The Life of the Ephemeron

... [temporary] was not good, which is impossible to proceed from an eternal Goodness Goetheydt: the divine quality of being perfectly good and kind.

For, she says Referring again to the mystic Antoinette Bourignon mentioned on the previous page., our soul is always in a prison house, as long as it sighs and moans in this body of death A reference to Romans 7:24: "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?": God would fall short of His Justice Rechtveerdigheydt: righteousness and fair judgment if He did not give her In 17th-century Dutch, the soul (ziel) is grammatically feminine. another life after this sorrowful valley of tears traanen-dal: a traditional Christian metaphor for the hardships of earthly life, to delight herself with Him eternally. For if the Lord did not grant our soul this favor, and if He did not change this wretched rampsaaligh: calamitous or miserable life into a more perfect one, then the end and purpose of the creation of the soul would be a miserable life; which would completely conflict with the Truth of God Waarheydt Godts: the ultimate reality and promises of the Creator. Which explicitly testifies that no miseries, evils, nor death can come from that highest Perfection Volmaacktheydt: the state of being complete and without flaw. Wherefore He shall suffer evil only for a time, so that after having purified our corrupt nature through a light affliction that soon passes, He may grant us an exceeding Glory Heerlyckheydt: the splendor and majesty of heaven, which the eye has not seen, the ear has not heard, nor the thoughts understood, and where every day shall last a thousand years, and a thousand years shall be but a day. Swammerdam is weaving together several biblical passages here: 2 Corinthians 4:17, 1 Corinthians 2:9, and 2 Peter 3:8. For, says the Apostle Referring to the Apostle Paul., We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are tem-