Het tweede boeck des auteurs, handelende van de drie principien

Furthermore, we have the worst enemy within us, whom we [ourselves] cover up and do not desire to learn to know, who i Understand: our evil and corrupt nature and will, which is inclined toward all evil. is the most troublesome guest, who pushes us into the wrath of God. Indeed, he is the wrath of God himself, who pushes us into the eternal fire of wrath, into the eternally unquenchable pain. Thus, it is truly very highly necessary that we learn to know this same enemy: what he may be, who he may be, and where he may be; how he comes into us; and what his right and property in us may be; as well as the right and the access of the Devil in us, and how he is befriended by our own enemy (who dwells in us), how they are favorable and helpful to one another, how they are both enemies of God, and continually pursue us to destroy and murder [us].

10. Furthermore, it is very highly necessary for us to consider (in order to learn to know ourselves), for the sake of great Reason, that we see and know how we must die and perish for the sake of our own enemy (who is God's enemy and our enemy, who dwells in us, who is even half of the man). And if this same one becomes powerful in us, so that he gets the upper hand and becomes primas the primary master, then he pushes us into the abyss to all the Devils, to dwell with them eternally in eternally unquenchable k Understand: actual stinging or torment. evil and pain, indeed, in eternal darkness, in a desolate dwelling, and in the eternal forgetting of all good, in the conflicting will of God, where our God and all creatures are our eternal enemy.

11. We have even much more Reason to learn to know ourselves, how we are in the good and in the evil, since we have the promises of eternal life (provided we overcome our own enemy together with the devil) that we shall be children of God, and shall live eternally in God in his kingdom with him and in him (with his Holy Angels) in eternal joy, clarity, glory, in favor, well-doing, and gentleness (without any stirring of evil, also without any knowledge of the wicked). To that end, we have the promises (provided that we overcome our enemy and l Or suppress. bury him in the earth) that we shall rise again on the last day in a new body in which there shall be no m That is: no miserable active property or ailment. torment, and live with God (in perfect joy, gladness, and salvation).

12. Also, we have the knowledge and the science of how we have in us a rational soul, which is in the n Or is beloved and desired by God. love of God, which is immortal. And if it is not overcome by its opposition, but fights like a spiritual Knight against its enemy, then God will assist it with his Holy Spirit; he will enlighten it and make it powerful to overcome all its enemies; he will fight for it, and [it] (in

(in the victory over evil) he will glorify and crown it as a highly worthy Knight with the most beautiful crown of Heaven.

13. Now, since man knows that he is thus a twofold man, o Or as if enclosed and knotted in the power of good and evil, or expecting the recompense of one or the other. in the power of the good and in the evil, and that all of this is his property, and that he himself is that same single man who is good and evil, and that he has the reward of both. Wherever he inclines himself here in this life, there his soul (when he dies) also departs. And that he, in q Or in his work, understanding it like the body taking in and letting out breath, food, and drink, by which life is continually maintained. his labor (that which he makes here), shall rise in power (on the last day) and live eternally therein, and also be glorified therein. And that same shall be his eternal food and r Or evil inclination. torment. Thus, it is truly highly necessary for him that he learn to know himself: how it is settled with him, and from where the movement toward good and evil comes to him, and what the good and the evil in him actually is in itself, and from where it has its movement, what actually is the origin of all good and of all evil, from where or through what the evil has come into the devils and men, as well as into all creatures, since the devil was a Holy Angel and man was also created good, and that one also finds such discord in all creatures, that it t Understand: among one another. all bites, strikes, pushes, hurts, and is hostile to each other, and thus there is a conflicting will in all creatures. And that thus every v Or body. corpus body is at odds with itself; just as one can see that such is not only in living Creatures, but also in Stars, Elements, Earth, Stones, Metal, in Wood, Foliage, and Grass; in everything there is poison and wickedness. And it is found that it must be so, otherwise there would be no life nor movement, nor would there be color, virtues, thick or thin, nor any kind of experience, but everything would be a nothing.

14. In such high contemplation, one finds that all such things x Understand: from and through God's wrath and love. come from and through God himself, and that it is his own very being, which he himself is, and he has thus created it out of himself. And the evil belongs to the formation and to the mobility, and the good to the love, and the severity (or the resisting will) belongs to joy. As far as the creature is in the light of God, the wrathful (or the resisting) makes the ascending eternal joy; but as far as the light of God is extinguished, it makes the eternal ascending painful torment and the hellish fire.

15. [In order to understand] all this same as it is, I will describe the three Divine Principles, in which everything is then explained: what God is, what nature is, what the y Or creatures. Creatures are, what the love-