Mysterium Magnum (An Exposition of the First Book of Moses, called Genesis)

15. The voice of the fire- world entered into the essence of Adam and Eve; the same they heard, therefore they were afraid, and crept among the trees: but the voice of the light-world is this, whereof Moses spake, Der im Garten ging-, the holy voice walked in the Garden 2 Terpaypdfifxa tov. Nomen Quatuor Literarum, that name of four letters. of Paradise, for the word Der denoteth the Person of Christ, who walked in the spirit, in the Garden, and went forth from the fire’s centre, who took possession of Paradise, and would invest Adam again with it. 16. Therefore saith Moses now: and the Lord God called unto Adam , and said unto him , Where art thou? (Gen. iii. 9). Wherefore said he not, Adam and Eve where are ye? No, he called to Adam, viz. to the first image which he created in Paradise, and not unto the man and woman ; for he that called was he which walked in the Garden, viz. the Word of the light-world, the voice of the Second Principle, which called back again in [and from] the enkindled anger, and espoused itself again unto the disappeared heavenly ens, that it would arise and stir up itself again therein, in the name JESUS, viz. in the deepest love of the Deity, and unite and manifest itself, in the fullness of time, in the dis¬ appeared ens, with the introducement of the holy divine ens of the heavenly world’s essence thereinto, and open Paradise again; and in the meantime bruise the head of the Serpent’s ens; this SerpentBruiser said to Adam, Where art thou ?

17. Now saith reason, He saw him well enough, wherefore said he then, Where art thou ? He did indeed see Adam,1 but Adam did not see him ; for his eyes were departed from Adonai,2 from the divine world, into time, viz. into the outward world, into the Serpent’s ens, [both] evil and good, into the death and corruptibility. Out of these monstrous eyes Adam saw in the property of the fire’s tincture; but the property of the light’s tincture, which he had wretchedly lost, said upon him, Where art thou, Adam? Which is as much as if he had said, Seek me, and see me again : I am come to give myself again unto thee. And Adam said, I heard thy voice in the Garden, and was afraid, for I am naked (Gen. iii. 10). 18. This calling him was nothing else but the voice or sound of the holy word introducing itself again into the vital light, else Adam could not have heard this voice : therefore he said, I am naked, and afraid. 19. Of what was he afraid? He felt in him the world of God’s anger, and feared that it would wholly enkindle itself, and devour him, as happened to Lucifer. Therefore he trembled at the call of the holy voice, as the anger trembleth at the love, as may be seen on the Cross of Christ. For even here was the fear and dread of the Serpent; for it knew the voice which called into Adam’s ens, and feared before the

face of God; for it knew [or perceived] the falsehood which was in it, which it would hide. 20. And God said, Who told thee that thou art naked? (Gen. iii. n). That is, the Serpent’s ens hath told thee, that thou shouldest imagine after the bestial property, and awaken the same. 21. And we see here very clearly, that Adam knew nothing of this naked bestial property in his innocency; but if it had been manifest in him, surely he had then known it. But now God saith to him, Who hath told thee it; hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat? Did not I charge and command thee that thou shouldest not awaken the property of nakedness in thee? Wherefore hast thou by lust brought thyself into the bestial property ? Did not I create thee in the angelical property? Wherefore art thou then become a beast in my power? Have not I made thee in and through my word? Why hath thy own free will changed my word? 22. And he said, The woman which thou didst join with me, gave me, and I did eat of the tree. And God said to the woman, wherefore hast thou done this? And she said, the Serpent beguiled me, and I did eat (Gen. iii. 12, 13). Herein it is plainly and clearly laid open, that the devil, in the ens of the Serpent, did deceive man, as it is before mentioned; and that they both, Adam and his wife, were made monstrous by the Serpent.

23. For God said to the Serpent (by whose property the devil had made himself a seat and habitation in man’s image) : Because thou hast done this, be thou accursed above all cattle, and above all the beasts of the field ; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life (Gen. iii. 14). 24. But here the veil lieth before the face of Moses, who passeth by the Serpent, and doth not describe what it was. But seeing how God said unto it, that it should go upon the belly, and eat earth, and no law was given to it in the beginning, thereupon we are here well able to find what it was; seeing it was the most subtle beast among all the beasts, and slew Eve her virgin-like chastity, that she lusted after the bestial copulation. Thereupon we understand in the Serpent’s property the desire of [carnal] brutal copulation, and all unchastity, wanton uncleanness, and bestial whoredom of man. 25. For it, viz. the Serpent in its inward limus whereinto the devil introduced his desire, was1 a virgin-like ens ; understand, in the good part of the heavenly ens, which was taken in the Verbum Fiat, and

1 Or had been. brought into a creatural image according to each property; as also the devil’s ens, before his creature[ship], was a virgin-like ens of angelical property. 2 6. This Serpent’s ens was modelised and engrafted in Adam and Eve, for the desire of Eve took hold of this bestial property, and im¬ printed it into herself, as a blemish [or foul mark], into the right pure virginity, into the pregnant matrix. Therefore God cursed the image of the outward Serpent, and bid it go upon the belly, and eat earth ; and herewith also the mark [or blemish] of the impressed monstrous Serpent [was enstamped] in man. 27. For as now the outward Serpent must go upon the belly and eat earth, which had brought its figure into the matrix in Eve’s belly, so must now the belly of Eve eat of the cursed earth, and the matrix goeth as a subtle Serpent upon its belly, and beguileth the limbus of the fire’s tincture. Thus it longeth after its belly and Serpent-creeping, whereas it is only that this Serpent’s matrix might exercise whoredom, and effect a bestial work. As Eve did deceive Adam, so that he did eat of the fruit, and as the outward Serpent was cursed, so also the Serpent’s matrix of the bestial property in Eve [was accursed], from whence all her children are corrupted, and are all born of a monstrous matrix, which is a deflowered maid1 in the sight of God; for Adam had already corrupted it when as he stood in both tinctures ; but when Eve was separated from Adam it came with her into act.

28. And God said, I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed ,• it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt sting it on the heel (Gen. iii. 15). Now the ground doth lie herein; for God did not mean hereby the outward bestial serpent without man,2 which hideth itself in holes and crannies of the rocks, and inhabiteth in the rude solitary places [of the earth], but the monstrous bestial Serpent in man, which was figured in the woman’s matrix. 29. For when God called Adam when he hid himself among the trees, and was ashamed and feared, then the voice of the holy Word entered again into the vital light. And here, when God said, I will put enmity, the seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpenf s head, then the holy voice of God went forth out of JEHO VA H, (which would once more move itself in time, and manifest JESUS') in the woman’s matrix, in the disappeared heavenly ens, and incorporated itself anew with the holy Word [therein], as into an aim3 of an eternal covenant. 30. And this word, which did promise, inhest and incorporate 1 Text, a whore. 2 Extra Hominem. 3 Mark, limit or bound.

itself into the woman’s seed, was that same word which did move itself in Mary’s seed, and opened the name JESUS out of the centre of the deepest love in the word, and quickened the disappeared heavenly ens with the introducing of the holy living ens into the disappeared ens of Mary. 31. Understand, the heavenly chaste virginity was again revived in the name of JESUS in the seed of Mary in the motion of the incorporated Word; and this incorporated [or engrafted or in-spoken] Word stood in Eve her seed in the matrix as an aim1 of a certain Covenant; and was all along propagated in Eve’s seed, from man to man in the heavenly part, as a sound or incentive of the divine holy light’s-fire, wherein the name JESUS was all along propagated in an aim and Covenant, as a glimmering incentive, until the time of the awakening [or manifestation] of it in Mary, where the Covenant was fulfilled,2 and the doors of the shut chamber were again opened. And this is that holy fire out of which the name JESUS was manifest, which holy fire did burn in the Jewish offerings, which appeased [or atoned] the anger of God, and bruised the head of the monstrous Serpent in man, viz. the monstrous fire-spirit, and will.

32. The bruising of the head is nothing else but to destroy the abomination of the Serpent, to take away its power by a right desire of faith; and by such a strong importunate imagination of faith on the promised Word , to take the same Word and introduce it into the Serpent’s ens, and therewith destroy and ruin the devil’s theft-fort; and thereby kill the matrix of the whorish desire, and introduce the matrix with its desire into the virgin-like ens, into the aim of the Covenant. 33. In which Covenant the woman and the man3 shall and must die; and the chaste virgin must be born out of the death in the Word of the Covenant, with both tinctures of peculiar love; and then the Serpent, in its desire in the anger of God, will sting on the heel the virgin-child of the new-birth in the faith. 34. For all this lifetime the virgin-like child is fast bound by the heel with a strong chain unto the nonstrous image; and is not able to get quite rid of the Serpent’s chain all this lifetime. This chain is the brutal bestial monstrous man, in whom lieth the monster of the whore and Serpent; a figure whereof we have in the Revelation of John, where the woman standeth, with the crown and twelve stars, upon the moon.

1 Butt, limit, the eternal love’s eyemark. 2 Text, stood at the end. 3 The female and the male property. 35. The moon signifieth the bestial man, and the woman signifieth the virgin-like matrix in the aim of the Covenant, out of which the virgin-child is born. 36. When as Adam was man and woman, and yet none of them both, the virginity according to the light’s tincture in the holy ens was poisoned and infected in him by false desire, for the fiery property of the soul carried [or directed] its lust into the earthliness; and out of that virginity the woman, by the adjoining of all the three Principles, was made; and the woman made herself monstrous by the Serpent, and corrupted the virgin-like matrix, and by her lust did introduce a bestial monstrous serpentine [matrix]1 thereinto, infected with the devil’s will and desire. 37. Now this holy virgin-like matrix in Eve was captivated by the monstrous property, and the image of the heavenly ens did disappear in her. And in this heavenly ens, (understand, in the right virgin-like seed of chastity, sanctity and purity, which was captived in Eve by the monstrous Serpent and bestial whore’s-desire), the Word of God did inhest2 itself with the dear, precious and holy name JESUS; that it would again introduce [a] living heavenly ens into this captived disappeared ens, and bruise the head of the Serpent’s ens, viz. the whore’s monster, and mortify its desire, and cast away the whore’s image [or bastard] and overpower and allay the enkindled anger of God in this virgin-like matrix with the deepest love of God, and wholly kill and null3 the monster [of the Serpent in flesh and blood]. And this is that which God said, the seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpent's head.

38. Understand it aright: The virgin-like seed of Eve in the Word of God should do it in the name and sweet power of JESUS : the seed included in the Covenant of God, whereout the virgin-child is born as the dew out of the morning, that (I say) should and must do it. 39. For the child which is from the blood of the man and woman shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven; but that which is [born] of the virgin-like ens, in the aim of the Covenant, out of the promised Word of God. The child of the man and woman is a monstrum, and must die, and putrify and rot in the earth; but the virgin-like ens which lieth hidden in this monstrum is the true seed, of which the 1 Or whorish property. 2 Inspire, infuse or recall or apply itself as a balsam, that is, put on promise itself. 3 Or do away. children of Christ are born ; yea, even in this life-time, for the life of this child is the true faith and great divine desire. 40. This virgin-like child doth live in Christ’s children in the spirit and flesh of Christ, in a spiritual body, outwardly covered with the monstrum in the child of the whore and Serpent; there is no man which doth not outwardly carry on him the Serpent’s child.

41. But the virgin’s child, born of the divine virgin-like ens of JESUS, doth not live in all: there is indeed in many a one a glimmer¬ ing incentive thereunto, viz. a weak faith and divine1 desire; but the true, holy and precious life of the virginity is not born : it standeth captivated in the judgment of God. 42. Yet well for those who have but an incentive in them; to those we give this direction: that their soul’s desire should in the spirit of Christ dive2 itself into the divine incentive; and with the fire-desire enkindle that incentive, and also forsake and hate the Serpent’s monster and bastard, and introduce their great hunger and thirst into the virgin-like ens, into the Word of God’s Covenant, and into the fulfilling of the Covenant, viz. into the humanity of Christ; and ever mortify and trample under foot the whore’s monster in the will of the desire, as a venomous stinging evil Serpent, a false bastard, that cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and is only a hinderance to the virgin’s child. 43. For the Word of the Promise in the Covenant would not incorporate itself into the man’s tincture, viz. in the soul’s fire-ens, but into the woman’s, viz. into the light’s tincture, into the virgin¬ like centre, which should have brought forth magically in Adam; even into the heavenly matrix of the holy pregnatress; in which light’s tincture the fiery soul’s ens was weaker than in the man’s fire-ens.

44. In this light’s ens God would arouse the fire-ens, viz. the true soul, and as it were beget it anew, as may be seen in the person of Christ according to the humanity, who in this virgin-like ens did assume a manly fire-soul from the woman’s property, from the female virgin-like seed, wholly contrary to nature’s proper and peculiar ability, for the image of God is a man-like virgin, neither woman nor man. 45. And if a man will rightly consider both properties according to the divine property, then let him ascribe the male to God the Father, viz. to the first Principle, where God’s Word doth manifest 1 Or godly. 2 Dip, plunge baptise. itself with the fire- world, which is the first centre of the creature; and the female let him ascribe to God the Son, viz. to the second Principle, where the divine eternal Word doth manifest itself in the light of love, and openeth another centre in the love-desire, and cometh into the fire’s centre; in manner as the fire produceth a light; and the light [is] a great meekness of an oily, watery and aery property, which property the fire draweth in again, whence it receiveth its shining lustre, and also its life to burn, else it would smother and suffocate.

4 6. And as these three, viz. the fire, light and air, have one only original, yet they give a very evident distinction in their property. The like also we are here to mind: into this property in the life of man’s soul the most sweet name JESUS hath incorporated itself in the Word of Promise, as into the likeness which stood in the light’s centre of the heavenly matrix, viz. in the right virgin-like ens, inspired out of the light’s property into Adam; and hath awaked [itself] in the same limus, as a true centre of the second Principle, viz. of the angelical world, a real temple of the spirit of God; an open, and wide1 gate of the divine wisdom, in the highest beauty, excellency and love, wherein the holy angelical life consists, and beareth therein the name of the great holy God, viz. the holy Word of the Deity. 47. Into this property the Word of God did betroth and espouse itself in the Covenant; for it was opened out of the holy Word in Adam. God would not forsake his holy manifested Word, which, with the creating of Adam, had introduced itself into an ens, which the devil obscured and darkened in in the Serpent’s ens from the anger; but would again open the same, and thereby bruise the head of the Serpent’s ens, and beget the human soul out of this divine ens, to a manlike virgin, viz. to an angel, servant and child of God.

48. We do not mean that this holy ens did receive the Serpent’s desire into itself when Adam and Eve became monstrous. No, but it disappeared; yet the soul, according to the first Principle, took it into the fire’s property, viz. into the Fiat, and introduced the Serpent’s ens, with the desire of the Fiat, into the earthly limus, whereupon out of the one only element four elements were manifest in man. 49. Therefore the virgin-like ens of the one only element must now bruise the head of the introduced Serpent’s ens in the four elements; and the man of the four elements must die and putrify, and the first [man] must return at the last day clothed with the virgin¬ like ens in the one only element wherein all things lie in equal weight [or perfect harmony]. 50. For this virgin-like ens, new-born in the spirit of Christ, dieth not any more, although the four-elements man, viz. the image of this world, dieth; but it liveth in God’s kingdom, and shall in the resurrection1 of the dead embrace and put on the limus of the earth, viz. the third Principle, as a garment of the wonder-deeds of God. But the Serpent’s ens remaineth in the earth, and shall be burnt away at the last day through the fire, from the pure limus of the earth, where the dark world shall devour it with all its works.

51. Thus we herein understand very clearly, how God out of great love hath promised the Serpent-Bruiser to the fallen man, and espoused and betrothed it unto the virgin-like and disappeared centre, and given in itself therewith for a help and companion. For when they were fallen from God, and had made themselves mon¬ strous, then the image out of the limus of the earth became wholly brutal, and lived in opposition, in distemper, in sickness, and also in heat and cold, as all other beasts. 52. Now therefore God told them what their labour, work and employment should be in this world, viz. that they should bring forth children in sorrow, with painful smart, in trouble and distress, and eat the herb of the field, and now clothe their bestial image in turmoil and cumbring care, in toil and labour, until the four-elements man in the bestial Serpent’s image should again be broken and dis¬ solved, and return unto the earth, from whence it was taken and extracted as a limus. 1 Note what shall rise again at the last Day. Of the Cause and Rise of the Curse of the Earth, and of the Body of Sickness I. y^OD’s cursing of the ground for man’s sins’ sake, that it

vJshould bring forth thorns and thistles, and commanding man not, till after sin was committed, to eat of the herb of the field, and in the sweat of his face to eat his bread, doth plainly and sufficiently shew us that this had not been in Paradise. The ground should not have borne thorns and thistles and other evil herbs, which are poisonful ; but in the curse all these properties became manifest 5 for as the body was, after the fall, so likewise its food: the half-serpentine man must now eat such food as his desire required [or coveted]. 2. The curse is nothing else but the holy element’s hiding of itself, viz. the holy ens, which budded forth through the earth and bore fruit, and held the property of the four elements as ’twere captive in itself [did withdraw or closely conceal itself]. The heaven in the earth hid itself from the earth; the holy tincture, from the awakened vanity, viz. the heavenly part, which was from the heavenly ens [did keep itself secret] from the part in the curse, viz. in the ens of the dark world. 3. Thus the heavenly part was a mystery unto man, and so remained in the curse between time and eternity, half dead as to the heavenly part, yet anew embraced with the promise in the aim of the Covenant; and as to the earthly [part] strongly bound to the band of the stars and four elements, infected with the distemper of the Serpent and the devil; very hard tied with three strong chains, from which he cannot get free till the total dissolution of his earthly body; for the curse of the earth and the Serpent forced also into the earthly man, viz. into the limus of the earth.

4. For God’s said, thou art earth, and unto earth thou shalt return ; for when the desire of the limus of the extract of the earth (viz. of the outward man) did enter again into the earth, and imagine after the earthly fruit, then the devil infected his desire by the property of the Serpent; and in each desire is the Fiat, which doth impress1 and make the desire essential. Thus the earthly hunger became at this instant wholly earthly; therefore God said now unto him: thou must turn 1 Or amass it into fashion, form and figure. again to earth, from whence thou wast taken ; for the heavenly disappeared in the earthly, as the gold is disappeared in lead. 5. Thus an earthly body is now sown into the earth, and the earth receives it as its own property. But the ens which is from the eternity (which cannot be destroyed) lieth in this earthly-sown1 body. Nothing is broken or dissolved but the gross beast, viz. the being [or substance] of time. As a fixed metal is not destroyed [or corrupted] in the earth, even so also the fixed part of the human body ; and as the artist brings forth an excellent gold out of the earth, so likewise the human gold lieth buried in the earth, and waiteth only for the artist to raise it up.

6. And as there is a various and manifold diversity of metalline property in the earth, so likewise of the ens of human property. Therefore all things shall be proved through the fire. What kind of property every one hath in this time assumed to himself, and im¬ pressed on his body (viz. with the desire of the Fiat), that shall be tried in the fire, whether or no he hath impressed a fixed steadfast property from the divine ens into himself, or a hellish bestial one. All this shall be tried and proved in the fire of God; and as the ens is, in each body, such a fire also shall be enkindled in the same ens. 7. And as quicksilver doth evaporate in the fire, even so shall all the wicked devilish serpentine works, which have been impressed2 out of the dark world and devil’s desire. 8. Now if a man hath in this lifetime impressed into himself [a] divine ens, by earnest faith and divine desire, (understand, introduced [this] by the human soul into the mortal part of the limus of the earth), then it lieth shut up in the mortal part, yet as a glimmering incentive which longeth and laboureth to burn and shine, or as the precious gold lieth shut up in a gross drossy ore, or in lead, and waiteth only for the artist to come and release it, even so likewise shall be the delivery and releasement of man’s body out of the earth.

9. Now also we do herein understand the body of sickness, and also the physician [or curer thereof] ; for when the heavenly ens did disappear and was captivated with the earthly, as the gold in the lead, then the outward astrum awakened in the body. And now as the outward astrum doth mutually destroy and ruin one another’s ens, and change it into another ens, according to the greatest and most predominant power; so likewise the human mind (which is a magical astrum) is hereby governed and ruled, and the body also; and is 1 Or entered. 2 Brought forth or formed. thereby brought into strange desire and lust; whereby man doth weaken, plague and perplex himself; and one introduced ens doth martyr, weaken and annoy another, both through meat, and thoughts, or cumbring molesting care. 10. As we plainly see that man for the most part doth rack and plague himself in the astral mind with the desire about that which cannot be his own, which stands not open in his astrum; and his astrum cannot apprehend, take, or receive it. About this the false introduced desire from the strange astrum doth plague, perplex and spend itself day and night, whence the great covetousness doth arise, that man doth desire and introduce that into his astrum which is a hurtful poison and plague unto him; and yet with such [infoisted] strange matter cannot make any fixed steadfast [thing or being] in him which may subsist in eternity.

11. All whatsoever the own peculiar astrum (viz. the life’s right astrum) doth impress [or foist] into itself from [or of] a strange astrum, is false, and an adverse will; whence enmity (viz. the great envy in nature) doth arise, that the human mind willeth to domineer over the strange ens; and if he cannot get it, yet that strange in-foisted, introduced ens burneth in him in a spiritual manner, as a poisonful hungry fire of envy, that doth not freely beteem1 that to any, that it willeth to possess itself. 12. And though it comes about that it may, through the Serpent’s craft, draw it to itself, or possess it, yet it hath no fundamental seat [or true root] in its right life’s astrum; for it is not capable of it. But the desire doth advance and set it up as a king, and vaunt itself therewith as an absolute peculiar god, which hath taken upon itself might over others, and sets itself upon strange authority and domina¬ tion. Whence the pride of riches and self-assumed honours and domination doth arise; and yet in its ground and original it hath taken its rise from the devil (through the Serpent’s ens), who also departed with the free will from his own peculiar ens into strange desire. Whereby he hath introduced and awakened in himself (by reason of his strange in-foisted ens) the hellish torment, pain and sickness, so that his life’s astrum is wholly departed from its mutual accord and harmony, and entered into an enchanting sorcering property : and so likewise it goeth with the fallen man.

13. But now man hath his cure, and the devil hath not; for when the divine providence knew that he would not stand, he caused all manner of medicine [for hunger and health] to grow out of the earth, to resist and withstand the strange introduced property, both from the astrum and elements. And for the cure of the mind God hath given his Holy Word; that the mind should immerse itselfinto the Word, and through the power of the Word continually cast away the intro¬ duced strange abomination. 14. And if it doth not this, but continueth in the strange intro¬ duced ens (which the devil continually introduceth through the Serpent’s image), then the strange ens becomes substantial, and surrounds the hidden ens of the heavenly world’s being or substance; and even then that ens which is from and of the divine property remaineth disappeared in death and cannot attain the place of God. And hence cometh the eternal death; as is to be seen in Lucifer, in whom also his divine ens is included or shut up into the Nothing, viz. into the greatest hiddenness [or privation], so that he, in his magical astrum in the creatural property, cannot reach or obtain the place of God.

15. Therefore it is very necessary for man wholly to sink and dive himself into the promised incorporated Word of God; and continually and fully reject and cast away the strange introduced ens, which the devil insinuates into his mind (whereby he desireth strange things); and only take for his corporal necessity and livelihood that which he may obtain with good truth and real upright honesty which befalleth him in his calling;1 the same his right life’s astrum doth bring unto him, and he is capable of it; and it creates him no vexation, trouble, discontent and pain, if he doth not let in the Serpent’s covetousness, pride, envy and anger thereinto. 16. And it is the greatest folly that man doth eagerly and tearingly strive and hale for strange things,2 and bring that into his desire which doth only discontent and disturb him, and at last cast him quite from God; which doth shut up his heavenly ens in body and soul. What profit is that unto him, which he sees without him, anddothexalthimselfinan outside lustre [as ina specious shadow and resemblance of a looking-glass], and yet is not capable of the same? And if he doth get to be capable of it he turns it to his temporal and eternal vexation and disquietness.

17. God hath created man naked, and given him nothing in this world that he can or may call his own, saying this or that is mine. Indeed all is his, but it is common; for God created only one man: to 1 Employment, business, or affairs. 2 Heterogene, and hurtful to his soul. that one only man he gave all whatsoever is in this world. Now all men are proceeded out of this only man, he is the stem or body, the other are all his branches, and do receive power from their stem, and bring forth fruit out of one root, and each twig enjoyeth the tree’s ens, also they do all alike enjoy the four elements and the astrum1 alike. 18. What folly [and madness] is it then, that the twig willeth to be an own [selfish] tree; and grows up of itself as a strange plant, as if its fellow-twig did not stand also in its stem. It is the Serpent’s introduced ens which seduceth and divideth the branches on the life’s tree of man from the only life of man, bringing each twig into a peculiar sundry hunger, desiring to be a tree by itself, in self-full power and domination. And therefore it desireth the muchness2 of this world for its own property, that it might greatly enlarge itself in the Serpent’s ens, and be a great, thick, strong, fat, well-spread tree.

19. O thou self-exalting vapourer, of what dost thou smell and savour? Even of the Serpent’s wantonness, lust, concupiscence and poison, and the temporal and eternal death. And this thou art in thy own self-tree, and not a whit better, and though thou wert a king, yet that which is under thy jurisdiction is only for thy office, and not thine own. 20. If thou wilt enter again into the life-tree, and be a twig on the only life of man, then thou must utterly forsake in thy mind and desire all whatsoever that is in this world; and become as a little child; and look only upon that which thy own life’s astrum doth cast upon thee in thy estate, calling and place; and therein thou must work, and not say, It is mine alone ! Albeit thou art a steward therein, yet thou servest therein the root alone upon which thou standest. Thou bearest fruit to the root in thy labour, which thou must let stand free, and therewith be diligent and careful in preserving thy calling and place, to serve thy brother, and help to increase his sap, that he may grow up with thee, and bear fruit.

21 . In all self-hood and own-hood3 there is a false plant ; one brother should be the sovereign cure and refreshment to another, and delight or content his mind with the insinuation of his love-will. There were enough and enough in this world, if covetousness drew it not into a selfish property, and would bear good will to his brother as to him¬ self, and let his pride go, which is from the devil. 22. He runneth, with great pride and belly-carking, only to the 1 Or stars. 2 Or abundance. 3 Selfish interests, minehood, and thine-hood, meum and tuum. devil in the bottomless pit.1 He will be noble, and better than his brother. But whence will he have it? Did not God give but one life to man, and out of that one cometh the life of all men? 23. But that he fancieth to himself that he is more noble and genteel therein [than others] and vaunteth therewith, that is an apostacy and fall from God and his Word. For in the Word of God was the only life of man, which the Word breathed into the created image; and this same one only life is from eternity, and never had any begin¬ ning. Wherefore doth man then bring in a strange life thereinto, that doth disquiet and disturb the only life? Now it must come to this pass : that he doth either with his will and desire enter again into the only childlike life, and forsake all whatsoever he hath introduced, or else remain for ever in disquietness in that, his in-foisted, essence or [life],

24. Now then, seeing I must forsake all whatsoever I have intro¬ duced into myself for property, and that the same is only my hurt,2 wherefore then do not I forsake this false desire, which bringeth death and hellish vexation and torment into me? Better it is to quash and destroy the desire , then afterward the substance with great anguish and sadness; as it is a very difficult and painful combat when a man must come to destroy the substance in him, by an earnest conversion into the child-like life. 25. But if the free will doth in the beginning break and quell the desire and lust, so that the lust does not become substantial, then the cure is already produced; and afterward there need not be such an earnest purpose and endeavour, as he must have who is to depart from his contrived abominations, and forsake and destroy that substance [or matter] which he hath forged and made in his mind. And yet it must come so about, or else he cannot attain the gates of the eternal only life which God gave to man; and if he reacheth it not, then he also reacheth not the gates of God.3

26. For the only eternal life must be introduced into the Nothing, without [or beyond] every creature and being;4 for it hath its eternal original out of the Nothing, viz. out of the divine understanding, and it is in a disquiet source in the Something; unless that its Something be also bent and set with its desire into the Nothing; and then the Something is a joy to the life; that the life of the Nothing in itself may dwell and work in Something. 1 Into the abyss. 2 Loss, or damage. 3 Or enters not into Paradise. 4 Substance or thing. 27. For God, in reference to the creature, is as a Nothing, but if the creature introduceth its desire into him, viz. into the Nothing, then the creature is the Something of the Nothing, and the Nothing moveth, willeth and worketh in the Something of the creature, and the creature in the Nothing; and in this working no turba can arise, for it is its own love-play, a mutual loving [of] itself, and it stands at the end of nature with its life. 28. Thus we understand what inheritance Adam hath left us, viz. the curse, and the vain desire; and we consider the outward man in its life as a monster of a true human life: unless that the precious noble mind be born again in the spirit of Christ, else the outward centre in the mind is a serpent.

29. And in this serpent the gross beast which is from the astrum and four elements doth sit, and holds possession in the house of the mind. And according to its bestial property produceth various desires, one desiring this, another that, and causeth manifold figures in the minds of men. One maketh in his mind a fixed substance,1 another a [shattered] ruinable [matter], that which he maketh to-day, that he breaks down to-morrow, and hath an inconstant beast in the mind, falleth sometimes upon this, sometimes upon that [and often changeth his mind]. 30. But he that brings up a fixed beast, he holdeth it in him for his treasure, and vaunteth therewith as if it were the virgin-child, and gathereth up earthly treasures for his bestial pleasure, and yet before God he is only a fool with his beast, for he must leave it to the earth and the judgment of God. 31. But he in whom the virgin’s child is born, he treadeth the beast in the mind under foot. He must indeed suffer it outwardly upon him, to creep and falter as a laden ass that must carry the earthly sack. But he hath enmity with it, as God said to Adam, I will put enmity between thee and the Serpent, and between the woman's seed and the seed of the Serpent , which shall bruise the Serpent's head , viz. the Serpent’s beast. This monster of the beast in the earthly mind the true man doth bruise the head ot its desire and might.

32. Thus a godly man must have enmity in himself, and trample under foot the monster, viz. the Serpent’s child, and continually kill it, for if this bestial Serpent’s Seed were2 not impressed and wholly incorporated in us, God would not have said, I will put enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the Serpent. The enmity is within 1 Project, device, or matter. 2 Or had not been. man, and not without man with the creeping Serpent; this Serpent’s seed in man is the devil’s riding horse, his stronghold and fort, where he is able to dwell in man. 33. And therefore because the devil was a prince of this world, and still is so, in the anger, it is his will and aim to possess the image of God, which God created in his stead, and to rule it under his juris¬ diction, and bring it into his kingdom; and this the curse of God’s anger hath brought along with it, which now worketh mightily unto destruction. 34. And on the contrary the Serpent-Bruiser worketh unto eternal life, and the human mind stands in the midst of these in the free will; to which the free will doth engraft1 itself; therein the mind worketh. It bringeth up a beast, and also an angel, or a beast and a devil; according to the outward world a beast, and according to the inward spiritual world an angel or a devil.

35. Here a grain of seed is sown, which standeth in three Principles, and is fit or pregnant to bear a creature in and to all three; for the divine possibility from God’s manifested Word in love and anger, viz. the Verbum Fiat lieth therein. As the free will conceives itself, so it begets (or generates) an ens; and in the ens the spirit ariseth which formeth it a creature out of the ens, and the spirit signeth itself in the body what it is: and so stands its figure. 1 Inoculate, or incorporate. How God drove Adam out of Paradise, and laid the Cherub before the Garden I- TT THEN God had cursed the Serpent, and the earth, then the VV beast-man was no longer profitable in Paradise, for he could not any more enjoy the fruits of Paradise; therefore God laid upon him the labour and toil of the world; and drove him out of the Garden of Eden, and placed the Cherub with the fire-sword of judgment before it, that if the new born virgin-child of the seed of the woman would again return and enter into Paradise, this angel with the firesword should cut away the Serpent’s beast from it, and not any more suffer it to come into Paradise.1

2. The angel with the fire-sword is the right destroying angel, who carrieth death and life in his sword; he hath therein God’s love and anger, and when man dieth in this world, then he cometh before the gates of Paradise, before this angel : and even there the poor soul must pass through this [garden] judgment. 3 . Now if it be captivated in the anger of God, then it cannot pass through this judgment; but if it be a virgin-child, born of the seed of the woman, then it can pass quite through this sword, and then the angel cutteth off the beast begotten of the Serpent’s ens. And even then the soul is an angel of God, and serveth him in his temple, in Paradise, and expecteth the Day of Judgment, viz. the resurrection of the outward body. When this angel with the fiery sword shall sever the earth from the curse, then the right human body returns again, for it must also pass through this sword, and the sword will cut off its beast, that he may be only a man, and no more a beast. 4. The speech of Moses concerning this Mystery is wholly hidden to the earthly man; for Moses speaketh of an angel and a sword; and albeit the outward figure was even just so (for so was Adam driven out) yet it hath far another ABC internally. The natural man without God’s light understands nothing thereof.

5. This sword is in man. When man converteth and entereth into sorrow for his committed sins, and casteth away the vanity, and steppeth into the infant’s shirt, then the Morning-Star ariseth in the 1 Understand the beast. spirit of Christ, in the virgin-like, occluse ens,1 in the true, woman’s seed. 6. And in this anxious sorrowful gate of true Repentance, the angel standeth with the fire-flaming sword, and the virgin-bud forceth quite through this fire-sword into Paradise, viz. into the light, into the life of Christ, and groweth forth through this sword. 7. And now the virgin-child standeth with its fair rose in the new plant in Paradise, and the poor soul which begetteth this child stand¬ eth the whole time of this life under the reach and swing of this firesword, and is fast bound with a band to the gross beast in the outward world. Where the virgin-child is sufficiently thrust at and wounded with this fire-sword; for the fire-soul, which in the firesword of God’s anger is bound to the Serpent’s monster, doth daily amuse itself upon the Serpent-monster, and sinneth. And even then this fire-sword doth cut away the sins, and devours them into God’s anger, where they are examined and judged.

8. Therefore the poor virgin-child which is born out of the soul must stand under Christ’s cross, in Christ’s death; and the piercing sword of tribulation and grief passeth quite through it. It must suffer itself to be drawn quite through this flaming sword; and the fire burneth away the abomination which the soul continually brings into itself from the Serpent’s monster.2 And even then it is in a sore strait, when that is cut off from the fire-soul which it fain would have from its monster. 9. Then must the virgin-child supplicate the fire-soul, and tender it the love, that it should only forsake the monster of the Serpent. Here then ariseth strife and opposition ; for the part of the fire-soul hath introduced the Serpent’s monster into it, and desireth also to have its joy therein, and loveth the evil beast. 10. Then Sophia, viz. the second Principle, viz. the part of the light-world, doth speak against it. And hence cometh up the strife betwixt the seed of the woman and the seed of the Serpent; and then man goeth up and down in sorrow and sadness, trouble and perplexity; sometimes the virgin-child prevails, and sometimes the Serpent-child.

11. And then the devil stirs up and incenseth all monsters against the virgin-child, to strike it, to mock it, scorn it, revile, and laugh it to shame, and make it ridiculous; that it may by no means be known, lest the devil’s kingdom should become manifest. 12. Thus the virgin-child must be exercised by this, in the spirit 1 Or shut up ens. 2 Or false image. of Christ, and suffer itself to be whipped, persecuted and injuriouslyreproved, and often called ‘one possessed by the devil’; be cursed, and continually accounted an off-scouring of the world, until the outward beast hath finished its course in its constellation. And then the Cherub cutteth off the gross beast, and lets it fall even unto the judgment of God. And then the part of the fire-soul must forthwith force through the judgment of this sword. 13. Now if the fire-soul hath taken in1 much vanity into itself, viz. much of the Serpent’s craft and lust, then the part of the fire-soul must stand under2 this sword, until the fire of God’s anger consumes this introduced vanity, which to many a one is purgatory3 enough; which this present too, too wise world will not believe, and will be only an adopted child from without, and so have an external washing away of sins in grace; but it hath another ABC here: God will not let the Serpent’s ens, neither in body nor soul, come into Paradise.

14. The fire-soul must subsist in the fire of God, and be so pure as the clear refined gold, for it is the husband of the noble [virgin] Sophia, [which is] from the woman’s seed; it is the fire’s tincture, and Sophia the light’s tincture. If the tincture of the fire be wholly and thoroughly pure, then its Sophia will be given to it; and so Adam receiveth again into his arms his most precious and endeared bride, which was taken from him in his sleep, and is not any longer4 man or woman, but a branch on Christ’s pearl-tree, which standeth in the Paradise of God. 15. To the description whereof we need an angel’s tongue, and yet we are understood well enough by our school-fellows. We have not written this for swine; for none but those only who have been by and at the marriage of the lamb do understand what kind of entire inward great joy and love-delight is therein; and how dearly5 the bride receiveth her bridegroom in his pure, clear and bright fire’sproperty; and how she gives him her love-kiss: unto others this is dumb. 16. When reason heareth one speak of Paradise, then it understandeth only a certain place apart: and it is even so. There was a certain place which was called the Garden in Eden, where Adam and Eve were tempted, and from which place they were driven, after the fall. But yet the whole world was such a Paradise before the

1 Impressed. 2 Or in. 3 Refining fire. 4 Or, from thence forward. 5 Excellently with surpassing beauty, glory and delight. curse; yet, seeing God knew the fall, the holy Paradise was only opened unto them in one certain place. For to what end should the whole world bring forth paradisical fruit, seeing there was no creature upon the earth that was capable to enjoy the same? 17. But Adam and Eve were, however, brought into Paradise, that, although this first body should fall and come to ruin, yet they and their children might, by the new regeneration in the spirit of Christ, enter in again through this fire-sword. This mystery is exceeding great. 18. For prince Lucifer, before the time of the created earth, sat in the heavenly ens in the angelical world in the place of this world, wherein the ens of the earth was comprehended in the Fiat, and brought into a compaction ; his false imagination had tainted1 the limus before the compaction : it was the place of his hierarchies. Now the outward body of man was taken out of the limus of the earth in the Verbum Fiat, and formed according to the property of the human life, which was in the Word. The Word formed (by or through the Fiat) the ens or limus of the earth according to the form of the human soul-life which was in the Word; and seeing God had set himself, through his Word, to be judged against the false infection and desire of the devil, to judge him and his enkindled [wickedness which he had brought to] substance, the judicial sword2 was already in the limus of the earth whereof Adam was made.

19. For when God created the earth he founded its time3 when he would keep the judgment, and sever the evil from the good, and give the evil for a habitation to the apostate prince. But seeing the good in the occluse earth was without heavenly creatures (seeing its prince was cast out); God created Adam [as] another hierarch out of this good ens, to be a ruler of this place. And hence came the devil’s envy against man and all good creatures of this world. 20. But now we are here to consider of the apostacy of man, with the sword of the Cherub. For Saint Paul saith: we are chosen in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world was laid-, and even here this saying of Paul doth belong. God knew that this ens, of which Adam was to be created, was already somewhat subject to false lust by reason of the devil’s introduced desire. Therefore God chose4 this limus in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world, out of which he would make man; that he would, through the judgment of the flaming sword, 1 Made it subject to infection and pollution. 2 Or sword of execution.

3 Certainly appointed and set a time. 4 Foresaw or provided for. bring it through death, and through the fire, and wholly burn away the false infected desire of lust; and regenerate him anew in Jesus, in his deepest love in his Word in Jehovah, that is opened out of Jehovah, and introduce a new limus into the tainted one; and bring them together, quite through the judgment of the fire-sword, and purge and purify them wholly and thoroughly. 21. And here also is Christ’s descension into hell, where the love of God in Christ entered into this fire-sword and changed the wrath into love; and did also destroy the sting of death which was insinu¬ ated into the limus of the earth, out of which Adam was created according to the outward humanity; and this fire-sword had its raising and original in the corruption of Lucifer. 22. For albeit Adam was created as to one part out of the heavenly essentiality (that was in the Word of man’s life, which was inspired and breathed into his outward and inward limus), yet this fire-sword lay hidden as a glimmering incentive in the earthly limus of the out¬ ward body, which also assaulted Adam, so that he lusted against the command of God and the kingdom of heaven. In which incentive the devil also introduced his desire into him, and provoked him to fall; [for] which [fall], seeing God well knew that the poor man would not stand, God ordained a help and Saviour in Christ, to guide and bring him into that holy ens, whereinto he should be brought, viz. into the true sabbath and eternal rest.

23. Indeed Adam was set wholly perfect, in equal harmony and accord, and brought into Paradise, [to try] if the soul could have over¬ come the incentive [of vain lust]. And therefore the Tree of Tempta¬ tion was represented to him, to see if it were possible for the soul to overpower this contamination of lust, and remain wholly and fully in the likeness [and harmony]. 24. But it was not possible: therefore Christ must afterwards come into this place,1 and be tempted forty days in the wilderness, in Adam’s ens, and in his new introduced heavenly ens, to see whether the fire-soul would stand in perfect purity. And seeing it did now stand in Christ, the new introduced heavenly ens did destroy the sword in the death of the outward body of Christ, and brought the outward body which he, in Mary, received from her seed, quite through this sword of the anger of God, into the holy ens. And in this power the outward body did arise from death, and got victory over death and this fire-sword, and took the fire-sword into its power; 1 Undergo this proba. wherewith, at the end of the world, he will purge his floor; as a judge over devils and men, as well as of the earth.

25. For the main ambition was about the fire-sword, for king Lucifer had changed it from the pure clear light into fire, wherewith he willed to domineer and rule as a God. But God sent to him another prince and king, who took it from him, and thrust him from this throne, and should turn this sword in the ens of the earth again into the divine property, and cast out and judge the devil with this sword. 26. And there is not such a silly and narrow meaning of the firesword as hitherto hath been generally understood. Although it hath been hidden by the counsel of God, yet we should now open our eyes and deeply consider what this manifestation importeth; that it doth even foretell and signify the judgment of this sword; that he will come, who carrieth it in his mouth; and it is also a messenger [declaring] that Babel shall [soon] come to its end by this sword, and be given to this sword to be devoured. 27. Now saith reason. Wherefore did not God examine this ens afore, out of which he created the earth, and man out of the same earth, before he created the earth and man? Forsooth, dear reason, here thou hast hit the matter right; God’s omnipotence and omniscience must serve thy turn, whereby thou art able to bring all things into God’s will, as rational fancy dictates. Hearken, O reason, dost thou know whence the earth is generated? Thou sayest, through the Word, viz. in the Verbum Fiat, I say so too. Now, what was this Word? Here look upon the earth and the whole creation, and thou wilt see what the desire of the Word hath brought into being or essence out of the spiritual ens. Thou wilt everywhere see good, and evil, and find out God’s love and anger.

28. The Word was a full spiration from the spiritual fire- and lightworld, according to which God calleth himself a strong, jealous, angry God, as to the fire, and a merciful, loving God as to the light. 29. Now if God should have quelled1 the first Principle, viz. the fire-source, in the ens of the earth (out of which it was created), whence should the light have its might? Doth not the Father, viz. the fire- world, beget the Son, viz. the light- world? But now, seeing the Word in the fire-world was vehemently enkindled by God’s motion to the creation, as we may see by the coagulation of the stones, (if we were not blocks, and had only calfish understandings), where¬ with then should this fire, but especially the enkindled ens in the 1 Nulled, abolished or taken away. coagulation, be reduced and brought again into the light, into the equal temperature and harmony? God’s love alone must then do it. 30. Now, how will [or can] a creature, viz. a fire-soul or angel, come into a creatural being or formation, if the fire-source were not moved and stirred in an especial manner. Like would only then re¬ main in like; and if it be only a mere likeness, then it hath its sport with and in itself, as it was from [and in] eternity. And therefore the unchangeable God hath moved himself according to the fire and light, and stirred up the fire’s property, that he may make him a play and melody, viz. a iormed Word out of himself, that there might be a play before and in the unformable Word.

31. Now we do here understand this, that if God should have again introduced the enkindled ens, out of which the earth and man were created, into the unformable Word, viz. wholly and fully into the likeness, into the love, then no creature might have been pro¬ duced or brought forth; for every soul’s spirit, yea the angels, and whatsoever liveth, must be a stirring [or working] fire. 32. Now no fire-source can be generated out of the perfect like¬ ness, unless the likeness doth move itself. Yet the eternal likeness, viz. God, had before moved himself in his Mystery with the creation of the angelical thrones. Now if he should have changed this motion (which was enkindled, and also poisoned by the hierarch Lucifer with false distemper) into love, before he had created the earth and man, then he must yet once more have moved himself according to the fire’s property, if he would have created another hierarch and angelical prince. 33. But seeing that might not be, he created the earth, and out of the earth, man, out of the first motion; and breathed into man the light- and fire-soul, out of that breath of his manifested and moved Word, viz. out of the first motion. For out of the first motion of the Word another prince should come into the princely created throne of Lucifer, and take in and possess the first motion.

34. And God appointed the judgment to the first motion, and took away Lucifer’s domineering fire-sword, and gave it unto Adam; and afterwards introduced the deepest love of God in Christ into Adam, and brought the moved Word again into the likeness, viz. into an eternal confirmation, and gave Adam in Christ the fire-sword over the fallen prince Lucifer. 35. For Adam, viz. the corrupted limus of the earth, should, in Christ its first enjoyed prince, judge with this flaming sword; as Paul hath told us, that the saints shall judge the world. Understand, the enkindled ens of man and of the earth should judge the false prince of lies, who had perversely changed the truth in the holy ens into lies, and corrupted it with such [false desire]. 3 6. But seeing the ens of man was corrupted, and could not, God, out of his deepest hiddenness, introduced the most holy ens into the corrupt ens of man, viz. into the heavenly part, and brought the outward [part] also through the sword of the fire and death into the inward, into an eternal likeness [or temperature]. And thus there is here a looking-glass for reason. If reason be illuminated of God it will then understand us here; but if it be not, then there is not any possibility to understand this.

37. And we faithfully and seriously warn the caviller and carper, not to say it is a blasphemy. Let him first put away his calfish and bestial eyes; and look us here in the face, before he takes upon him to censure and cavil at us; it hath far another ABC than reason hath. It must have its birth a degree deeper. 38. Thus we are able very well to understand the casting out of Adam, wherefore he was tempted, and driven out of Paradise. Seeing his ens was somewhat enkindled by the devil’s poison he could not possess Paradise; and therefore God drove him out from thence with the sword of judgment into death and corruption. And yet gave the promised Word of his deepest love to be with and in him in the ens of the heavenly world’s being, for a sure and certain Covenant; wherein Adam and his children should trust, and believe that at the end and accomplishment of this time he would in this incorporated Word bring them again, with the introduction of the holy ens, out of death through the fire-sword; and clean cut off the false infection and lust with the sword of judgment, and set them as angels of God in the place of fallen Lucifer: And this is the mystery of the angel and sword of Paradise.

39. The angel did bear the name of the Covenant, out of which God would manifest Jesus, viz. the high and almighty prince. And it was even this angel which afterwards wrought many wonders upon the earth, who was with Abel, Shem, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Moses; who appeared to Moses in the fire-sword of flame in the bush, and brought Israel out of Egypt, and went before them in a fiery pillar [by night], and in a cloudy pillar by day; who gave them the Law in the fire, and at last brought them by Joshua (being the type of Him who was to be born out of the fire-sword) into the Land [of] Israel. 40. This fire-angel turned its internal light outwards, and mani¬ fested itself in Christ’s person in the humanity, with whom1 Christ, viz. the holy anointing oil of the deepest hidden love, changed the fire-sword of the angel into a love-sword and holy dominion. 41. And this is the true Cherub which drove the false Adam out of Paradise, and brings him in again by Christ, the virgin’s child, new born out of Adam in Christ; and it hath no other ground or meaning. 1 Or in which.

Of the Propagation of Man in this World, and of Cain, the First-born, The Murderer of his Brother i. 'ff'x te are here to consider this weighty point in right earnest- W ness; and not to make conclusions with fictions and fables, as hitherto hath been done as touching the election of Grace; whereas it hath been handled only in a very blind and absurd manner, and no right [fundamental] understanding hath been found thereof. 2. Seeing that men have sought only in reason, and have not been able through true repentance to force through the fire-sword, and see with divine eyes, thereupon the fire-sword of God’s anger and severe purpose and decree of judgment hath remained in the eyes of [their] reason alone; and further they have not seen. Therefore they have made dreadful and dangerous conclusions, without fundamental and plain understanding. 3. But Christendom is hereby faithfully and truly admonished, once throughly to awake, and shake off the conclusions of reason, and to see God’s clear countenance, which desireth no evil, nor can desire it; but hath also set himself to be judge against all wickedness, and will destroy all such conclusions in the sword of his anger, and do away the Cherub.

4. Now it doth here offer itself to our consideration, how it came to pass that Adam and Eve at first brought forth an evil child and a murderer. To this, reason saith that it was from God’s purpose, who hath made to himself an Election, and chose one company of men to damnation, and the other unto his love. 5. Forsooth! dear reason: Whence art thou born? and from whence dost thou speak under the cover of the Scripture? Dost thou not speak from the ens and words of the Serpent? Who brought the false ens into Eve her matrix, wherein Cain was apprehended? Did not the devil do it through the Serpent, and make the matrix of Eve monstrous? 6. Dost thou not understand how the Word of Promise did forth¬ with incorporate itself into the matrix of Eve in her seed, and that the contest between God’s anger and God’s love did presently begin; for God’s love had incorporated itself [and betrothed itself] to bruise the head of the Serpent’s monster in the anger of God; and thereinto the fire-soul, which lay captivated in God’s anger, should give its free will. 7. For the fire-soul is a root proceeded from the divine omni¬ potence, and therefore it hath free will, and nothing can deprive it thereof: It may conceive either in the life or in the light.

8. But if thou askest why the Serpent-Bruiser did not forthwith bruise the head of the Serpent’s ens in the first seed, and not suffer the Serpent’s murderous, poisonful will to get the upper hand in the soul’s ens, it is just as if I should ask, Wherefore did not God, when he saw that Adam became evil, wholly reject him, or make him to nothing, and create a new Adam? Thus likewise will reason judge of the devils, saying that it hath pleased God that there should be devils, that it might be known what an angel is. 9. Hearken reason! I have above already answered thee, that if God should once more have moved himself for man’s sake, and intro¬ duced the first motion in the human and earthly ens into a stillness, then the six days’ works of the creation must have retired back; and have been brought into a workless rest. And this, God would not; the whole creation should and must subsist in its first motion; its first formed ens in the Verbum Fiat must stand, be it either in love or in anger, let who will, apprehend either: the anger was open, and so was the love also.

10. Only the love is called God: the anger is called his strength and might. Now what the free will would desire, therein it should be confirmed, either in the love or in the anger. 11. For the free will was born or sprung forth from the love and anger, viz. from the fire- and light-world: and so likewise it might choose itself a place for its working life. If God’s love should have drowned the free will in the ens in Eve’s seed in the love, (in which [seed] it was enkindled in the anger),1 then the fiery motion in the matrix must have ceased. Now, out of the light’s ens only and alone no soul may be brought forth. 12. Also the corrupt ens of the earthly limus must have then been presently judged through the fire, which could not be; for the motion of the new regeneration, and the opening or full explication of the divine sweetness, and the overcoming of the fire, viz. of the anger of God, did belong only to the name of Jesus. 1 The free will. 13. The Word which had incorporated itself had [done this] from without the fire-sword, viz. the Cherub, and from within the Jesus, who should overcome the fire-sword with love. Thus the name Jesu stood hidden in the fire-sword, and was not manifest until the time that God would move himself therein, and manifest the same.

14. Thus the insinuated ens of the Serpent, that Eve had intro¬ duced through imagination into lust, must be wholly cast away; for in Cain the murdering image1 of the Serpent was manifest, which cannot inherit the kingdom of God. But on the contrary, the mark of the Covenant in the promised Word was in the free will, and in the heavenly disappeared ens of the soul, into which [Covenant of the promised grace] the soul should enter. 15. And although the Serpent’s ens should have been rejected (as it must be, in all the children of Eve), yet the part of the heavenly world’s being lay hidden in the Covenant of the Word in the dis¬ appeared ens, as a possibility to the new regeneration. Therefore God said to Cain, when the murdering spirit persuaded him, Rule over the sin. 16. If thou sayest, Wherewith? He could not! But wherefore could he not? The Serpent’s desire held him, and brought him to kill his brother: Wherefore? The free will had given itself up into the Serpent’s ens which held him captive. 17. Now saith reason, God would have it so, else he had turned away his will. No. Indeed God’s anger- will in the Serpent’s ens which had captivated the free will would have it. But yet God’s love-will said in him, Rule over sin, that is, over the wrath and anger of the Serpent, and let it not have its power and prevalency.

18. And here we are rightly to know how God’s love and anger are in continual contest, understand, in the manifested Word in the limus of the earth, and in the ens of the human property out of the earth. For the anger-ens is stirred up and driven by the devil, and desireth continually to devour the love-ens, and possess this kingdom in the anger-ens. 19. The anger-ens desireth to have man; for it hath its king in Lucifer. And the love-ens desireth also to have him; for it hath its king in Christ. And therefore Christ must bring the human love-ens through death and the anger-ens, and open another Principle, viz. another kingdom; and leave prince Lucifer in his own anger, for his free will had chosen it him. 1 Or the evil corrupt nature and property. 20. Thus also the free will in Cain did choose the false, viz. the devil’s will. But thou sayest, Was then the murdering-will wholly rejected? It did reject1 itself; but if the free will had again conceived in the love-ens it would have been again born anew, yea even after the murder: which we leave unto the judgment of God, whether it were so or no, seeing the text in Moses doth give him so bare a name in despair. For the Word, out of which the name Jesus was made manifest, was given to call poor lost sinners to repentance, and not the righteous ones, who were apprehended in the love; as Christ said.

21. Cain was a type of the first corrupt Adam in sin, and Abel was a type of Christ, the second Adam, viz. of the virgin-child; for the tree of evil and good began in Adam. And so likewise the fruit did forthwith appear, viz. Christ’s children, and the children of the devil and the Serpent. 22. Now reason saith, Was Cain then wholly conceived of the Serpent’s ens in the anger of God, and predestinated to damnation? No. He was [conceived] of the ens of Adam’s soul and body; and so also of the seed and ens of Eve her body; but the monster in the matrix of Eve did environ the sown seed; and it was that which did seduce and beguile him; but the mark [and aim] of the Covenant lay hidden in the ens of the soul and body. For the ens of the seed of Adam and Eve was out of the heavenly disappeared [limus], and then also out of the earthly awakened limus; but the will of the Serpent and of the devil took possession of the house, as the like was in the devil, who was an angel; but the will of the dark world took possession of the house in him, and got the upper hand: so also it was here, in Cain.

23. But thou askest, How came this so to be? Hear and see, thou fair child in the will of Adam and Eve, what their desire was before and after the fall: They desired the earthly kingdom, as we see that Eve was so wholly and only minded; for when she brought forth Cain, she said, I have gotten a man [who is to be] a Lord (Gen. iv. 1). She thought him to be the bruiser and breaker of the Serpent; he should take in and possess the earthly kingdom, and expel the devil; she did not consider that she should die to her false earthly fleshly will, and be born anew in2 a holy will. And such a will she also brought into her seed; and the like did Adam also. 24. And hence now the will in the soul’s essence did arise: the tree brought forth a twig out of [or like] itself. For it was Cain’s 1 Reprobate or abandon. 2 Or with. desire only that he might be lord upon the earth; and being he saw that Abel was more acceptable in God’s sight than himself, his free bestial will in him did elevate itself to slay Abel; for Cain’s aim and endeavour was alone about the outward world, to domineer and be lord and master therein; but Abel sought God’s love.

25. Thus there are yet two such Churches upon the earth; one which seeketh only worldly pleasure, might, honour, and the out¬ ward god Mammon and Maiisim (see Ch. 36, 32), and therein it lodgeth the Serpent’s child. The other, which seeketh the virginchild and God’s kingdom, and must suffer itself to be persecuted, reviled, reproached, and killed by the Cainical Church, as Cain did to Abel. 26. For the devil will yet be continually a prince of this world in the Serpent’s child; and so it is that if the virgin’s child (which bruiseth the head of the Serpent) be not manifest in the Serpent’s child, then the devil is and remaineth prince and host in the house of the soul: as happened to Cain. 27. And do but understand the ground aright: In the birth of this world two kingdoms lie manifest, viz. God’s Love-kingdom in Christ, and the kingdom of God’s anger in Lucifer: these two king¬ doms are in contest and strife in all creatures, for the original of all spirits is in the contest, and in the combat of the fire the light is made manifest. The fire is a cause of the light: God’s anger is a cause that God did yet once move himself in his deepest love in the name Jesus, and thereby vanquish the anger.

28. Now what can the love do, if the free will espouseth itself to the anger? Or what can the anger do against it, if the free will conceiveth in the love, and destroyeth the anger? Must it not hold still and suffer it to be done; and though it doth oppose and rage against it, yet the love pierceth quite through it, and changeth it into joy. The anger is the root of love, as the fire is the root of the light; but in the free will is the understanding, which maketh itself to what it pleaseth. 29. Dost thou not see this in the earth, that the free will in the ens of the Word hath made itself stones, metals and earth. The stones and earth are not the free will; but the free will hath introduced itself into such an ens, and by its lubet and motion introduced the ens into a compaction or coagulation; there was no other maker there but the free will in the formed and manifested Word: thou mayest indeed see wonders enough. 30. Behold the irrational creatures, as worms, toads, spiders and other wild venomous and horrible beasts, and thou shalt see some¬ what in very deed, if thou beest not dead. But thou sayest, God hath created it so. Yea, right ! his desire in love and anger hath amassed the ens with the motion, and compacted each ens according to the free will into a form. There was no other maker there, but the free will in the Word.

31. The desire in the Word was the Fiat, which introduced the free will into an ens. Thus the same manifested Word is yet in all things , and hath the Fiat, viz. the desire in itself. As the free will in every thing introduceth itself into a spirit, even so the Fiat formeth and signeth each thing. Every root bringeth forth from itself a branch of its own likeness; but when the branch or sprout is to be born and receive its beginning in the ens of the root, the ens doth then form itself to such a twig as the root at that time is apprehended in its power and free will, both by the superior and inferior constella¬ tion. 32. The like is also to be understood in man. As the will is, in the seed, that is, as the desire of the father and mother are, at the time (together with other influences from the stars and elements), yea, oftentimes from the devil’s assaults and insinuations, even such a spirit is formed in the ens of the seed; sometimes an angel, if the parents be in holy desire [or in the true faith of the engrafted Word] ; sometimes also a beast, a serpent and image of the devil, both accord¬ ing to the ens of the soul and of the outward flesh.

33. The power of the manifested Word doth give in itself into all things, into everything according to its will, according to the desire in the ens; for the desire in the ens is that which formeth the word, viz. the sound of life; as it is written, such as the people is, such a God they also have, with the holy thou art holy , and with the perverse thou art perverse. This is wholly to be understood concerning the expressed Word in the Fiat, viz. in the desire of nature. And therefore God hath espoused and betrothed another Word out of the centre of his love to the image of man, that, although he be arisen out of an evil property, yet the free will hath power and information to disclaim its selfhood, and die to its self in this holy incorporated Word; and then the Fiat begetteth and formeth another new creature in the free will out of the ens. 34. The possibility lieth in all men, but the making or forming of the child of God belongeth now to the holy Fiat in the new introduced Word, for it lieth not on any man’s self-willing, contriving, running, and toiling, but on God’s mercy. He hath mercy upon whom he please, viz. upon those alone who with their free will die to their selfhood in his grace, and resign up their selves to him. And he hardeneth whom he please, viz. those alone who run with selfish Cain, and would themselves take the kingdom of God in their own evil will, and will not die to their own self-full will.

35. Now saith the Scripture, Hath not a potter power to make of one lump of clay what he please; a vessel to honour; or a vessel to dishonour; that is, will the self-full will be angry, if it be evil, that the Fiat in the Word makes it to be a vessel of the anger; or will it there¬ fore be angry, if the holy Fiat (in the holy Word) maketh that will, which diveth itself into the love and mercy of God, and dieth to its selfhood, to be a vessel of honour. Hath not this Potter power to do with his clay, viz. (with the ens or seed) what he please. hFbereunto every seed is good and profitable, thereunto he maketh him a vessel , either to the use of his anger or to the use of his love. 36. The holy is unto God a sweet savour to life, and the wicked a sweet savour to the death in his anger; all must enter into his glory, and praise him; one in the property of his anger, who must call the evil good; the other in the property of his love, who must call the good, good. For so it must be, that the difference of the good and evil, of the light and darkness, of the life and death, may be known; for if there were no death, then the life were not manifest to itself; and if there were no darkness, the light were not manifest to itself.

37. And therefore the eternal free will hath introduced itself into darkness, pain, and source; and so also through the darkness into the fire and light, even into a kingdom ofjoy; that so the Nothing might be known in the Something, and that it might have a sport in its contra- will, that the free will of the abyss1 might be manifest to itself in the byss,2 for without evil and good there could not be any byss [ground or foundation]. 38. For the evil maketh pain and motion, and the good causeth essence and power; and yet both essences are only one essence, as fire and light are only one essence, also darkness and light are only one; but it severs itself into two mighty distinctions, and yet there is no sundry separation, for one dwelleth in the other, and yet doth not comprehend the other; the one doth deny the other, for the one is not the other. lA'fivooo s. 2 Bvaaos. 39- God dwelleth through all, and that all is not God, also it doth not reach him; but whatsoever quitteth itself free of its free will, that falleth into his possession: that he must have, for it is will¬ less, and falleth into the Nothing; and he is in the Nothing. Thus the resigned will may dwell in the Nothing, and there is God’s mercy; for he will have Something out of the Nothing, that he may be mani¬ fest in the Something, and therefore he hath mercy upon the Some¬ thing which is fallen into his Nothing, and maketh it in himself to be his Something; which he himself ruleth, driveth and acteth with his merciful spirit.

40. And herein lieth the precious pearl, dear brethren who are driven too and fro with contention; if ye did but know it you would leave off from strife and call reason a fool. No searchings of self obtaineth it, but the will freely resigned into God’s mercy, which entereth in by the way of earnest repentance, and mortification of its own evil will: that [will] falleth into God’s mercy, and doth appre¬ hend [and obtain the right understanding]. And without this there is mere self-running, walking, and willing; and yet nothing can be obtained, save only in the will freely resigned into God’s mercy. 41. We have a very excellent and notable example and type of this in the first birth, which opened the womb, that it was to be sanctified and offered up to the Lord ; and yet the true living offering proceedeth from the second, new birth, as we may see in Abel, Isaac and Jacob. Cain, Ishmael and Esau were the first-born, the inheritance belonged to them; but the lot and mercy fell upon Abel, Isaac and Jacob; for the first ens of man was infected and made crazy by the devil. Therefore it must be given to the fire for an offering and food; and out of the offering, viz. out of the fire of God’s anger, the love of God was made manifest in mercy; and the first Adam was the sojourner1 of the second in Christ, for the second redeemed the first.

42. The devil’s desire and the bestial ens of the Serpent had got the upper hand in the matrix of Eve, and apprehended the first seed in the desire. Now the kingdom of God did yet belong to the first man, but seeing he did lose it by his negligence the first Adam must be offered to the earth, and also its first seed [must be offered] to the anger. 43 . And after this first seed Abel came forth in the holy Covenant, and offered his sweet blood, to the anger for the sinful seed, that the 1 Inmate; or of his family, servant. anger might let its flame fall, and suffer the first birth to press through in the blood of the second.1 44. The first birth was a murderer, which signifieth the devil in man. The second was the offering of [or for] the first, that the angerdevil in the first Adam might be appeased in the offering of the second. 45. Not that we would exalt or take in the wicked into the offering of Christ, so long as he is wicked; the devil devoureth most of the wicked crew: only, the wicked sinner hath an open gate made for him in the offering of the second [Adam], if he did convert and turn himself (from his wickedness).

46. But that some write, there was a twofold seed which did sever itself in Eve, viz. one wholly devilish from the ens of the Serpent, and the other from the ens of Christ [or the promised seed of the woman] in the Covenant [is nothing so]. These have not at all learned the A B C in this school. They have only a dreaming shadow and fiction of the Mystery, and not the true sight. Thus they build the election of grace upon this; but they are much mistaken; they speak only the Serpent’s words, which desired to have it so. Observe it thus: 47. Adam had only one limbus to his seed, and Eve only one matrix for her seed, but they both stood in three Principles. The Principles were in contest, as still they are at this day. The second Principle, viz. the kingdom of God or the angelical world, did disappear in the soul’s seed, and God espoused his only, most holy Word again therein, unto the new birth. 48. And this espousal or betrothment stood as well in Cain’s ens as in Abel’s ens. But in the striving wrestling wheel, in the contest of the three Principles, Cain’s ens was apprehended in the anger, and covered with the Serpent’s monster. Not so, to an impossibility, as if he were born to condemnation; but even to a possibility of the free will, whether he would lay down the self-full, assumed, and selfappropriated right in Adam, and live in God’s will, or whether he would live unto himself. Upon this was the election set.

49. Now God knoweth whereinto the free will is entered: If it be entered into iniquity and selfhood, then God’s anger establisheth or confirms it in its choice to condemnation; but if it be entered into the Word of the Covenant, then God confirms it to be a child of heaven. And here that saying hath its proper signification and applica- 1 Viz. through death and the anger into life. tion, I have mercy on whom I will, and whom I will I harden. God knoweth his children even in the ens in the mother’s womb; to what end should he give his pearl to him whom he yet knoweth would turn himself away from him? The pearl’s ground lieth indeed in man, but hidden and shut up; if he brought his will into the pearl it would open itself in him. 50. All men proceed from one only seed; but in one the holy fire glimmereth, and in another it lieth as ’twere shut up and cannot [glimmer] by reason of the mire of the Serpent. 51. Thou sayest, Then is the Serpent’s ens more mighty than God’s love? I have already answered thee, that love and anger are in contest. Whereinto the ens doth espouse itself, of that it is apprehen¬ ded and confirmed; yet so, that the will is free to go from the evil into the good, and from the good into the evil; and that while it liveth upon the earth both doors stands open unto it: for the free will is not bound: but if it were bound then no judgment could with righteous¬ ness pass upon it. It hath laws and instructions, which are given it, not unto death but unto life; but if it transgresseth these, and continueth in the transgression, now the judgment passeth upon it; for every judgment [or sentence of condemnation] ariseth from the transgression of the command.

52. Thou sayest he cannot keep them, he is drawn [to trans¬ gression]. Yea, very right. Doth not the truth rebuke him even to the face, that he is a faithless wretch, that suffers himself to be drawn to evil. The law to do right is in his vital light as a continual lookingglass: he seeth and knoweth it very well, that he is a liar, and walketh upon the way of the devil : it sheweth him the way of truth, but the free will rejecteth it; at present he is predestinated to condemnation, yet so, that the will is free so long as he is in this cottage. But the heavy band of God’s anger, in the drawing of the devil’s desire, draws many a one to the damnation of death. 53. Reason saith, If a man hath free will, then God is not omni¬ potent over him, to do what he please with him. The free will is not from any beginning, also not amassed or taken out of any ground into any thing, or formed by any thing. It is its own peculiar original out of the Word of the divine power, out of God’s love and anger. It formeth itself in its own will a centre to its seat; it begetteth itself in the first Principle to the fire and light; its right and genuine original is in the Nothing, where the Nothing, viz. the A/ (or as a man might unfold it, A. O. V.) doth introduce itself into a lubet to contemplation;

and the lubet brings itself into a will, and the will into a desire, and the desire into a substance. 54. Now the Eternal Original, viz. God, is a Judge over the substance; if the lubet (which is departed from him) hath introduced itself into an evil being, then he judgeth that being or substance in its Principle. In what source and property soever, or in what ens soever, the lubet, proceeding from the departed A/, hath introduced itself into a Principle, therein the universal eternal free will, which is the abyss, and cause of all byss, doth confirm and settle it. 55. The abyssal judgeth that which doth introduce itself into byss, and severs the good (which hath introduced itself into a good ens) into the good, viz. into the divine love; and the evil (which hath brought itself into an evil ens, and set and formed itself into a centre to an evil spirit and will) into his wrath and anger. 56. For how can he judge a thing whose own it is not? How would God judge the will of the creature, if it were not sprung [or arisen] from him? Or rather, how can a judgment pass upon a thing which is bound, and not free in its willing and working?

57. The human and angelical will is arisen with the motion of the abyss (when the Deity once moved itself in its contemplation and sensation, and with the motion introduced itself into a beginning of the spirits) [the will of men and angels did spring forth] out of this beginning. Now every beginning goeth into its end; and the end is that which was before the beginning; and there is the trial of the beginning, [which shews] whereinto the beginning hath introduced itself. 58. Now God is before and without all beginnings, and from him every beginning proceedeth ; also he is the end of all beginnings. Now the middle of all inchoated things standeth between the beginning and the end; for it must with its beginning enter again through the end into that whence it did arise. 59. Seeing then that God is a jealous God, and a consuming fire, and also a merciful God, every free will with its introduced centre hath its own judge born in itself; either divine love, or divine anger; for when a thing beginneth, it goeth into a time, but when this time is apprehended of the end, viz. of the eternity, then it is in its own eternal [beginning and end], whence it hath introduced itself into a compaction, so confirmed to eternity.

60. Therefore, the free will hath its own judgment, either for the good or [for the] evil, in itself. It hath its own judgment in itself: it hath God’s love and anger in it; what it amasseth and desireth, that it formeth in itself; and doth so form only its own self in its own lubet into a centre. 61. For thus the world hath likewise its original, namely, in the free will of the two eternal Principles, both from the dark fire-lubet, and also from the divine light fire-lubet. The free will introduced itself in the Verbum Fiat into distinct and several entities; and that even according to the possibility of the eternal pregnatress. As the will in the Verbum Fiat conceived itself in each place in the preg¬ natress, even such an ens was brought forth, and out of the ens arose its spirit according to the ens, viz. from God’s spiration or motion1 in the Principles. 62. But seeing the Principles were together as one, no thing was ever amassed or formed in the free will but the same hath a good and an evil in it, according to the nature and power of the eternal preg¬ natress, to light and darkness.

63 . But now every spirit ariseth with its free will first out of the compaction of its centre, and is, after its effected birth, free, and may draw into itself either out of God’s love, or anger, and introduce its will as it pleaseth. But this is the main thing: as the mother (viz. the ens) is, whereof the spirit is born, even such a lubet ariseth also in the spirit. 64. Now the spirit hath understanding, and the ens hath none; also it2 hath a law, for it knoweth what is evil and good, what is right and wrong. Also God hath given it laws, that it should break the lust [to evil], and with the understanding of the light rule over the lubet of the darkness. 65. Now if it doth not, but departeth with the lubet out of the understanding into a self-lubet, then the lubet or lust doth amass itself into a substance, whereof a new, false will is again born. And this same is a bastard before God and the eternal nature; for it ariseth not out of the law and right of the eternal nature, but out of self. And upon this the judgment of the eternal nature doth pass; and at its end (when the centre of the spirit shall step again into the beginning) it will be spewed out from the free will of eternity.

66. Understand us but aright: The first free will, which was breathed into Adam, was good; indeed it was both from God’s love and anger, viz. from the centre of the eternal pregnatress, of the 1 Breathing or stirring up. 2 Viz. the spirit. eternal spiritual nature; but it had the understanding in it to rule and govern itself, so it might stand and subsist eternally. 67. But the crafty distemper or infection introduced by the devil was in the ens of the earth whence1 Adam’s outward body was formed. Into this earthly ens the devil brought his desire by the Serpent, viz. by the Serpent’s crafty ens, so that the lubet arose in the ens of the body, whereinto the first free will of the inspired soul entered, and assumed the lubet of the body, and introduced this lubet into a desire to substance. 68. And out of this substance another new self-full will did now arise, viz. a bastard, a false serpent-child; and this bastard, Adam did originally propagate to his Eve, and Eve to her son Cain, and so one man to another. Thus we have now in this earthly flesh this same false will proceeded from the Serpent’s substance, whereinto the devil introduceth his desire, and tempteth us, and continually makes us lust and long after the devilish property [viz. pride, covetousness, envy, and anger], that so his desire, which he insinuateth into the false bastard in us, might become substantial and essential ; out of which such a whorish and devilish serpentine seed is continually begotten; and out of the same false ens [or seed] a devil’s will [is begotten] .

69. Thus the devil rideth in and upon man, in and upon body and soul. But now the first introduced free will, which God breathed into Adam, lieth yet in all men, for it is the true real soul, the centre of the fire and light, a spark of the divine power and omnipotence, but wholly hemmed in and captivated in this wicked introduced bastard. 70. Therefore God hath again in-hested2 and incorporated the aim of his new Covenant, in the Word of the divine holy power, in the name of Jesus, into the property of the lightful fire (viz. into the dis¬ appeared heavenly holy ens, which did disappear in the darkness), that the first free will (which now lieth captive in the child of the whore and Serpent) should introduce its desire into this aim of the promised Covenant (which he hath fulfilled in Christ’s humanity), and with the desire of the soul’s free will re-introduce the holy ens of Christ (which he [Christ] in the seed of Mary introduced into our disappeared ens) into its disappeared heavenly ens. And if it doth bring it so to pass, then out of this introduced ens of Christ ariseth Christ’s spirit, which destroyeth the false will of the Serpent’s bastard in the flesh, and trampleth upon its head.

2 Imputed, introduced recalled or really promised into the soul. 71. Now saith reason, God giveth this holy new ens of Christ to whom he will, and suffereth whom he please to harden and remain captive in the Serpent’s ens. Yes, very right: He giveth none this holy ens into the self-will of his Serpent’s child; there belongeth far another earnestness thereto; for selfhood cannot now any more take any thing of God. 72. But this is the process which the free will must go, if it will receive the holy ens: it must wind itself out of the Serpent’s desire (out of its selfish-self and somethingness), and wind itself into God’s mercy; and become a deadly mortifying enemy to the fleshly desire in itself. It must wholly forsake and depart from the self-full desire of the flesh; and bring its hunger wholly and only into the mortification of its selfish somethingness, desiring and endeavouring continually and willingly to die to its iniquity and false desire (which sticketh in the flesh, in the Serpent’s child), and in Christ’s ens arise with a new will. 73. This desire, which departeth from the Serpent’s ens, and hungereth after God’s mercy, receiveth Christ’s ens into itself, whence a new will is born, which bruiseth the head of the Serpent in the flesh, for it is the new birth out of God in Christ Jesus.

74. But if thou wilt say, Thou canst not desire any good, that is not true. [We reply:] Thou alone sufferest the Serpent’s will in thy right eternal soul’s will to hold thee; and with the soul’s will dost play the whore with the Serpent’s will in the flesh; from whence ariseth God’s election. 75. God knoweth the false whorish soul which doth only woo and wantonise with the Serpent, (with the idol Babel), and will still live in the lust and will of the flesh and of the Serpent; and yet willeth to be an outwardly adopted child : God should forgive it its sins by an out¬ ward word-speaking, but it willeth still to hang and cleave to the wanton love of the Serpent in its false lust. This, God chooseth to judgment. 76. For the free will which was inspired into Adam, and which it1 hath inherited from Adam, hangeth on Lucifer; and therefore God confirms it unto the kingdom of darkness with Lucifer; but the gate of grace standeth yet open unto it [during] this time of the outward life. The Twenty -Seventh Chapter Of Cain’s and Abel’s Offering and of the False and Antichristian Church, and also of the True Holy Church

I. tt ere again, the veil lieth before the face of Moses, in respect to have them offer, whereas the reconciliation and atonement consists only in the earnest will toward God’s mercy, in prayer and supplica¬ tion to God, that a man depart and turn away from his evil will, and repent, and introduce his faith and hope into God’s mercy. 2. They must verily needs know wherefore they offered incense; what pleasure and delight God took therein; which Moses hath not once so much as mentioned, and that from God’s purpose; and yet it hath not been hidden to the children of the Saints, and also not to Moses ; but he hath a veil hanging before his eyes. 3. Israel (seeing for the most part they were evil children, and also idolatrous, as soon appeared by making them a Golden Calf) might not know it by reason of the false magic; and we also shall write only to those that are of our tribe, and yet plain and easy enough to be understood. Observe and mark it, thus : 4. The soul’s free will is as thin1 as a nothing; and though it be in its body indeed encompassed with the something, yet its amassed or conceived something is in a false distempered essence, by reason of the original of sin.

5. Now if the free will would approach to God with the desire, then it must depart out of its false something, and if it now doth so depart, then it is bare and impotent, for it is again in the first nothing: for if it will come to God, then it must die to its false selfhood, and forsake it; and if it forsakes the same, then it is barely and merely as a nothing, and so it cannot go, work, or move. If it will shew its might, then it must be in something, wherein it doth imaginate and form itself. 6. An example hereof we have in faith. If faith would effectually work, then it must immass [or imaginate] itself into something wherein it may work; God’s free will hath conceived [or immassed] itself with the inward spiritual world, and worketh through the same; and the inward world’s free will hath conceived itself in the outward world, and worketh through the same. Even so the soul’s free will, which also hath its original out of the abyss, immasseth itself in something, that it might be manifest, and thereby be able to move and act in God’s sight.

7. Seeing then Adam’s body was out of the limus of the earth, and also out of the limus of the holy heaven, which limus of heaven in Adam was now disappeared, wherein the free will had power to immass [or conceive] itself into a holy form, and act, work, pray and supplicate before God, therefore they made burnt-offerings of the fruits of the earth. As Cain, he brought of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and these they enkindled with fire. 8. But understand a magical fire, as that of Moses, for Moses declareth so also. God looked graciously upon the offering of Abel, and not upon Cain’s; that is, they brought offerings before God, and the free will of the soul should earnestly press with its prayer in to God. Therefore it would have a substance,1 when it would go out of the human house of corruption into God, that it might work in some¬ thing; therefore the imagination of the will did immass [or imaginate] itself through the offering, and God enkindled the offering of Abel with the holy fire in the aim of the Covenant, which in the fullness of time should again enkindle itself in the soul’s fire.

9. In this the will of Abel’s soul did enform2 itself into a holy sub¬ stance, and pressed, with the desire of the enformed free soul’s will, before and into God’s free will, and this the will of the devil and the Serpent could not brook; and even this the will of the Serpent and devil in Cain did well understand; that the aim of the Covenant did open itself in the holy fire in Abel’s desire and prayer. 10. And therefore he [the devil] would kill the body of Abel according to his [Abel’s] earthly limus; lest such children should be begotten of him, and so he [the devil] might lose his kingdom in man. But God would not enkindle the offering of Cain. Now Moses maketh a veil here before it, and saith, God would not look graciously upon3 Cain’s offering. 11. The enkindling of the external offering was a figure of the internal spirit. For the soul’s spirit in the free will (as to the centre of 1 Subject or means. 2 Fashion or idea. 3 Or have respect to. the light) was enkindled with God’s love-fire; and the imagination of the body (also understand, of the heavenly part) was enkindled in the offering with the fire of the holy part of the earth (which lieth hidden in the curse). And therein the free will of the soul, and the free will in the ens of the heavenly part of the body, did immass itself into a substance; and therewith did press in before the holiness of God.

12. And here the Serpent’s head was first bruised, for it was a figure of the new birth out of Christ. Not that Abel had at this time put on Christ in the flesh, but indeed in the spirit of Jehova, in the aim of the Covenant. In which the name of Jesus stood hidden in God (as a regenerator), which would move and manifest itself in the full¬ ness of time in this aim [of the Covenant], and introduce a heavenly holy ens into the disappeared ens of the heavenly part, and quicken it to life again in the opened power ofjesus. 13. If a man would rightly and fundamentally understand the offerings,1 he must consider that whereof the offering consisted, and what severed itself with the enkindling in the fire, out of the fire, viz. out of the enkindled offering. For in the enkindling nothing is seen or perceived, but 1. The wood to the fire. 2. The matter of offering. 3. The fire and light. 4. The smoke of the fire, which ariseth from the burning wood and matter of the offering. All this, without the faith and divine desire, is as an abomination, and indeed nothing in God’s sight, and attaineth not the gate of God.

14. But if man brings his faith’s-desire thereinto, then he resigneth the free will thereinto, and will thereby, as by a means (in which fire the free will of the introduced sinful abomination doth burn and consume away), press into God’s eternal free will. And now how this is effected and comes to pass, understand as followeth : 15. God’s imagination or lubet meeteth the free inspired will of the humanity, and the human free will meeteth the Deity: here is now the conjunction. 16. But now man’s free will is become sinful, and God’s free will (from whence the human free will did first take its rise in its inspira¬ tion) is holy and pure. As yet the human free will cannot press into God’s will, unless it also become pure before God. 17. But seeing God will, out of free grace, receive it into himself for the delight and harmony of his praise, there is no other way or remedy but that God move himself in the centre of the eternal nature, according to the fire of the second Principle, viz. according to the holyfire, and devour that enkindled anger and vanity of man’s free will; and annihilate it in the mortification of death, viz. in the anger-fire of God, that the human will might become pure before God’s will, and so might enter into God’s love-will. And therefore God’s love-desire did itself enkindle the offering of Abel and Moses, that so the holyand-love-fire might devour and swallow up the turba in the human free soul’s- will, in the anger-fire of the eternal nature, in the Father’s property.

1 8. But that there must be an earthly offering thereunto is thus to be understood : The body of man as to one part is a limus of the earth, and as to the other part a limus of heaven; and into this body the free will was inspired, and body and soul is only one man. 19. But seeing in the fall the earthliness and false subtlety of the Serpent (by the insinuation of the devil’s desire) was awakened in the flesh of man, and so the earthly bestial property got the upper hand in his ens, and devoured the right human will in the bestial property, that is, took it captive, thereupon the earthly will which was from the limus of the earth must also be offered up in the fire. 20. For the limus of the earth shall arise again out of earth ; but for to make it an offering it must also be offered in an earthly elemental fire of its likeness; so that a heavenly fire, and an earthly elemental fire, might be in one another; and each will in the offering might respectively find a place for its own comprehension and capacity, viz. the will proceeded from the earthly limus of the earth from the kingdom of this world, and the heavenly will, out of the heavenly limus, viz. out of the ens of the Verbum Domini;1 each property of the free will went into the offering, and from the offering into the fire, where the atonement was.

21. For the Covenant of the Promise touching the Serpent-Stroyer did manifest itself by the holy fire, which holy fire enkindled the elemental fire, for the holy fire shall awaken and raise up from death the elemental man out of the limus of the earth; and in the holy fire man (who hath taken his original from time) shall be purged and tried in the Resurrection; who verily must first go through the fire of the anger, but the power and might of the holy fire shall bring him through the anger-fire, and cleanse and purge away his introduced abomination of sin (in the Serpent’s and devil’s ens [in him]) from the limus of the earth, that the limus of the earth may be no more earthly, 1 Of the seminal and central love of the Word of the Lord. but as a fine purified gold, which subsists in the fire. 22. Even thus the earthly man shall be purified in the Resurrec¬ tion, through the fire, of which the offerings were a type, and yet they did really subsist in their power, as to the spirit. But the body must die, and the true corporality and regeneration must come forth [or begin to spring afresh] in the opened body of Christ, who, with his entrance into and manifestation in the humanity, did again open the heavenly disappeared limus in the human ens, which did disappear [or fade] in Adam and Eve.

23. Thus understand us aright: Abel and Moses offered the fat of beasts, and enkindled that with the holy fire, which fire was first enkindled by God; for the bestial property became manifest in the outward earthly man of the limus of the earth. The human limus of the earth was turned to a beast, and was moreover sinful and evil, full of the Serpent’s poison and cunning subtlety. 24. The free will did immass itself in the Serpent’s craft and devil’s desire; and formed to itself such a figure in the ens of the flesh as the desire was; whereupon the body was more vain in God’s sight than a beast. 25. But seeing the heavenly ens lay hidden and shut up in the earthly property, God would not utterly forsake the whole image; which Abel and Moses did understand, in the spirit of God, by their offerings. And therefore they offered the fat, viz. the oil of the beasts, and other earthly good fruits, that so the desire of the true man, created out of the limus of the earth, who shall arise from death, might, in the enkindling of the offering in the fire, have a substance whereinto it might give itself and imaginate itself; and so in the property of the holy fire it might be able to enter with its will into the aim of the Covenant, which stood before God in the figure, until [the promise] of the woman’s seed was fulfilled and accomplished.

26. In which seed the dear and precious name of Jesus did open itself out of Jehovah, and did again awaken the heavenly life in the disappeared ens in the humanity, and offered up this whole image, in the Person of Christ, to the anger-fire of the Father, and with the holy love-fire regenerated and enkindled in the human life, did bring it quite through the anger, viz. through the fire of the eternal nature of the Father’s manifestation, and changed the anger-fire into a love-fire. And this was just thus pre-figured in the offering; for the love-fire enkindled the offering, and in the offering was yet the curse of the earth, as well as in the human free will; and when the offering was offered, it was a sin-offering, whereby the free will of man’s soul was propitiated before God.1 27. Now if sin shall be reconciled and appeased, then it must be brought into the anger, viz. into the judgment of God, into the sword of the Cherub, that it may cut off the same, which [Cherub] is the sword of God’s anger : and if then the human will be wholly sinful and altogether capable of the fire of anger, then God enkindleth the sinoffering (in which the anger-fire lay hidden in the curse), with the holy fire, that the human will, which was apprehended in the angerfire, might be atoned in the love-fire.

28. For the love-fire of God tinctureth the soul’s desire in the offering, as a tincture tingeth brass and iron and changeth them into gold. Even thus the human soul’s free will, which was inspired wholly pure and spotless into man, was tinctured and again purified before God, that so it might enter into God’s mercy. For the mercy was hidden in the love-fire, viz. in the aim of the Covenant, in the name of Jesus in God; in which Covenant and name the anger of God was reconciled and atoned in the offering, and laid down its anger-burning flames, and suffered the soul’s free will to pass quite through it. 29. But as touching the offering in itself, with the wood, fire, light, and smoke, understand it thus : Abel offered of his flock, without doubt, sheep, or oxen, as Moses did the like, namely, the fat of them; now the offering (viz. the wood and smoke) on the outward part as to the matter was earthly; and so was man, as to the outward body, earthly; and in the earthliness lay the curse, both in man and in the offering. 30. But when the offering was enkindled it was spiritual, for from the wood proceeded the fire which took the offering and consumed it; and out of the consumptiveness went forth first from the fire the smoke, and afterwards the light. This was the figure whereinto man’s and also God’s imagination entered, as a compaction or conjunction.

31. In the enkindled consuming fire was the desire of the angry Father, viz. a conjunction of the eternal nature’s fire with the temporal fire; the eternal is magical, and the temporal is the substance and matter of the magical, viz. its reception.2 And in the enkindled light was the holy love-fire, which is also magical, as subtle as a will, which did also immass itself in the enkindled light; and in the forthproceeding smoke, which is an elemental sulphur and mercury, viz. a life of the quality, the smell or taste went forth also, which signifieth 1 Reconciled with God. 2 Or amassment. the human power of the body, and the outward spirit of nature. 32. In this power which proceeded forth from the offering, out of the fire and light, the spirit of God which proceedeth forth from the Father and Son did amass itself in the amassment of the human faith’s desire, and so took the human faith’s desire into itself, and did amass itself into a substance of the fire, light and power proceeding forth from the offering; and brought it through the gates of God’s anger, upon the holy altar, in the aim of the Covenant, upon which the Lamb of God should be offered for the sins of the whole world.

33. For this Lamb of God, viz. Christ, should complete, perfect, and make this introduced offering fully acceptable upon the great altar of the angelical world; that it might be to God an eternal sweet savour of his deepest love, which he represented in mankind in his introduced offering in the Lamb of God, Christ, and mankind in this representative offering. 34. The human offering was the sojourner of the true Lamb and offering of God in Christ. And now where the offering is, there also is the spirit of man; for man’s spirit is gone forth and departed from God into time, and in the time it hath defiled itself; therefore it must forsake the pollution, and enter in again through this offering to God. 35. But if it will enter, then it must do it in manner and form as it went out ; for it brought itself into false desire and lust. Even so likewise it must introduce itself again by a returning into a sorrow and con¬ version, and in the sorrow or repentance again [introduce itself] into a divine desire, which is called faith. 36. But that it might apprehend or lay hold on the divine desire, it did bring the faith or the believing desire into an offering; and so amassed or formed the believing desire in the offering into a substance or essence, that the faith also might become essential; and this essentiality of faith received the holy fire of God, which would in the fullness of time open itself in the essentiality of faith, and bring the human substance thereinto; and also bring it forth in itself through God’s anger, and change it in itself into a love-fire; for all the words of prayer in the offering were also received into the substance of faith.

37. For as all things were formed, amassed and introduced by the word of God into a substance, so likewise the words of the prayer of Abel and Israel in the offering were formed and amassed to substance, viz. unto an incorruptible essence. In which essence, Christ, God’s Son, in the fullness of time brake forth out of the Covenant, and took upon him this same essence, together with the human essence, and as a potent Champion and mighty Conqueror destroyed the kingdom of death and the devil. 38. And to this faith’s essence, in the spirit of Christ in all his children and members, was given the judgment over the world, yea, over the kingdom of the devil and of death; thereby to destroy and bring to naught their works, and possess the royal throne. 39. This was the real offering of Abel, for the spirit of the holy love-fire in the aim of the Covenant had opened itself in him, so that he understood it. And therefore he offered, that so his believing desire might be accepted before God, and be brought into a substance to the new regeneration; for he looked upon the promise of the SerpentStroyer, and introduced the desire of his faith into him ; and desired that his faith, spirit and life might be confirmed in the SerpentStroyer who was promised. He would fain be therein accepted before God; as it was granted him, so that the fire of God did enkindle his offering, and received his prayer in the love-fire; and in the sweet savour of the offering it was brought by the spirit of God in the power of the light into a holy substance, and it is rightly said, His offering was acceptable before God.

40. The offering alone could not have been able to have done it, only the faith which did idea or lay hold on the promised Messiah in the offering, which apprehended the Covenant, and the true, very precious and dear offering, the same did effect it. The offering was only a figure of that which was therein accomplished and performed , as the outward world is only a figure of the inward spiritual world, whereby the spiritual world doth introduce itself into a figure and essence, and beholds itself therein, as in a looking-glass. 41. By Cain’s offering we rightly understand the verbal Christen¬ dom, the titular Christians, in the spiritual Babylonical harlotry, the type and image of whom is Cain. And as Cain in his offering sought only the outward world, might and pleasure, and would be an out¬ wardly adopted and received child, God should permit his evil beast to be accepted and offered up ; he desired to be God’s acceptable child with the selfhood in the Serpent’s ens and falsehood; he was an impenitent proud man, who thought to be a lord of the world, and to domineer over Abel and his posterity. And just thus is the antichristian Church upon the earth; it also buildeth churches and altars,

preacheth, singeth and tinkleth, and doth likewise offer in the bequeathed Covenant and Testament of Christ, and so covereth itself with the offering of Christ, and will be an outwardly accepted and adopted son, notwithstanding that its offering is not accepted in the Covenant and Testament of Christ, nor brought to substance. 42. The cause and ground of it is this: Men depend and rely only barely and nakedly upon the offering, and teach that the offerings take away sin, [and teach that] Christ’s Testaments do absolve sin. But as little as the offering of Cain was acceptable before God and took away his sin, and as little as Cain’s desire was introduced into the divine substance, so as to have the divine fire to enkindle in his offering and receive his faith’s desire into it, even so little also doth the verbal [liplabouring] Christendom enjoy the offering of Christ in his humanity. It must be an Abel alone that doth enjoy it; the titular mouthChristian attains only the smoke of the true offering. It must be only a right, hungry, thirsty, converted soul, which desireth wholly and fully to depart from the Serpent’s ens and all vanity of this world, and striveth to mortify the Serpent and all vain will, in the death of Christ, and desireth to arise in a new will, totally resigned in all submission in God.

43. This true hungry will offereth rightly with Abel, and its offering is received into the holy fire of Christ, and formed [or amassed] in Christ’s humanity into a substance. There must be earnestness and power, which earnestness stirreth the love-fire of Christ in his Testament, so that it doth enkindle itself in the desire; and then the desire becomes a true right faith, for there is no right faith without divine taking.1 44. When man’s desire introduceth its hunger with earnest sighing and prayer of introversion, resignation, and departing from vanity into the offering of Christ, even then the soul’s desire doth, in the heavenly essentiality, in the humanity of Christ, upon the high altar of God, form itself into a substance. The hungry desire becomes in the Word of God, in Christ’s Testaments, flesh, a heavenly supernatural flesh; and this flesh is the true offering of God, which God taketh to his habitation, and not the bestial mortal man. 45. In this holy substance alone is the true faith of Abel, without this there is only an historical painted and feigned faith, a Cain’s offer¬ ing, which doth not take away sin: for sin must always be brought into the judgment of God wherein it was born, and the holy love-fire

1 Comprehension, amassment or formation. of God must drown and wash it away, else there is no forgiveness. Neither offering nor Covenant doth avail anything without it; also no going to church, neither singing nor devout shewing doth attain it. Nothing else at all doth it but only the hungry, desiring faith through the alone offering in the blood and death of Christ, where the desire doth wholly die to its selfhood in the death of Christ, and arise in Christ’s resurrection with a true faith and Christianity, not in a specious shew of holiness, but in essence, in words and works. 46. For he is yet far from a Christian, who merely calls himself a Christian [or is only so termed], but he is one who is horn in the offering of his humanity in him. Neither Covenant nor laws avail anything before God, but a new creature. No cathedral, stone church, meeting-house or hypocrisy, or whatsoever it be called, can inherit God’s kingdom, but only and alone the true living offering of the new regeneration, arising from the Covenant of Promise in Paradise, through the quickening Word in the offering of Christ. 47. It only and alone is the temple of the holy Spirit, where God’s word is taught and taken; without that, is Cain, with his glistering stone church, full of pride and stinking ambition, the great building of Babylon, where the language of God’s word, viz. of the written word, is confounded and divided into manifold contentions and languages, where there is nothing but wrangling, jangling and snarling about the letters, and no true, real, living, effectual and powerful knowledge.

48. Now where the living knowledge of Christ is, there is the altar of God in all places, where the hungry soul may offer the true acceptable holy offering, in prayer; there it may introduce the prayer in the Word, in its hunger, into a substantial faith. 49. Not that we would hereby wholly abolish and raze down the stone churches ; but we teach the Temple of Christ, which ought to be brought along [in the heart] into the stone church, or else the whole business of the stone church is only a hypocritical antichristian whore¬ dom, a Cain’s offering, both of the preacher and the hearer: so that one is not a whit better than another, unless he enter through the true door, Christ, in spirit and power in the Temple of Christ, into the stone church, or at least resolve to fix, betake and fasten himself there into such an earnest desire [that he will take and hold fast only that which is good for the amendment of his life]. Else Cain goeth to church to offer, and cometh out again a killer of his brother. 50. As it often appears, that when men in the stone churches have taken and amassed [to their minds a deal of] revilings, reproaches and

censures [that have fallen from the false smoky Cain-like fury and pretended zeal of the preachers], then they forthwith come withal and murder Abel, and Christ’s members: as this spirit hath many hundred times found by experience; and that, only for the sake of the Temple of Christ. 51. Now if we would rightly consider of the offering of Cain, then we must look into the very essence of his will and desire, for he also would offer and be acceptable to God. But he loved only his ownhood and self-full self; his aim and endeavour was not to be or become a new creature, that God should so take away his sins in the offering from him, but he would still remain the old Cain; and so offer to God, that he might be so accepted with him : the devil came before God in the form of an angel. 52. Cain knew not1 his evil serpentine property, the poor soul was captivated therewith, and had set itself up in the Serpent’s wit and pride, it would needs be an outwardly adopted child and heir of God, the offering must make reconciliation for him; as Babel doth, which taketh also the mantle of Christ upon her, and saith, Christ hath undertaken and suffered for all my sins upon the cross, I cannot purchase or do anything for myself, my works avail nothing before God, I need only believe that Christ hath done it, and comfort myself therewith, and then I am already justified and acquitted from all my transgressions.

53. Thus she cometh before God, and thanketh God that he hath paid the reckoning and score, in his Son, and offereth with Cain and the Pharisee in the Temple, and remaineth in herself a brother-slayer with Cain : and this is the Babylonical fruit. Like as Cain would take the offering upon him for a cloak and covering, so also his succeeding Church taketh on it the offering of Christ for a cloak and covert of its sins and false murder; and covereth its murderous spirit, so that men must call it a holy devout Christian. 54. Saint Paul must serve their turn thereto, when he saith, I do that I would not, now if I do it, it is not I, but sin that dwelleth in my flesh-, but that he saith, Now then, with my mind I serve God, but with the flesh the law of sin. The same, Cain will not understand, how the mind must, with¬ out intermission, rule and reign over the sinful will and desire of the flesh, and mortify the lust. 55. Saint Paul speaketh of the heavenly Abel-like desire, how sin must be mortified in the flesh, and not rule over the mind, as it did in

1 Or did not acknowledge. Cain, when he saw his brother was accepted before God, and that he himself was not. Then the murdering spirit arose in his mind, which should have been mortified in the offering by true repentance and conversion. 56. Thus also goeth Babel under the mantle of Christ, which offereth also to God, and thanketh him for the offering of Christ; but itself remaineth in the mind of the Cainical brother-slayer, in pride, covetousness, envy and anger, in persecution, in war and contention. It fighteth about the offering, and about the outward covering, lest it should be stripped thereof; and doth [in the meantime] fatten itself under it, with the bestial offerings of the fatness of the earth, and still remains the Cainical beast, and doth also continually murder Abel in Christ’s members, and comforteth itself with the death of Christ: the same must be a covert for the false murdering spirit. 57. The heart and mind is far from the new creature. It is only the old Cainical brother-slayer, which bemantles itself with Christ’s offering, and offers with Cain; such, and nothing better, remains now of Christianity1 among all sects, except the children of Christ, who are here and there hidden with Abel.

58. Cain’s Church was never more potent and predominant upon the earth than it is even at this time, whereas, notwithstanding, men cry out with full mouth-cry and great ostentation, Come all hither: we have found the offering of Abel in Christ. Yes, forsooth, dear Babel, thou hast indeed found the mantle of Christ; but behold thy Cain-like heart, and thou wilt see whether thou offerest with Abel from the new creature, or from the false brother-slaying spirit. Where are thy fruits? where is love and righteousness? where is truth? where is patience and meekness? Where is the mind that with Paul serveth God? Where art thou, thou fair Christian Church upon the earth? art thou not become a murdering den of the devil? Now shew thy Christian virtues; art thou not full of contention and murder, both in the Church and without the Church? Thy mouth is only a prater of God’s kingdom, like as Cain’s mouth prated of the offering, but his heart was a murderer. 59. Thus likewise men do prate in the stone houses of the mantle and offering of Christ, and yet in the meanwhile, in this prate and babble, do murder the children of Christ, condemn and judge them, and make a whole heap and crew of reviling devouring wolves, that do all cry out, snarl and snap; and none knoweth where the hind is

which they hunt, save only that the devil doth thus act and drive on his sport by them; so that the true, real offering of Christ may remain covered and hidden, and be only as a mystery in this world. 60. For we poor children of Eve do sojourn here in this cottage in a strange lodging,1 wherein the devil in God’s anger is host. We dwell upon the cursed earth, where the devil rideth over our soul and body, and at all times tempteth us: we had need be wary and watchful, and at no time secure : it costeth body and soul. Of Cain’s Killing1 of his Brother, viz. of the Proud, Haughty, Antichristian, Hypocritical Church upon the Earth; and also of the True Christendom hidden under this Antichristian Church !• TV Then the devil in God’s anger, in the wrath of the eternal VV nature, had introduced his throne and seat into the human property, and awakened the centre of the wrathful nature in him, there forthwith arose up such a desire out of the awakened anger’s property in the human ens or seed, in the propagation; out of which property Babel, viz. the antichristian Church, is begotten and brought forth.

2. And now as God had incorporated and promised the SerpentBruiser of this false property (who should bruise the head of the Serpent’s ens and will or desire) unto the heavenly ens of man, which disappeared in and to Paradise, which word of promise was a mystery, and a very secret hiddenness to the earthly man; even so also the false Cainical Church of hypocrisy and seeming holiness, whose heart and desire is only [of] the outward world, hath gotten aloft this whole time, and hath the outward dominion and name as if it offered to God. But the true, real Christian Church is hidden under it, as a very secret Mystery, and is not known of the Cainical Church. 3. Cain’s Church sets forth itself very devoutly, and glisters on all sides with specious ceremonies and pompous ostentation; giving forth that it is holy, righteous, and good; that it also offers in the Covenant of Christ; but its heart is only a glozing, soothing, bravely attired harlot, full of Cainical murder, reviling and blasphemy, full of censure and self-speculation in pride, in covetousness and high mindedness. But Abel’s Church is hidden under it in great plainness, and with no respect and reputation, and is accounted but foolish in reference to the glittering show of Cain; and is continually slain by Cain in its simplicity.

4. Now saith reason, What, had God any pleasure herein, that he suffered Cain to kill Abel; and why is it still to this day that the children of God are slain, despised, contemned, reproached, mocked, scorned, and cried down for false by Cain, viz. by his posterity ? One cause hereof is this : 5. Prince Lucifer was a hierarch in the kingdom or place of this world (as Christ even calleth him a prince of this world, viz. in the kingdom of darkness in the anger of God), and was cast for his pride’s sake out of the light into the darkness. 6. But seeing God then created another prince, viz. Adam, in and for this place, with whom he bound himself even with his deepest love before the foundation of the world in the dear and precious name Jesus, that he would break down and destroy the throne and kingdom of proud prince Lucifer in the human property, and overcome and be predominant with love; thence forthwith arose his envy and wrath against man. 7. Secondly, the cause is this : In the fall of man the wrath of the eternal and also of the temporal and inchoative nature obtained the superior sway and dominion in the human property. For the kingdom of heaven did extinguish in Adam and Eve when as they became earthly; and in the room and stead thereof the kingdom of the devil did awake in the Serpent’s wit and pride in them ; for the human will1 had broken itself off from God, and was entered into selfhood, and no longer understood anything of the Mystery of God’s kingdom.

8. But seeing that the kingdom of God did again bud and break forth in the aim of the Covenant in Abel and the children of God, the devil’s kingdom and will, in the Serpent-monster, could not brook it. Also the love-kingdom is a great enmity against the wrath of the eternal nature according to the dark property, for the human essence was become, according to the dark world’s property, as to the soul a half devil, and as to the outward world’s vanity a half beast, in which beast the false, subtle, crafty, wicked, lustful, proud, covetous, envious and angry Serpent’s worm did sit, infected with the devil’s will. 9. This wrathful, vile, malicious, monstrous beast would live in its own self property; therefore the angelical virgin-child, which should destroy and possess the kingdom of this evil beast, did appear against him in Abel. This was now a great enmity, for the anger of God had captivated man, and would work and rule in him; therefore God’s love broke forth out of the anger, as a light out of the fire, and would kill the anger, and change it into love, and help again poor man’s image, and redeem it from the eternal anger and death.