1. When Man will enter upon Repentance, and with his Prayers turn to God, he should, before he beginneth to pray, seriously consider the State of his own Soul. How it is wholly and altogether turned away from God, become faithless to him, and only bent upon this temporary, frail, and earthly Life; bearing no sincere Love towards God and its Neighbour, but wholly lusting and walking contrary to the Commandments of God, and seeking itself only, in the temporal and transitory Lusts of the Flesh.
2. In the next Place, he should consider that all this is an utter Enmity against God, which Satan hath raised and wrought in him, by his Deceit in our first Parents; for which Abomination’s Sake we must suffer Death, and undergo Corruption with our Bodies.
3. He should consider the three horrible Chains wherewith our Souls are fast bound during the Time of this earthly Life. — The first is the severe Anger of God, the Abyss, and dark World, which is the Centre, Root, or constituent Principle of the Soul’s Life. The second is the Desire of the Devil against the Soul, whereby he continually sifteth and tempteth it, and without Intermission striveth to throw it from the Truth of God into his own evil Nature and Element, viz. into Pride, Covetousness, Envy, and Anger; and with his Desire, bloweth up and kindleth those evil Properties in the Soul, whereby its Will turneth away from God, and entereth into Self. The third and most hurtful Chain of all, wherewith the poor Soul is tyed, is the corrupt and altogether vain, earthly, and mortal Flesh and Blood, full of evil Desires and Inclinations.
– From: ” The Works of Jacob Behmen, The Teutonic Theosopher.”
Reverend William Law’s Edition in English: Volume Four; London, 1764,
Printed for M. Richardson, in Pater-noster Row.
Jacob Boehme was born this date (4/24/1575) at Altseidenberg, near Goerlitz, Germany. He was influential mystic, a Lutheran theologian, thinker. He wrote The Aurora, The Three Principles , The Forty Questions of the Soul, The Incarnation of The Son of God.
Separate-Holy 