188 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
nature is, but giving. For the will of love gives
itself, as light from fire, which gives itself to all
things, and produces in all something that is good.
27. If the sun did shine no more in the deep
of the world, then would the spiritus mundi in the
sharpness of the stars, in the sulphureous, mer-
curial nature in the four elements, be wholly stern,
rough, dry, harsh, thick, dark, and hard. Hence
all life in the elements would perish, and it would
soon be seen what hell and God's wrath are.
28. And thus in like manner as the outer man is
. a limus of the external elemental world, whose
life has its subsistence in the power and virtue of the
sun and stars, and the body, as also the earth, is a
coagulation of the spiritus mundi; and if that
were unable to have in its food the sun's power of
light and of love, it would become wholly evil,
fiery, and mortal, and the external life would
necessarily perish:
29. So also, in like manner, the soul is a limus
of the inward spiritual world from the Mysteriwn
magnum, viz. from the issue and counterstroke of
the divine knowledge, which must receive its
nourishment from the Mysterium magnum of the
divine power and knowledge. Now if it cannot
have the ens of divine love for its food, so that it
breaks itself off from the unground, as from re-
signation or renunciation, then it becomes sharp,
fiery, dark, rough, stinging, envious, hostile, rebel-
lious, and an entire restlessness itself; and intro-
duces itself into a mortal, dying, fierce source, which
is its damnation, wherein it goes to destruction, as
befell the devil, and likewise befalls the wicked.