All such have not yet known Christ; and they are but as a type or figure
of Heaven and Hell, striving for each other for the victory.
All rising, swelling pride, which contendeth about opinions, is an image
of Self. And whosoever hath not faith and humility, nor liveth in the
Spirit of Christ, which is Love, is only armed with the Anger of God,
and helpeth forward the victory of the imaginary Self, that is, the
Kingdom of Darkness, and the Anger of God. For at the day of Judgment
all Self shall be given to the Darkness as shall also all the
unprofitable contentions of men; in which they seek not after Love, but
merely after their imaginary Self. All such things belong to the
Judgment, which will separate the false from the true; and then all
images or opinions shall cease, and all the Children of God shall dwell
for ever in the Love of Christ, and _that_ in them. For in Heaven all
serve God their Creator in humble love.
SCHOLAR
Wherefore then doth God suffer such strife and contention to be in this
time?
MASTER
The Life itself standeth in strife, that it may be made manifest,
sensible, and palpable, and that the wisdom may be made separable and
known.
The Strife also constituteth the Eternal Joy of the victory. For there
will arise great praise and thanksgiving in the Saints from the
experimental sense and knowledge that Christ in them hath overcome
Darkness, and all the Self of Nature, and that they are at length
totally delivered from the Strife, at which they shall rejoice
eternally. And therefore God suffereth all Souls to stand in a
free-will, that the Eternal Dominion both of Love and Anger, of Light
and of Darkness, may be made manifest and known; and that every Life
might cause and find its own sentence in itself. For that which is now a
strife and pain to the Saints in their wretched warfare here, shall in
the end be turned into great joy to them; and that which hath been a joy
and pleasure to ungodly persons in this world, shall afterwards be
turned into eternal torment and shame to them. Therefore the joy of the
Saints must arise to them out of death, as the light ariseth out of a
candle by the destruction and consumption of it in its fire, that so the
Life may be freed from the painfulness of Nature, and possess another
World.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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