Preface.

Therefore, let everyone who takes these Theosophical Heart-Devotions into their hands consider them as an instruction that teaches us how to rightly practice the single duty of our true religion, and how to daily return into GOD as our origin through prayer. Ah! Indeed, a prayer of faith is nothing other than a constant presence of the mind, or as Paul says in Hebrews 11:1, a substanceoriginal Greek: "ὑπόστασις" (hypostasis). In this context, it refers to a firm confidence or the underlying spiritual reality that supports faith. of the pious children of God in GOD, by virtue of which the soul—with its desire for faith and love—is not only constantly directed toward GOD as its origin, but other glorious exercises of religious duties are also linked with it. For a soul that constantly stretches out toward GOD in its prayer must necessarily strive to rid itself of the bonds of the world and the flesh, so that it may introduce its desires of faith all the more powerfully into GOD. Next, linked with such a desire of love for GOD in the prayer of the spirit, is also the well-ordered love for ourselves, which consists in the true denial of self. For by means of self-denial, we attain what we seek in the love of God for our own peace—namely, communion with GOD, our true happiness, and the peace of our souls. And when we enter into self-denial, as if into a spiritual putrefactionoriginal Latin: "Putrefaction." In theosophical and alchemical thought, this refers to the necessary decay or "breaking down" of the old, selfish nature so that a new, spiritual life can be born., death, and the dying away of our own natural powers and desires of the will: we are then capable of receiving the balm of a quasi-heavenly and all-renewing salt from the working of the Holy Spirit. For this is actually the living seed of the spoken divine Word, from which the new manA biblical concept (Ephesians 4:24) referring to the regenerated spiritual nature of a person after their inner conversion. grows forth in inner holiness, purity, and innocence of heart, and also powerfully proves himself externally through a quiet, peaceful, righteous, honorable, loving, and virtuous conduct.