Het tweede boeck des auteurs, handelende van de drie principien

h Or separation.
i That is / the Region of the Stars.

movement / but everything [would be] a nothing / and the source of wrath is the first originality of nature.

14. Not that I here entirely understand the Mercury in the third Principle of this created world / which is used in the Apothecaries (even though it also has exactly this power / and is of the same being) but I speak (in the first Principle) of the originality of the Being of all Beings / of God / and of the eternal unoriginated nature / out of which the nature of this world is born; although in both (in the originality) there is no ^h separation / except only the outward and third Principle: the ⁱ Sidereal and Elemental kingdom is born out of the first Principle / through the Word and Spirit of God / out of the eternal Father / out of the Holy Heaven.

of the second Chapter.

1.
2. Without the Light of God / there is no knowledge of the Being of God: every creature sees no deeper than into its own womb.
3. The Soul sees in the first Principle of God / the entire depth of the Father.
4. The Devils also see into the first Principle: the second Principle is God.
5. The enlightened soul / also sees in the Light of God / into the second Principle: the Star-spirit / with which the soul is clothed / only sees the third Principle.
6. The Author's intention and advice / to bring us to the knowledge of the second Principle.
7. How the Author obtained his knowledge / for whom he describes it.
8. Wonderful explanation of the word Sulpher Sulfur.
9. The depth of the birth (or of the eternal working) of God.
10. How joy is born out of the harshness.
11. How the harshness loses its right / and becomes sweet.

11. Of the great joy which the bitter sting feels in its Mother the harshness: where the fifth form rises.
12. How the birth obtains the sixth form (the sound) / which is rightly called Mercurius Mercury.
13. How the six forms / being one / nevertheless each retain their property: they are within one another / a single being.

The second Chapter.

Of the first and second Principle, What God, and the Divine nature is: wherein is described the further explanation of the Sulphuri Sulfur and Mercurii Mercury.

A large decorative initial "N" marks the start of the chapter, embellished with scrolling foliage and floral patterns characteristic of 17th-century woodcuts.

1. Since a Divine Light belongs to this knowledge and since (without that same [light]) there is absolutely no comprehensibility of the Divine Being; so I will model the high mysteries a little (in a creaturely manner) / with which the reader may come into the depth: for the Divine being cannot be entirely spoken with the tongue / only Spiraculum vitæ the breath of life (that is the Spirit of the soul which sees in the light) understands it. For every creature neither sees nor understands further / nor deeper / than into its Mother / from which it has originally become.

a In the birth of the Stars.
b Understand the soul / which is from the first Principle.
c In such a manner.

2. The soul which has its origin out of the first Principle of God / and was breathed by God into man / in the third Principle (that is / in the ^a Sidereal and in the Elemental birth) [the soul] sees further into the first Principle of God / therefore / it is not wonderful / for it sees nothing other than itself in its rising of the birth; thus ^c it sees the entire depth of the Father in the first Principle.

d Or the Fountain.

3. Such the Devils also know and see / for they are also out of the first Principle of God; which is there ^d the source of the original nature of God: they also wish that they did not have to see or feel it: it is only their own fault / that the second Principle is closed to them / which may be called / and is / God / single in being / and Triple in personal distinction / as will be rightly explained hereafter.

e Understand the Holy Spirit.

4. But the soul of man which is enlightened with the Holy Spirit of God (which [Spirit] in the second Principle goes out from the Father and the Son in the Holy Heaven / that is in the true Divine nature / which is called God) that [soul] sees ^e and also understands in the Light of God / in that same second Principle of the Holy