Chapter 10 (part 10)

Thus the desire of God in the Word perceived the desire of man through the fire; for in the (divine) fire was consumed the animal vanity in the will of man, by means of the wrath, and then the purified human will, with the incorporated paradisiacal grace, entered as a sweet odour into the love-fire of God." ( Communion , i. 31.) "Although wood and animals have been used at the sacrifices, nevertheless the fire used thereby was not produced by external means, but originated from the highest p. 221 tincture of the paradisiacal foundation. This holy fire consumed the victims by means of the imagination and ignition of God, and thus the human will, that had been introduced therein, and which was still clinging to the earthly condition, was (and still is) purified in the fire and redeemed from sin. The grossness of the elements was to be consumed, and out of the consummation by fire was to issue the true, pure, beautiful, and spiritual image that had been created in Adam, and which, while it was contained within the fire of divine wrath, could now be made to appear in its clearness by means of this holy fire." ( Baptism , ii. 2, 16.) Within this holy fire, wherein was represented the light of the Christ and also the reconstitution of man to his true state of being, man was to enter with his mind, and thereby become reunited with God. "At the times of the Old Testament the at-one-ment by sacrifice took place by means of the holy fire, which was a symbol of the wrath of God that was to consume the sin together with the soul. The Father's quality in wrath was manifest in that fire, and the Son's quality in love and meekness introduced itself into the wrath. They sacrificed the flesh of animals, but they introduced their imagination and prayer to the grace of God." (Baptism, i. 2, 23.) "There was an animal quality, the animal soul, that originated from the planets, attached to the mind of man, in consequence of which their prayer and will was not pure before God, and therefore the wrath-fire of God consumed this animal vanity of men by means of the sacrifice; but the conceived image of grace went with the prayer into the holy fire. Thus the children of Israel were reconciled with God and relieved of their sins in a spiritual manner, and with respect to a future fulfilment, because Christ was to come and to take up the human state, and to enter into God as a sacrifice to His wrath-fire, p. 222 and thus to change the wrath into love." 1 ( Baptism , ii. 2 5.) "The victim, the wood, the smoke, were all terrestrial, and likewise was man earthly, as far as his external body is concerned; but after the sacrificial object was ignited (by the magic fire) it became of a spiritual nature, for from the wood issued the fire, which accepted and consumed the object. From this consummation resulted the smoke of the fire, and was followed by the light, and this light was the symbol wherein entered the imagination of man and that of God, which produced a conjunction of both." ( Mysterium , xxvii. 29, 30.) "God desired to smell (during the sacrifice) nothing except the will of man, that is to say, the human life, which before the time of this world was within the word of God—not yet as a created being, but as a power—and which was breathed into the created image. This it was that was "smelled" by God by means of the sacrifice, and within the essence of Christ or the grace, that had been spoken into man, and it readjusted the will by means of grace in the fire, so that the will became again divine.