Mysterium Magnum

in this book: as a memorial to ourselves, and for the exercise of divine knowledge for the reader.

11. And I. We will signify and declare the center and ground of all essences.

II. What the divine manifestation (through the speaking of the Word of God) is.

III. How evil and good have their origin from only one ground: namely original: viz., light and darkness, life and death, joy and sorrow. We will explain how this works in its ground, and how every essence and source original: Source (Böhme uses this to describe the active, driving quality or fountain of a thing's being) is profitable and unavoidable Text: unavoidable..

IV. How all things have their ground in the Great Mystery original: Grand Mystery (Mysterium Magnum), namely, from the breathing out original: spiration of the Eternal One.

V. How the Eternal One introduces itself into sensation, perception, and division original: Severation, leading to the knowledge original: Science of itself and the play of divine power.

VI. How man may attain the true knowledge of God and the knowledge of eternal and temporal nature.

VII. Also, how man may come to the real contemplation of the Being of all beings.

VIII. Also, the creation of the world and of all creatures.

IX. And then the origin, fall, and restoration of man. We discuss what he is according to the first Adamic man in the kingdom of nature, what he is in the new regeneration in the kingdom of grace, and how the new birth happens.

X. Also, what the Old and New Testaments are, understood in their respective contexts.

12. We will expand this exposition through all the chapters of the first book of Moses Genesis. We will show how the Old Testament is a symbolic figure of the New. We will explain what is to be understood by the deeds of the holy patriarchs and why the Spirit of God had them recorded by Moses. We will show what the figures of these written histories look toward and aim at. We will also show how the Spirit of God in his children before the time of Christ alluded to the kingdom of Christ through these figures. By this, God has always represented this mercy-seat (or throne of grace), Christ, through whom he would erase his anger and manifest his grace.

13. We explain how the entire duration of this world is portrayed and modeled, like the mechanisms of a clock original: Watch-work. We show how it would proceed through time. We describe what the inward spiritual world and the outward material world are. We also explain the nature of the inward spiritual man and the external man made of the essence of this world. We show how time and eternity exist within one another and how a person may understand all of this.

14. It may happen that when these writings are read, the reader might not immediately grasp and understand them. This foundational ground has a firm basis and a clear agreement original: pregnant Concordance with both Scripture and the light of nature. However, it has been very dark for a long time and is now given by divine grace to plain simplicity. Therefore, let the reader not despise or reject these writings according to the habits and customs of the wicked world. Instead, let him look upon the practical ground that is suggested here.

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