A description of the three principles of the divine essence viz., of the un-originall eternall birth of the Holy Trinity of God ... : of man, of what he was created and to what end, and how he fell from his first glory into the angry wrathfulnesse ... : what the anger of God, sinne, death the Devill, and hell are ... / written in the German language, anno 1619, by Jacob Beme.

The Holy Gate.

25 REason (which is gone forth with Adam out of Paradise) as∣keth, Where is Paradise to be had [or found]? Is it farre off, or neere? Or, when the soules goe into Paradise, whither do they goe? Is it in this world, or without the place of this world a∣bove the starres? Where is it that God dwelleth with the Angels? And where is that desirable Native Countrey where there is no death? Being there is no Sunne nor Starres in it, therefore it cannot be in this world, or else it would have been found long agoe.

26 Beloved Reason: One cannot lend the Key to another to [un∣lock] this [withall]: and if any have a key, he cannot open it to another; As Antichrist boasteth that he hath the keys of Heaven and Hell; It is true, he may have the keys of both in this [life] time; but he cannot open with them for any body else: every one must un∣lock it with his own key, or else he cannot enter therein; for the Ho∣ly Ghost is the key; when he hath that key, then he may goe both in and out.

27 There is nothing that is neerer you, than Heaven, Paradise, and Hell, unto which of them you are inclined, and to which of them you tend [or walke], to that in this [life] time you are most neere: you are between both: and there is a birth between each of them, you stand in this world between both the Gates, and you have both the births in you; God beckneth to you in the one Gate, and calleth you; and the Devill beckneth you in the other Gate, and calleth you; with whom you goe, with him you enter in. The Devill hath in his hand, power, honour, pleasure, and [worldly] joy, and the roote of these is death and hell fire On the contrary, God hath in his hand, crosses, persecution, misery, poverty, ignominy, and sorrow: and the roote of these is a fire also, and in the fire [there is] a light, and in the light the vertue, and in the vertue [or power] the Paradise, and in

the Paradise [are] the Angels, and among the Angels, joy. The e grosse eyes cannot behold it, because they are from the third Prin∣ciple, and see onely by the splendour of the Sunne; but when the Holy Ghost cometh into the soule, then he regenerateth it anew in God, and then it becometh a Paradisicall childe, and getteth the key of Paradise, and that soule seeth into the midst thereof.

28. But the grosse body cannot see into it, because it belongeth not to [Paradise]: it belongeth to the Earth, and must putrifie, or rot; and rise in a new vertue [or power] (which is like Paradise) in Christ; at the end of dayes: and then it also may dwell in Paradise, and not before: it must lay off the third Principle: [viz.] this skin [fleece or covering] which father Adam and mother Eve are gotten into, in which they supposed they should be wise when they should weare, all the three Principles manifested on them, if they had ra∣ther worne two hidden in them, and had stayed in the f one, it had been good for us, of which further about the Fall.

29. Thus now in the essence of all essences, there are three seve∣rall distinct properties, which yet are not parted asunder, with one source [or property] far from the other: but they are in one ano∣ther as one onely essence, and yet the one doth not comprehend the other; as these three Elements, fire, aire, water, are all three in one another, and neither of them comprehendeth the other: and as one Element generateth another, and yet is not of the essence nor source [or property] thereof: so the three Principles are in one another, and one generateth the other: and yet none of them all compre∣hendeth the other, and none of them is the essence [or substance] of the other.

Notes

• e

  Or, dimme fleshly eyes.
• f

  In the Prin∣ciple of light.