If this be so, how then cometh it, said the Scholar to Theophorus, that
an Heavenly Soul doth not in the time of this life perfectly perceive
the Heavenly Light and Joy, and the Soul which is without God in the
World, doth not also here feel Hell, as well as hereafter? Why should
they not both be perceived and felt as well in this life as in the next,
seeing that both of them are in Man, and one of them as you have shewed,
worketh in every man?
To whom Theophorus presently returned this answer: The Kingdom of Heaven
is in the Saints operative and manifestative of itself by _Faith_. They
who carry God within them, and live by his Spirit, find the Kingdom of
God in their Faith, and they feel the Love of God in their Faith, by
which the Will hath given up itself unto God, and is made Godlike. All
is transacted within them _by Faith_, which is to them the evidence of
the Eternal Invisibles, and a great manifestation in their Spirit of
this Divine Kingdom, which is within them. But their natural life is
nevertheless encompassed with flesh and blood; and this standing in a
contrariety thereto, and being placed through the Fall in the principle
of God's Anger, and environed about with the World, which by no means
can be reconciled to Faith, these faithful Souls cannot but be very much
exposed to attacks from this World, wherein they are sojourners; neither
can they be insensible of their being thus encompassed about with flesh
and blood, and with the World's vain lust, which ceaseth not continually
to penetrate the outward mortal life, and to tempt them manifold ways,
even as it did Christ. Whence the World on one side and the Devil on the
other, not without the curse of God's Anger in flesh and blood, do
thoroughly sift and penetrate the Life, whereby it cometh to pass that
the Soul is often in anxiety when these three are all set upon it
together, and when Hell thus assaulteth the Life, and would manifest
itself in the Soul. But the Soul hereupon sinketh down into the hope of
the Grace of God, and standeth like a beautiful Rose in the midst of
Thorns, until the Kingdom of this World shall fall from it in the death
of the body. And then the Soul first becometh truly manifest in the Love
of God, and of his Kingdom, which is the Kingdom of Love; having
henceforth nothing more to hinder it. But during this life she must walk
with Christ in this world, and then Christ delivereth her out of her own
Hell, by penetrating her with his Love throughout, and standing by her
in Hell, and even changing her Hell into Heaven.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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