Page 25 - Treatise on Salt

who at the arrival of their king, and their spouse, shall not have the true
oil in their lamps, will perish indubitably. For the king (as is to be seen in
St Matthew Chap. 25. 41, 42, 45.) will place on the left those who shall
not have the oil of charity and mercy, and will say to them; “Get you
gone from me accursed as you are, go into the everlasting fire, which is
prepared for the Devil, and his angels. For I was hungry, and you did not
give me to eat: I was dry, and you did not give me to drink: I was a
stranger, and you did not lodge me: I was naked, and you did not clothe
me: I was sick, and a prisoner, and you did not visit me.” On the
contrary, as they who are incessantly endeavouring to know the
wonderful secrets of God, and implore with an ardent zeal the father of
all light to illuminate their understandings, receive at last the spirit of the
divine wisdom, which guides them in all truth, and unites them by their
lively faith with that victorious lion of the tribe of Judah, who alone
unties and opens the book of regeneration, sealed with the seven seals in
each of the faithful. In such manner, that in him is born that lamb, which
from the beginning was sacrificed, who alone is the Lord of lords, and
who nails the old Adam to the cross of his humility and meekness, and
regenerates a new man by the seed of the divine word.

Thus likewise do we see a faithful representation of this regeneration
in the work of the philosophers, in which there is that only green lion,
which shuts and opens the seven undissoluble seals of the seven metallic
spirits, and which torments the bodies till it has rendered them entirely
perfect, by the mean of the long and firm patience of the artist. For he
also has some resemblance with the lamb, to whom, and to none else, the
seven seals of nature shall be opened.

Oh children of the light! who are always victorious by virtue of the
divine lamb; all the things which God has ever created, shall contribute
to your happiness, both temporal and eternal, as we have a promise
thereof from the very mouth of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which he was
pleased to specify these sixteen beatitudes, which he has reiterated in St.
Matthew Chap.5. and in the Apocalypse Chap.2. and 21. in these words.

1 Happy are the poor in spirit; for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.

To him who shall overcome, I will give him to eat of the tree of life,
which is in the paradise of my God.

21