Chapter 3 (part 9)

"The eternal will, the Father, conducts His heart, His eternal Son, by means of the fire into great triumph, into His kingdom of joy." ( Grace , ii. 21.) "When the Father speaks His Word—that is to say, when He generates His Son—which is done continually and eternally, that Word first of all takes its origin in the first or acrid quality, where it becomes conceived. In the second or the sweet quality it receives its activity; in the third it moves; in the heat it arises and ignites the sweet flow of power and the fire. Now all the qualities are made to burn by the kindled fire, and the tire is fed by them; but this fire is only one and not many. This fire is the true Son of God Himself, who is continuing to be born from eternity to eternity." ( Aurora , viii. 81.) "The Father is the first of all conceivable beings, but if the second principle were not becoming manifest in the birth of the Son, He would not be revealed. Thus the Son, being the heart, light, love, and the beautiful and sweet beneficence of the Father, but being distinct from Him in His individual aspect, renders the Father reconciled, loving, and merciful. His birth takes place in the fire, but He obtains His personality and name by the ignition of the soft, white, and clear light, which He is Himself." ( Three Principles , iv. 58.) "The Son is perpetually born from eternity to eternity, and shines perpetually into the powers of the Father while these powers are continually generating the Son." ( Aurora , vii. 33.) p. 88 The Holy Spirit, manifesting Himself in the third principle, issues eternally from the Father and the Son, and in and with Him issues the splendour of God's majesty. "The Eternal Father becomes manifest in the fire, the Son in the light of the fire, and the Holy Spirit in the power of the life and the motion that issues front the fire and the light." ( Signature , xiv. 34.) "The Holy Spirit reveals the Godhead in nature. He extends the splendour of the majesty, so that it may be recognised in the wonders of nature. He is not that splendour itself, but its power, and He introduces the splendour of the majesty into the substantiality wherein the Godhead is revealed." ( Threefold Life , iv. 82; v. 39.) Thus the holy Trinity is everywhere, manifesting itself in and through the seven qualities of eternal nature. "We Christians say that God is threefold, but one in essence, and this is misunderstood by the ignorant as well as by the half learned, for God is not a person except in Christ. He is an eternally generating power and the kingdom with all beings." ( Myst. magn. , vii. 5.) "He is generating Himself in a threefold aspect, and in this eternal generation there is nevertheless to be understood only one essence and generation; neither Father, nor Son, nor Spirit but only the one eternal Life, or Good." ( Myst. magn. , vii. 11.) Footnotes 71:1 If it is asked how it is possible that Jacob Boehme knew anything about the invisible spiritual processes taking place in the universe, the answer is that the spirit of man is one and universal, and he who knows his own divine self knows the whole of the universe. Seen from the spiritual point of view, the universal cosmic processes in the body of universal nature are internal processes taking place within the organism of macrocosmic man, mirrored forth and eternally repeated in the microcosm of the individual. The history of the universe is the history of a man.