ing by its false Desire, which it had awakened in
itself, comprehended and shut itself up therewith, and so transformed
itself into the nature and property thereof.

And since also the Light of God doth not shine in it, nor the Love of
God enclose it, the Soul is moreover a _great Darkness_, and is withal
an anxious Fire-source, carrying about an Hell in itself, and not being
able to discern the least glimpse of the Light of God, or to feel the
least spark of his Love. Thus it dwelleth in itself as in Hell, and
needeth no entering into Hell at all, or being carried thither, for in
what place soever it may be, so long as it is in itself, it is in the
Hell. And though it should travel far and cast itself many hundred
thousand leagues from its present place, to be out of Hell; yet still
would it remain in its hellish source and darkness.

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. W