Three Principles of the Divine Essence Chap. 8-16 - meuser

forth) was thus loosed from the Terror of the Anxiety, and became
so very sweet, like sweet Water, then the Spirit of the great
World figured [or imprinted itself] instantly, in the Matrix, and
fills the four Elements also within it, and thinks with itself, now
I have the sweet Virgin; and the Fiat creates z it, and separates
the Elements, which also are in Strife: And each of them would
have the Virgin, and are in a Wrestling, till they overcome one
another, and that the Fire (being the mightiest and strongest)
stays above, and the Water sinks down; and the Earth, being a
hard gross Thing, must stay below: But the Fire will have a
a Region of its own.
17. For it says, I am the Spirit, and the Life, I will dwell in
the Virgin; and the [sour] harsh Fiat attracts all to it, and makes
it a Mesch, [Massa, b Concretion,] and moreover [it makes it]
Flesh; and the Fire keeps the uppermost Region, viz. the Heart:
For the four Elements separate themselves by their Strife, and
every one of them makes itself a several c Region; and the Fiat
makes all to be Flesh: Only the Air would have no Flesh; for it
said, I dwell in no House; and the Fiat said, I have created thee,
thou art mine, and closed it in with an Inclosure, that is, the Bladder.
18. Now the other Regions set themselves in Order; first the stern
Flash, that is, the Gall; and beneath the Flash, the Fire, whose Region
is the Heart; and beneath the Fire, the Water, whose Region is the Liver;
and beneath the Water, the Earth, whose Region is [in] the Lungs.
19. And so every Element qualifies [or acts] in its own Source
[or Manner of Operation,] and one could do nothing without
the other, neither could one have any Mobility without the other.
For one generates the other, and they go all four out of one
Original, and it is in its Birth but one only [Thing or] Substance
y About, or near the Heart.
z That which was brought in.
a Kingdom or Dominion.
b Or Substance.
c Or Dominion.
as I have mentioned before at large about the Creation,
concerning the d Birth of the four Elements.
20. The [sour, strong, or] bitter Gall, (viz. the terrible poisonous
Flash of Fire) kindles the Warmth in the Heart, or the Fire,
and is itself the Cause, from whence all else take their Original.
21. Here we find again, in our Consideration, the lamentable,
and horrible Fall in the Incarnation, because when the Light of
Life rises up, and when the Fiat in the Tincture of the Spirit of
the Soul renews the Matrix, then the Fiat thrusts the Death of
the Stifling [Choking, Checking, or Stopping] and Perishing, in
the Sternness (viz. the Impurity of the stifled [or checked]