does not glister as the other.
58. For Saturn is not as Jupiter; Jupiter is not as Mars; Mars, viz. the fire-spirit, is not as the light of the sun; and the sun is not as Venus with her meek water-source; and Venus is not as Mercury with his sound; for she is meek and still, and Mercury sounds and sets up his note; and Mercury also is not as Luna, which as a simple body does give body to all the rest for manifestation; one is far otherwise than another, and has not one property and will; and yet they are in the centre of the essence, viz. in Luna and Saturn, in the property f the soul and body, all of them one and the same lump. Thus the partial sectarian Mercurialites, and Baal's servants, are divided in these properties; they are the Pharisees which judge and condemn Jesus in his members.
59. They wrangle and contend only about the church, and yet none will take care of the poor forsaken mother of Christ: They are mad in their martial and mercurial contest, and are not Johannites, they enter not in Christ's spirit at the door of Christ into the sheepfold; they are wolves, lions, and bears, yea foxes and fearful hares, who fly from and forsake the mother; their rise and original is out of Babel, where they continually contend, wrangle, grin, and bite one another for the letter. Every one will be lord and master over the letter, and transpose and place it as he pleases, only for the honour, applause, and pleasure of this world: They consider not that the mother is a widow, and that Christ has left and ordained them that they should be such curates for her as John.
60. O thou dear mother of Christendom, let these wolves, bears, and lions go, and shelter themselves where they please, regard no longer these evil beasts; take the John, the disciple of Christ, who teaches the love and humility.
61. O thou dear and worthy mother, art thou not only one? Why dost thou suffer the lions to rend and tear thee in pieces? Christ is thy husband, all these are strangers and hirelings, unless they walk in thy filial love, and humble themselves towards the mother, and provide for her as ministers, else they be all wolves, bears, and tearing lions; though there were many thousands of them, yet one is not at all better than another, unless he comes forth in the line of John, and takes care of Christ's mother, and provides for the mother with earnestness in Christ's spirit: Which if he has not, he is not then called of Christ to be a guardian or curate to the mother; but he is a Mercurialite, a Pharisee, such as Christ called the seed of serpents, and generation of vipers, who crucify Jesus in his members.
62. And thus the philosopher must consider of, and well observe Christ's mother, whom he recommended to John to take care of: He must likewise be a John, and know that his business is about the mother, and that his work in this world is not wholly heavenly: He will not so manifest paradise, that God will appear, and be manifest face to face in his work: No, he remains in the mother, yet he obtains the universal in the mother; for the mother of Christ obtained it also, for it was said to her, "Thou art the blessed among all women."
63. So likewise the philosopher reaches to the blessing in this valley of misery, that he is able to bless his corrupt body, that is, tincture it and free it from sickness, even to the limit of the highest constellation according to Saturn; and therefore let him take heed of covetousness, for so he introduces the turba.
64. By the type of John and the mother of Christ, he is to know, that the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world are two in his work, and that God's kingdom lies shut up in the mother, viz. in his work, of which he must take care; and be a minister thereunto, and not a lord of the mother, but an almsgiver, and not a gatherer of treasure and wealth, not a covetous muck-worm; also none shall attain to it, or understand our meaning, that will not be a guardian of the mother: The Most High has laid a bar before the foolish understanding, that it is blind, till it be weary with seeking; I speak in the ground of truth.
65. And when Jesus had commended his mother to John, he again turned his desire into the mother of the human property, and said, "I thirst;" he thirsted after the members of human property, and desired the salvation of mankind, viz. the health of his members, understand of his children, which should be begotten in him; and the Jews gave his humanity gall and vinegar to drink; and when he tasted it, he would not drink it.
66. Here is again the outward type, shewing how it went inwardly: The name Jesus, viz. the love of God which was entered into the humanity, and had espoused itself thereunto, did thirst in the love-desire after the corrupt humanity, and would fain taste the pure water of the humanity in itself; but the wrathful anger of God, which was enkindled in the human property, gave itself in with the human property to the thirst of the love-desire: And when the love-desire tasted of it, it would not drink it, but sunk down into it as wholly resigned, or freely yielded up, and did unite and very essentially incline itself into the anger of God as a full and perfect obedience, and as fully and freely given over as a peculiar propriety thereinto.
67. This was now the flagrat of the wrath, that the love should so come into it; whereupon the earth trembled, and the rocks clave asunder; for so the death was dismayed at the life: And here the awakened wrath's property did separate itself into the centre, viz. into the. first principle, into the fire-root; and now from the centre there proceeded forth the hunger to the new-birth in the human property; of the hunger unto death was made a hunger to life; for the love tinctured the anger, that the fire-desire to the dark impression became a desire of life.
68. Understand it here right; God the Father, who gave his dear heart into the humanity to help mankind, did now thirst after the humanity, viz. after his heart or word of power; and the Deity in the humanity, viz. the heart of the Father, did thirst after the Father; and the love or the essence of the light did thirst after the fire's essence: For the fire's, or soul's essence in Adam was departed out of the love-essentiality (wherein the paradise did consist) into a selfishness, and was become disobedient to God; and thereupon the essence, life, and being of the light and love died in its growing, that is, it withered as to the vegetative life, or heavenly growth, blooming, and sense of the paradisical source, and awaked and arose to the earthly world.
69. Here the Father brought the soul, which was entered into his wrath, and had manifested itself in his anger, again into the love, viz. into the disappeared paradisical image: And here the dark world was dismayed in death's flagrat at the fire-flagrat, which arose up in love in the death as a joyful flagrat; which joy-flagrat entered into the dead bodies of those who had hope in Israel (who did hope upon the Messiah) as a sound of the power of God, and awakened them from death.
70. This flagrat rent in twain the veil in the Temple, viz. the veil of Moses, which hung before the clear face of God, so that man could not see God, and therefore he must serve him with an offering, and type of this final discovery, in which God did manifest himself again in the humanity: This flagrat broke the type in the offerings and sacrifices, and manifested the clear face of God, and united the human time with eternity.
71. All whatever the Jews did outwardly to Christ, the same was a type of the inward, viz. how it went between God and the humanity, viz. between the eternity and time: The Jews gave Jesus gall and vinegar in his thirst, both these properties are a Mercury in the Sulphur of Saturn, viz. in the impression; this is even the type and full resemblance of the soul's property, as it is in itself alone void of the other love-properties.
72. God gave this property of the soul again into his love, the death into the life, the disappeared love-essence (which the word of God had assumed to itself in the essence and seed of Mary, and quickened to life) into the anger's property, into the soul's essence, viz. into the centre of the fire and dark world; whereupon the soul-like fire and dark world became an exceeding triumphant joyful paradisical life: And here the champion upbraided death and hell, viz. the dark world in the soul, and said, "Death! where is thy sting " now in man?" Hell! where is now thy victory" in the wrath of the poison-source in the expressed word or Mercury? All is now dead: O death, I am to thee a death; Hell! I am to thee a conqueror; thou must serve me for the kingdom of joy: Thou shalt be my servant and minister to the kingdom of joy; thou shalt enkindle the flames of love with thy wrath, and be a cause of the spring in paradise.
73. Thus we give the philosopher to understand our sense and deep ground in nature, who desires to seek and open the disappeared essence of the earth, which lies shut up in death, viz. in the curse of God: The veil of Moses hangs also before him, and a very right earnestness is requisite to rend the veil in twain, that he may be able to see the face of nature, otherwise he is not fitted for it.
74. And as it went in the humanity of Christ, betwixt God's love and anger, and both were transformed into one; so likewise it is in his work of nature, the poisonful Mercury in the Sulphur of Mars and Saturn gives its lunar menstruum, viz. the greatest poison of the dark source into Venus's property; when Venus thirsts after the fire of love, then Mercury gives his poison into the thirst of Venus, and Venus's thirst gives itself wholly to the poison, as if it died; it wholly yields up its desiring life, whereupon arises the great darkness in the philosophic work: For the materia becomes as black as a raven, for Venus has resigned its life, from whence the glance [or splendour] arises, as it is to be seen by Christ, that the sun lost its light, and there was a great darkness contrary to the common course of nature.
75. For when the inward sun gave in itself unto the anger, viz. into the darkness of God; then the outward sun, which receives its power and lustre from the inward, as a glass or resemblance of the inward, could not shine; for its root from whence it shines was entered into the darkness in the place of this world, and would turn the darkness in the curse of God into light, viz. it would make the place of this world again paradise.
76. Thus likewise the sun of the outward world, which is a figure of the inward all-essential sun, must stand still with its splendour in the darkness, from the sixth hour unto the ninth, which is even the time of Adam's sleep when he entered with the desire into the centre of the eternal nature, viz. into the birth, where the love and anger part themselves into two centres, and would prove the cold and hot fire, which took him, and did powerfully work in him. Here are three hours according to the ternary, and in the grave three days according to the time, viz. according to the humanity.
77. When Adam was in the image of God, and was neither man nor woman, but both; he stood forty days in paradise without wavering, and when he fell he stood even till the third day, viz. forty hours in the sleep, even till God did make or build the woman out of him. Thus Israel must be tempted forty days on Mount Sinai, whether they would live in the obedience of God under the wonders and mighty acts; and when it could not be, God gave them the law of his covenant as a mirror of that which was promised in the covenant; therefore the temptation of the body was upon them forty years, that the body must eat manna to try whether man could be remedied: And when the body [or outward person] could not stand, then Joshua brought them through the water with the covenant of the type, where Israel must serve with sacrifices in the covenant in the type of the final accomplishment, till the time of restitution came in: And then the valiant champion in battle stood forty days in the wilderness in the temptation, and stood out the first trial of Adam in paradise; and the three hours of darkness on the cross are the three hours of temptation of Christ, when the devil tempted him: And again the forty hours of Christ in the grave are the forty days of Adam in paradise, and the forty days of Moses upon the Mount; and the forty years in the wilderness, and the forty days after the resurrection before the ascension, are even one and the same: And now when the champion had stood out Adam's trial, the soul was tempted forty days in the human property, whether it would eat of God's word, and live in full resigned obedience in the will of God, and be a true image, likeness, and similitude of the divine power in the unsearchable eternity, according to the Trinity of the Deity.
78. In the like manner let the philosopher observe, that the essence of time does also stand in such a property, for man was created out of the essence of time into an image, as an extract of all essences, a complete image and likeness according to time and eternity, ruling and standing in the time and in the eternity as an instrument of the great infinite God, with whom, by and with his Spirit, he would make and do what he pleased.
79. Now man is the instrument of God, with [or by] whom he manifests his hiddenness both in his own human property, viz. in the essence and image of God; and then also through man, as with the instrument in the mother of all beings, as in the grand mystery, viz. in the soul of the great world.
80. Man has power so far as he goes, as an instrument of God in divine obedience, as his Spirit guides and leads him, that he can introduce the earth which stands in the curse of God into the benediction, and make of death's-anguish the highest triumphant joy in the outward pregnant mother; but he himself does it not, only his will labours with the understanding therein, and conjoins the compacta, which belong together, as life and death which stand opposite to one another: These he must join together, and bring them into one by such an art as time and eternity are united by and in the man Christ, and by him all those which give their will thereinto.
81. He will see in his work all whatever God did in the humanity; when he brought it again into the universal, viz. into paradise, he will see how the wrath devours and swallows up the fair Venus into his pricking thorny essence, and how Venus does fully yield in herself; and how the wrath also dies away in Venus, and becomes wholly dark and black as a coal; for death and life lie together both in death, viz. in the obedience of God: They both hold still to him, and suffer the Spirit of God to make of and with them what it pleases, who introduces them again into the eternal will of God to which he at first created them: And thus the essence stands again in the beginning in the order as God created it: It must only stand in its impression, in the verbum fiat, viz. in the divine making, till the day of God's separation, when God will change the time again into the eternity.
82. And when Jesus had drank the cup and tasted the vinegar mixed with gall in the outward [man], and inwardly in the love-property, viz. in the virgin, the wrathful anger of God; then said the whole man Christ, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" For God's speaking word stood still now in the human property, and the new-born essentiality which was dead in Adam, and was again quickened in Christ, cried with the same, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" For the anger of God was by the soul's property entered into the image of the divine essentiality, and had devoured the image of God.
83. Here now the image in the creature of the soul cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" For the human image which disappeared in Adam, and was again revived in Christ's incarnation, should bruise the head of God's anger in the fire-soul, and change its fire-might into Sol: And now the speaking word of God did here forsake it, and it fell into the soul's wrath, where it felt God's anger; for the speaking word did so bring it through the anger into death, and out of the death again into the solar life, understand into the eternal sun.
84. Like as the candle dies in the fire, and out of that death the light and power proceed, viz. the great painless life; so out of Christ's dying and death the eternal divine sun should and must arise in the human property; but the selfishness of the human property, viz. the soul's own self-will to live in the fire's might must here die and be drowned in the image of love, and the image of love must also resign and give itself in unto the wrath of death, that so all might fall down into death, and arise in God's will and mercy through death in the paradisial source in the resignation, that God's Spirit might be all in all. Hell's eye must see through the love, as the light shines out of the fire, and the fire from the darkness, and the darkness takes its original from the eternal desire.
85. And as Adam changed the likeness of God into the dark death's form, so God did again change the likeness through his fire-wrath out of death into the light; he drew forth the likeness again out of death, as a blossom grows from the harsh earth.
86. Thus it goes likewise in the philosophic work; Venus is forsaken when she receives the three wrathful properties into herself in wrath; their wrath, viz. the death devours her life, whereupon she loses the colour, and yet becomes a death to the three forms in the wrath, for she drowns death with love. Thus the life is made a death to death, viz. to the wrath, and now they both lie in the will of the eternal nature, viz. in the verbum fiat, which proceeds with them the divine way, in manner as it proceeded forth into essence in the beginning of the creation: For in the beginning paradise, viz. the universal was manifest, and the love shined through the death or anger. Even so it must be again, Venus must become the eye or sight in the wrath, and then of Saturn, Mars, and Mercury there will be a Jupiter: Mars becomes sun, and Saturn moon, and so Mars shines with the sun out of Saturn in Luna from Venus's eye, and all seven are only one: Thus the strife has an end, and all is accomplished till the resurrection of the body.
87. And when Jesus had drank the cup, and said, "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" then he said, "All is finished," understand the work of man's redemption; and he said further, "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit, and bowed his head, and gave up the ghost." Here the whole life of Christ resigned itself into the Father's desire, viz. into the will of the eternal nature, and fully gave in the will of his self-hood, viz. his creaturely will again into the centre, viz. into the first mother, from whence the soul-like creature was produced, that is, into the grand mystery of eternity: The self-will must again enter into nature's end, so that the selfishness may wholly die, that God's eternal will and spirit may be and do only all in all in the humanity, and that the creature might afterwards be alone his instrument, wherein he might do and work according to his good pleasure: And thus God the Father has in Christ's death and entrance into our humanity again received our self-hood into his will; and that this might be, he first tinctured the humanity with the Deity, that the humanity might be a pleasant sweet savour and offering to him in his power, for before death lay before it.