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

of this world’s being and substance, should be buried and put into an eternal sepulchre, where the substance of the twofold body shall lie in its original mother; and leave the own-will in this eternal grave in death, that so the Spirit of God might alone live, rule and will in the spirit of the creature, viz. in the soul: and the life of man might be only his instrument, wherewith he might work and will how and what he please. 15. For so it must be, that the human will might be brought again into the only will of the Deity, and [the] eternity; for, in the begin¬ ning, when God breathed the soul into the flesh, it was in the eternal living Word (John i), and God’s Spirit did form it into a likeness of the Deity, viz. into a creatural soul. Which soul had turned itself away from the only eternal Word of God into a selfhood, that so it might be manifest in evil and good, and rule in the unlikeness or distemperature. 16. This unlikeness or distemperature should be buried or put again into the likeness or temperature, viz. into the essence out of which the soul and body did arise. That is, each essence’s property should return again into its mother: and the mother is a twofold cave, viz. the inward spiritual and divine kingdom, and the outward visible, sensible, palpable kingdom of the external world, wherein Abraham would have his burying place.

17. For the outward kingdom remains for ever, for it is produced out of the eternal, as a model, platform or visible image of the inward spiritual kingdom. But the dominion in the stars and four elements doth not remain for ever in such ownhood or propriety; but only one element [remains], wherein the four are understood, but in equal accord and harmony, in just and equal weight, number and measure, in one only love-will; where the ascending, domineering, stirring might of the divided figure, four elements, doth no longer rule, but the soft, meek and still humility, in a pleasant, lovely, delightful air1 [or still, harmonious sound]. 18. The compacted property of the Word, in the soul of the out¬ ward world, viz. in the ownhood or selfness of the third Principle, doth cease; the outward spirit of the world is changed into the inward, that the inward might rule and govern wholly through the outward (which at present the great motion of the enkindled might of the dark world doth withhold), and carry in its dominion; in which [dark world’s property, which is now so predominant] the devil is an aspiring, assaulting prince. And all things work and tend to the Great

Severation; that so the properties of the three Principles might each become creatural in themselves, to which end the eternity hath brought itself into a Fiat, or desire, to the formation of the essence, viz. of the Grand Mystery;1 that thus one might be manifest in the other; the evil in the good, and the good in the evil; and each thing might have its own seat and habitation. Of Abraham’s sending forth his Servant to take a wife for his Son Isaac : what we are to understand under this figure i. abraham strongly engageth his servant, who was the chief xkruler in his family government, and laid an oath upon him, that he should not take a wife unto his son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom he dwelt, but go unto his kindred, and to his father’s house, and take him a wife (Gen. xxiv. 2, 3). Reason doth look upon this figure in a mean and simple manner, as if Abraham did hate and abominate this people among whom he dwelt, because of their evil conversation; but the Spirit of God in Moses who hath thus noted down this figure, hath his secret and mysterious meanings couched herein; and playeth with the whole written history of the first book of Moses,1 as with a most pleasant interlude; and pointeth continually by the outward act of the external man upon the spiritual figure of the spiritual eternal man, in the kingdom of Christ.

2. The servant must swear unto Abraham an oath, that he would take a wife unto his son out of his family, stock and kindred. Where¬ fore did Abraham lay an oath upon him, whereas the servant must obey his master without taking an oath; and Isaac would not have taken a wife contrary to his father’s mind and will? But the spirit of Moses doth look here into the internal figure: Isaac stands here in the figure of Christ; and Abraham’s servant stands in the figure of nature; and the Canaanites do stand in the figure of the introduced Serpent’s ens, out of which the rebellious, selfish will of man’s selfhood is arisen, viz. in the figure of the bestial man, which shall not inherit the king¬ dom of God. These three the spirit of Moses doth set before him in the type, and thereby points at the true man which shall subsist eternally. The inward figure is thus: 3. Abraham requires his servant, who was the chief in his whole family. Abraham here betokens God the Father; and the servant, by whom he governeth, betokens nature. Nature must here in its might and strength swear unto God, that is, deeply engage and essentially bind itself, that it will not take unto Isaac, that is, to the Christians, viz. to God’s children, a wife, that is, a matrix, of the Canaanites, viz. of the Serpent’s ens; or associate with it to the propagation of the Serpent’s ens;

that it will not assume the poison of the dark world’s property unto it, viz. the Canaanitish property, and introduce it into the children of Christ for their wife, viz. into the tincture of Venus, which is the true female matrix in men and women; but that it will join the true Adamical man, which God had created in his image (viz. the true human essence proceeding from the first original tree out of the first root, viz. from Abraham’s stock, who betokens Adam) unto the ens of Christ, viz. to the true Isaac in the children of Christ.

4. Understand this thus: Adam hath introduced into our flesh and soul the ens of the Serpent and the devil, which nature hath taken into soul and body; and hath begotten and brought forth therein a selfish, rebellious will, which is disobedient unto God. 5. But now, seeing that God had again introduced the holy ens of his holy word into Isaac, which Abraham apprehended in the desire of faith, and represented the same here in Isaac, with a new twig spring¬ ing forth out of the corrupt tree of the human property, and born out of Christ’s spirit, thereupon nature, viz. God’s officer, must here deeply engage itself to God, and swear that it will no more take the Serpent’s ens for a wife, viz. for its beloved companion and yoke-fellow (understand [that it will not take its comfort] out of the poisonful Serpentine property of the introduced iniquity of the adverse opposite will). But God’s officer, viz. nature, must take essence and substance out of Abraham’s true climate, where Abraham’s home was, in Adam, viz. out of the right human essence; and bring the same to Isaac, viz. to Christ’s members in their heavenly spiritual holy ens of faith, as a spiritual woman, with whom the true man taketh delight in himself, with the heavenly matrix, in pure desire of love, and loveth his own nature in God’s love, and not in the Canaanitish selfish Serpent’s ens, in the apostate, rebellious, ungodly will; that so the new birth might be holy in its virginity as to the inward man.

6. For man, in his essence or being, doth stand in a twofold essence, viz. in the natural and [in the] supernatural; in the divine ens of the formed Word, and in the natural ens of the centre of nature in the Fiat, viz. in the divine desire; in which desire nature, and the bright-burning world, do take their original; which bright-flaming nature should not any more take the false lust of the bestial Serpent’s property into itself: of which the spirit here doth prophesy in the inward figure. 7. And Abraham’s servant said, How, if the woman will not follow me, shall I bring thy son again unto the land from whence thou earnest (Gen. xxiv. 5)? The meaning hereof in the inward understanding is this: Nature speaketh to God, and saith, How, if the right human ens will not follow me, seeing it hath a cleaving affection to the Serpent’s poison, shall I then bring thy son, viz. the holy heavenly ens, again into the land, viz. into the place from whence it came, along with me? That is, when God betrusteth the officer of nature with his holy ens, to bring the same into the human property, and to take the human ens for a wife of the heavenly man, then saith nature, viz. God’s officer, How then, if the woman (understand the human ens) will not follow me and come with this Isaac, that is, with the ens of Christ, into the true human land, viz. into the true Adamical paradisical tree, shall I bring thy son again, viz. thy holy ens, into the place of God?

8. And Abraham said, Beware thou that thou dost not bring my son thither again. The Lord God of heaven, which took me from my father’ s house, and from the land of my kindred, and that spake unto me, and swear also unto me, saying, Unto thy seed I will give this land ; he shall send his angel before thee, and thou shalt there take a wife unto my son. But if the woman will not follow thee, then thou art clear from the oath: only bring not my son thither again. And then the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and sware unto him concerning this matter (Gen. xxiv. 6-9). 9. The inward meaning is thus : God saith to his officer, nature, Have a care, that thou dost not go according to thy reason, and con¬ ceive another will, and bring my holy ens again thither from whence it is come, for it must dwell in man. The God of heaven, who hath taken the human ens from the eternal Word, from his eternal native country, which is the house of the eternal Father, who hath promised man the land of Canaan according to the paradisical property, and moreover hath sworn to him, he shall send his angel before thee; that so thou mayest take a wife unto my son there, even where the angel, viz. the divine will, shall guide and direct thee. That is, when God will betroth and bind himself with his Word and power in his children, with an eternal marriage, then he sendeth his angel before, viz. his will, into the human ens; that the same doth convert and turn itself to God.

10. The nature of the mind must not in its will of reason take upon it to lord and master it, and doubt at what God will do, when the office or charge of a servant is laid upon it; it must not make itself its looking-glass, and doubt, when it seeth that the soul lieth captivated in the ens of the Serpent; it must not think with itself, I shall not here arrive [with a prosperous success] with my divine message; but it must leave that to God, and discharge its message according to God’s command, and commit it to God, how he will bring the woman, viz. the human spirit, and betroth and join it with the son Isaac, that is, with Christ, in the divine ens. 11. But if the woman will not follow thee, then thou art clear of the oath ; that is, if the human will, when I send my will before thee in man, will not follow thee, then the messenger, viz. God’s officer, with the sent heaven’s ens, is clear. Only, bring not my son thither again; that is, bring not the heavenly ens again into that essence out of which it is come; but stand still therewith, and hear whereunto God shall direct and incline thee; for the rain from heaven shall not ascend up again empty without fruit. So likewise God’s word and command shall not return home empty, but work and bring forth fruit in its formed wisdom.

12. If one man will not, then the same word falls upon another which is capable of it. Therefore nature, viz. the messenger, officer, advocate or petitioner of the heavenly message, must not bring the word with the divine ens back again into that place, viz. into the inward divine voice. For what God once speaketh forth by his Word in power, that shall and must stand in a divine form, to the divine contemplation. Nature must go forward as a messenger his way, and declare that the Lord hath given Isaac all his goods; that is, he hath given to Christ all his goods; and desires now a wife, viz. man, who should give himself in marriage with Isaac in Christ. 13. And the servant laid bis hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and srpare unto him concerning this matter (Gen. xxiv. 9). That is, when God put his holy word with the heavenly ens or essence,1 viz. with the formed wisdom, into the natural ens of Mary, as into God’s servant, and God and man became one person, then the human nature sware under the thigh of the Father’s eternal nature unto God,2 that it would obey God, and henceforward go forth, and seek the human wife, and marry it to the divine ens. All which is to be understood in Christ’s person, who in his assumed humanity, as Abraham’s, or God his Father’s, servant, in the natural property, should go forth with his

1 Did dive, immerse, or baptise. 2 Or, in God. word and seek this woman, viz. his bride and spouse, which the angel of the Lord, viz. God’s will, should bring unto him. 14. And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master, and departed ; and had with him all sorts of his master’s goods: and arose and went to Mesopotamia, the city ofNahor (Gen. xxiv. 10). Here now the spirit looks upon the process of God; and intimates, how God sent his angel or messenger, Gabriel, with the voice of nature to the human nature in Nahor, viz. to Adam’s nature in the ens of Mary; in which voice the living holy word was hidden with the heavenly living ens; and gave also the Father’s nature ten camels; that is, the ten forms of the three Principles to the natural and supernatural fire-life. Namely, seven forms of the centre of nature, and three forms of the three distinctions of the Principles; all which are God’s camels whereby he beareth and carrieth all things. 15. And the goods of the Lord are the formed wisdom of the great wonders and powers. All these, God’s officer took along with him, when he had the divine word in himself, and introduced the same into the human natural ens, even into the ens of Mary; or awakened, opened or manifested the same therein; as a man might express the great deeds and works of God; whereas indeed the outward, com¬ pacted, bound-up, sensual tongue, cannot give words sufficient enough to the deep mental understanding.

16. For here the spirit of Moses doth take the angel’s message along with Isaac’s figure, and playeth externally in the figure, with Isaac and Rebecca, as Christ’s figure; and inwardly he playeth with Mary, as Adam’s essence, and with Christ’s, as the virginlike divine ens. 17. And the spirit of Moses saith further, And the servant caused the camels to kneel down without the city by a well of water at evening time, even about the time that women use to go out to draw water (Gen. xxiv. 11). This signifieth and noteth out internally, how the mystery of the nature of the three Principles, being the bearers or carriers of the formed wisdom of God, hath laid itself down by the divine fountain without the city. The city betokens the hidden mysteries of the divine holy ens of the formed wisdom; about which, the nature of the three Principles1 hath laid itself; for nature is external, and a carrier of the mysteries of God: it lieth by the wellspring of God, viz. by the birth of the holy Trinity. 1 Or, the three Principles of nature. 468 The outward figure is thus explained: 18. At evening: that is, in the last days of the world, or towards the evening time in man. When the eternal night draws near, then God bringeth his bearer,1 viz. the will of the Father’s nature, which lieth down by the fountain of the divine property in man, and will there give his camels, viz. his will, drink. Like as towards the evening, that is, in the last time, he did lay his will to the human nature in the ens of Mary, by the true wellspring of the Covenant, and there gave the human nature drink.

19. And as the servant of Abraham, standing by the well of water in Mesopotamia, did purpose and endeavour to fulfil his master’s will, and yet did not look upon himself [and cast about in his reason] how it should be, but commended his cause to God, to do as he would please, and only set a lot before him, that he might see what way God would lead and direct him; even so also the spirit of Moses doth here play in the figure of Christ. For nature in the ens or seed of Mary was the servant of God, which pitched down before the ens of the Covenant, as an instrument of God, and gave God the honour, and committed it unto him, how he would bring it to the holy virginity in the holy ens of the Covenant in Mary; as here Abraham’s servant commended it to God, when he came before the fountain, how he would lead him and whither, or what he should do; that God might bring him to the true virgin, whom God would give his master’s son. 20. So likewise it was not effected by and from the purpose, under¬ standing or power of nature, that nature was brought to the holy ens in the Covenant, and married the divine Virgin in the ens of the Word of God. Nature understood nothing of it, how it should be brought to pass, or what it should do to purchase or accomplish the same. It knew not the holy virginity in the Covenant. But when God’s command did sound or speak unto it, by the angel Gabriel, then it gave God the honour, and committed it to him what he would do and work through it; that God might espouse it to the virgin of wisdom. As here Abraham’s servant prayed unto God, that he would bring to the fountain of water the right virgin which God had chosen for him.

21. For by the well of God nature shall know what kind of virgin shall come and give the camels, or the bearer, nature, drink. As Rebecca came forth by God’s instigation, and gave the camels of Abraham’s servants drink, so likewise the divine virginity in the ens of Mary came and gave the essence in the seed of Mary, drink ; and took the human nature for a spouse and consort. 22. And the human nature in the Covenant, in the seed of Abraham, in his ens of faith (when he apprehended the word of promise in the faith, which was his righteousness), had the fair golden-forehead-jewel1 in itself, and the two bracelets, which it hung on the word of God, which moved itself in the angel’s message in Mary, where then the ens of faith was espoused or married with the now-moving voice; which motion beset and embraced nature; as here Abraham’s servant, when he saw that God had brought to him the true virgin, he drew forth the free gift of his master, Abraham, and hung it on the virgin. 23. Thus also nature, in the Covenant, in the seed of Mary, did put the fair jewel (which God promised Adam in Paradise, and opened in Abraham, which Abraham apprehended in the spirit and faith), upon the voice of God, viz. on the living moving word of God, which sounded in the angel’s message, in Abraham’s ens of faith; and here¬ with also, itself.

24. For Abraham had laid hold on the word of the Covenant in faith, so that it was formed into an ens, but not wholly into the humanity; and this ens was the fair jewel, which nature bare as a hidden treasure in itself, until the limit of the Covenant, even towards the evening of the world; and then God’s living voice sounded into nature in the seed of the woman. And so nature, viz. God’s servant, gave forth the hidden pearl, and hung it on the forehead of the virgin¬ like love of Jesus, which was moved in the angel’s message; and came now to the fountain to draw forth the shut-up virginity, in man, from the divine ens. And there it obtained its bridegroom, viz. the soul of man, with the Father’s jewels and great goods : With this the spirit of Moses doth here play, and holds forth a secret intimation under the outward act. 25. Abraham’s servant made him a lot, to know the virgin by, which was this : She that should come and give him, and all his servants and camels drink, that even she should be the right one (Gen. xxiv. 14). Thus also God hath planted this lot, and put it into the nature of the soul and the right humanity: that the virgin, which should refresh the soul with the true humanity out of God’s love-fountain, the same the soul should desire for its eternal spouse.

26. As it came to pass in Mary, when the angel greeted her, he refreshed the soul, and also her seed of the soul’s nature, proceeding from the woman’s tincture, whereby this soul’s essence brought its desire towards the sweet spring-water of the fountain of Jesus, and drank of this water of the love of Jesus; whereby and wherein it was married to the sweet love of Jesus, in Jehova. So that in this seed of Mary, in the limit of the Covenant, a manly virgin of God was con¬ ceived; which is Christ Jesus in our humanity, and in the divine ens in the power of the word of God; a formed God, according to the creature; but according to the divine voice, God all in all. Understand, a formed God according to the human property, viz. a visible image of the Deity, and therein the whole invisible immense God in Trinity in essence. 27. This whole figure stands in the process of the new birth, and shews how it should come to pass. For Abraham in his faith stands in the figure of Adam, viz. in God the Father’s figure; who created him in his very image and likeness. And Isaac his son stands in the figure of the humanity of Christ, viz. in the Son’s figure.

28. God the Father hath given all his goods, understand, of the formed Word, viz. all created and procreated beings, in the place of this world, unto his Son, who manifested himself in the divine Image of the humanity; even as Abraham gave all his goods to Isaac, who was the type of Christ. 29. And as Abraham would take a wife unto his son Isaac of his kindred, and sent out his chief officer to take a wife unto his son, and yet did not beforehand name the same unto him, and tell him who she should be; but bade him go only to his father’s house, and to his kindred, and see what woman God would bring unto him for his son Isaac to take; so likewise God hath sent his officer (who ruleth chief in his whole house, that is, dominion, which is the voice of his revealed Word) into the world, to the right Adamical man, and not to the Canaanitish Serpent’s ens; but to the disappeared virginlike image of God, and to the living soul, which is of God the Father’s house, that is, property; and looks out, about a virgin, for a wife to his Son, Jesus Christ; that is, he woos for the heavenly virginity in man, which dis¬ appeared in Adam; for this virgin God’s officer of nature doth woo, by his servants which he sendeth forth, and bids them make suit for this virginity, for a wife to his Son ; and join it with him in marriage.

30. And as Abraham did not name aforehand the virgin unto his officer, but commanded him to go unto his father’s house, and there look up unto God, and see where he should bid him make suit, and take that virgin which God should choose and bring unto him; so likewise God hath sent his officer, viz. his holy word, by his servants, into the world to the true man; not to the Serpent-beasts, for these hear not God’s word; they have no hearing in them thereto; like as the Canaanites in the Serpent’s ens were even wholly bestial, and half dead as to the divine hearing, by reason of their iniquity and self will. 31. And he causeth his servants, viz. officers, to sit down by the fountain of his holy word; with command, that they should in their office and charge committed unto them, call upon God, and pray, and teach his word, until God draweth the virgin’s heart, and brings her to the fountain of his word, to draw water out of the wellspring of God’s word. 32. And when this virgin, understand the inward divine image, which was obscured in Adam, draws water in the fountain of the divine word, then the officer, Abraham’s servant, viz. the Father’s will, speaketh in the soul, saying, Give me to drink of thy sweet water of the eternal virginity; and the precious virgin saith to the will of God, Drink, my Lord; I will also draw [water] for thy camels. Under¬ stand by the camels the essences of the human nature proceeding from the Father’s property; and by the virgin, understand the nature and property of the light in the love, viz. the essence of the divine ens of the angelical world, which disappeared in Adam, and now cometh again to draw water for its bridegroom the soul.

33. And now when the officer, viz. God’s will, with his camels, viz. the essences of nature, is refreshed with drink by the virgin ; then the forth-sent will of the Father, in the essence of nature, giveth thanks unto the true Deity; that God hath brought this virgin unto him; that he should take this virgin of the love and humanity of Jesus Christ for a wife. 34. And forthwith the will of God the Father, taketh the precious jewels which God did incorporate into Adam’s soul, even into the light of his life, in Paradise, with the precious name Jesus; yea, which jewels were incorporated in the centre of the soul before the foundation of the world was laid (Eph. i. 4), which have been wholly hidden to the soul; which jewels are the holy fire of the hidden love-desire, and hangeth the same on the noble virgin of the heavenly world’s essence; as a golden ear-ring1 of half a shekel weight. 35. This golden jewel [or ear-ring of half a shekel weight] is the new heavenly essentiality which came down or proceeded from 1 Or, jewel for the forehead. heaven 5 as Christ said, That he was come from heaven (John iii. 13); there he means the ens proceeding or coming from thence, which was the half-holy humanity, viz. the holy ens in the word, which did unite itself to the disappeared heavenly ens in the humanity; so that this golden jewel of half a shekel weight belongs to the divine sound or word, which cometh into the humanity, and is hung upon the heavenly virginity in man.

36. And now when the marriage is celebrated, and the virginlike ens betrothed to this holy ens, so that the virginity receiveth this jewel proffered unto it; then it is a whole shekel of gold; half of the Deity, and half of the humanity. 37. And the two bracelets, which Abraham’s servants, viz. the will of the Father in the soul’s nature, putteth on the virgin, which are of ten shekels weight of gold, they are the ten forms of the holy fire which are hung with the new introduced humanity of Jesus Christ, his divine ens, on the disappeared virginity; whereby it again receiveth its true life. 38. And when this virgin hath thus received this jewel and brace¬ lets, then it rejoiceth, and runneth to her brother Laban, viz. to the third Principle of the outward humanity, proceeding from the limus of the earth; that is, to the outward soul; and telleth this unto him; that is, when the virgin’s image doth receive the ens of Christ, viz. this fair and precious jewel of half a shekel, together with the holy fire of the word, then it penetrates, with its voice of the divine essence, through the outward man (viz. its brother), and declareth the divine power; whereby the outward man (understand the third Principle) is glad, and exceedingly rejoiceth with the virgin of the inward man, and runneth also unto the fountain of the word of God, and prayeth God that he would be pleased to come in unto him with his word. As here Laban prayed Abraham’s servant to come in to him; which Abraham’s servant, viz. God’s will, doth willingly, and turns in unto the outward man.

39. As Abraham’s servant did, thus doth the human nature like¬ wise, when it heareth the voice of Christ sounding in the inward man, and seeth the ornament which the holy Spirit hath put on the virgin’s image. Then Laban, viz. the brother of the inward image, doth earnestly entreat the will of God to come in. 40. And when the will of God (here typified by Abraham’s servant) is come in unto Bethuel and Laban, viz. into the third Principle of the humanity, then the officer of God, viz. the word of God which cometh into man, saith, I will not eat of thy food (understand of the outward life’s essence) except I obtain iny errand : that thou givest my master, viz. my master’s son (that is, the humanity of Jesus Christ) thy sister, viz. the heavenly virginity, to wife. And he relateth the mission or errand of God to the human nature; that is, he openeth to it the divine understanding, so that even the natural man doth learn to understand the will of God, in which, before, it was blind. 41. And then the poor nature with the soul gives up itself into God’s will. And then thus speak Laban and Bethuel, This cometh from the Lord; we shall not speak anything against it; behold, here is thy place, do with me and with my inward [ground] as thou pleasest. Here is Rebecca, viz. the formed word of the heavenly property; take it, and marry it to thy master’s son, viz. to the humanity of Jesus Christ, according to thy good-liking, as the Lord hath spoken.

42. We see here very exactly how the spirit of Moses doth speak in the figure, for he sets Laban, viz. Bethuel’s son, before the father; viz. the outward soul before the inward fire-soul, the air-soul before the right fire-soul; albeit they are not two, but one, yet they are under¬ stood in two Principles. For the fire-soul gives answer through the airsoul; the fire-soul useth the uncompacted tongue, but the air-soul useth the compacted formed language. 43. Therefore the spirit of Moses doth set Laban, Rebecca’s brother, first, as if the business were done by Laban. To signify, that when God’s officer, viz. the will of God, in the drawing of the Father, doth come into man, and seeketh a lodging, and the virgin, then the outward spirit of man must give its promise; for it is turned away from God and the true resignation: Now it must again give its will wholly and fully into God’s will. 44. And when it comes to pass that the outward soul, with the inward fire-soul, doth wholly consent unto this holy match, and give up itself to God, then the will of God, viz. the officer, in the drawing of the Father, doth bow himself again towards the true Deity; that is, he cometh again unto its seat and place, and brings forth out of Abraham’s treasure (that is, out of God the Father’s treasury of his formed wisdom) the silver and golden jewels, and hangeth them on Rebecca, viz. the heavenly virginity.

45. For these jewels do not belong to Laban, or Bethuel (under¬ stand to the outward, or inward fire-soul) while it is here in this earthly life, but to the true virgin, Rebecca, proceeding from the divine ens of the formed holy Word, according to the angelical world’s property; viz. according to the second Principle, viz. the inward spiritual new man, which is, with Rebecca, married to the right Isaac, Christ. And therefore the spirit of Moses sets down how Abraham’s servant gave Rebecca the golden ear-ring and bracelets, with silver and golden jewels, and raiment; but unto Laban, viz. unto Rebecca’s brother, and her mother also, he gave spices1 (Gen. xxiv. 53). 46. O thou wonderful God! how plainly dost thou set forth the great mysteries! The silver and golden jewels are the treasure of the divine wisdom in the word of life, which treasure the divine Word brings along with it to the right virginity, which died in Adam, and is again brought in Christ to its beloved; and giveth it wholly and peculiarly for the ornament of the banquet. And the raiment is the new humanity, wherewith she cometh before her bridegroom; and the spices, which were given to Laban and the mother, are the power and virtues of the Holy Spirit, which are freely given to the fire-soul and the air-soul, by the coming in of the tender humanity of Jesus Christ.

47. For the outward soul is not in this life time (seeing yet the earthly body adheres unto it) clothed with the new raiment; neither is the silver and golden jewel of the humanity of Jesus Christ given in this life time wholly unto the peculiar possession and power of the fire-soul; but the spices only, that is, the virtue and pleasant aspect of the Holy Spirit; for the fire-soul might become proud and haughty again, if it should have this virgin in its own power, as Lucifer and Adam did. Therefore the fire-soul must here in this life time remain in its Principle; and in the air-soul, viz. in the third Principle, where the earthly evil man liveth, it must take on it the cross of Christ. 48. But virgin Rebecca, or Sophia, with her bridegroom, Christ, remain in their own, viz. in the second Principle, in heaven; for St Paul saith, Our conversation is in heaven (Phil. iii. 20); understand, the conversation of the virgin [Sophia], where she, with her beloved, Christ, stands in wedlock; and Christ and virgin Sophia are one person : understand the true manly virgin of God, which Adam was before his Eve when he was man and woman, and yet neither of them, but a virgin of God.

49. And now, when these nuptials are celebrated, then Abraham’s servant, with all his servants, sits down with his obtained bride, and with father and mother at the table, and eat together the marriage feast (Gen. xxiv. 54). That is, when man, understand the inward virginlike spiritual man, is married to Christ, then God eateth of 1 Our text, precious things. man’s will and words; and again man eateth of God’s will and words. There they sit at one feast, and then ’tis truly said and applied, Who¬ soever heareth you, he heareth me. Whosoever heareth these men to teach and speak of God, he heareth God speak, for they speak in the power of the Holy Spirit’s spices, and eat together of the great Supper of Christ. 50. O, what a very glorious and sumptuous feast is there kept, where this wedding day is celebrated in man ! which no Canaanitish serpent-man is worthy to know, or taste of; yea, he doth not experi¬ mentally taste of it to all eternity; neither knows he what meat or food is there eaten; also what internal joy is there, where Christ and virgin Sophia are bride and bridegroom ; and the inward and outward soul sit by the bride, and eat with her of this feast; which we leave to the consideration of the children of Christ, who have been at this wedding feast: No man else in this world understands it: none knows anything thereof, but the right Laban and Bethuel.

51. But this bridal doth not last continually, but when Abraham’s servant had obtained the virgin, and celebrated this feast and wedding day with the father and mother, and Laban; and had continued there all night, he arose up early in the morning, and said, Let me go unto my master. The inward figure stands thus: 52. When Christ hath married himself with virgin Sophia, viz. with the inward humanity, soon after, the voice of God soundeth in the soul, and saith, I will go away from thee with the virgin, and it is continually as if he would force away and depart from man. Then the poor soul must make continual prayers and supplications, that he would be pleased to tarry still longer with it; but the voice oftentimes sounds, Hinder me not, I must go, or make my journey, to my master, thou art vain, evil and sinful, I may not tarry with thee any longer. 53. And then the poor soul calleth virgin Rebecca, viz. Christ with his bride, and puts him in mind of his precious word and promise, in that He hath promised to remain with us even to the end of the world, and to make his abode in us (Matt, xxviii. 20). And thus one day upon another it is delayed, and yet Christ goeth with his bride into his native country, viz. into the second Principle, but the marriage is celebrated in all the three Principles.

54. A very excellent figure we have in this also: That when Rebecca went home with Abraham’s servant, and Isaac met her in the field, and she asked Abraham’s servant what man that was, and he told her that it was his master, Isaac, how she lighted off the camel, and put a veil before her eyes, and was ashamed; and how Isaac took her and carried her into his mother’s tent (Gen. xxiv. 61 et seq.). The inward figure is this: 55. When the inward disappeared humanity doth again obtain the precious jewel, and is quickened in the spirit of Christ, and discovers its beloved Christ in itself, then it falls down into the deepest humility before the holiness of God, and is ashamed that it hath lain so long captive in the bestial man, and that it was a queen, but hath lost its kingdom in Adam; then it veileth its own face before God’s glorious clarity, and humbleth itself. But Christ taketh her into his arms, and leads her into his mother’s tent, viz. into the heavenly world’s essence, from whence he is come with his heavenly essence, and there she becomes his wife; and thus Isaac is truly comforted for his mother, viz. for the disappeared matrix in the tincture of Venus which died in Adam, and which he again doth now obtain in virginlike chastity for his spouse : as here the history concerning Isaac soundeth.

56. And we seriously admonish the reader not to contemn, scorn or deride at our exposition, it is the true ground. For when Isaac met his bride, he came from the well Lahai-roi [from the fountain of the living and seeing one], as Moses saith (Gen. xxiv. 62). If any desire to understand our meaning and knowledge, he must then make towards this fountain, that so he may be received with Rebecca; and then he will see from what spirit this pen hath written, and in what number and voice1 it is arisen. 57. If any here see nothing, he may well blame himself for blind, and no man else. The Jews, and Turks, and also Babel, may here open their eyes wide, and look upon the figures of the Old Testament aright : they will even find them so. 1 Seal, vial or trumpet. How Abraham took another wife, of whom he begat six Sons to which he gave gifts; and unto his Son Isaac he gave all his goods; but the others he sent away from his Son Isaac while he yet lived; and also how he died, and was buried by his Sons, Ishmael and Isaacs what hereby is signified unto us

I. 'a jjt OSES saith, Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah, and WjLshe bare unto him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah (Gen. xxv. I, 2), from whom sprang forth six generations. But of Sarah Abraham begat only one son, at which the whole history pointeth; but of Keturah he begat six sons, concerning whom no peculiar or especial thing is mentioned, but only their families or generations. This is thus to be understood in the inward figure: Abraham and his Sarah must be first old, before he begat Isaac, to signify that Christ should be manifested in the flesh in the old age of the world. 2. Isaac was begotten and conceived of Abraham’s nature, and of the ens of faith in an old and almost dead matrix, as to the human nature, that so the divine ens might have the pre-eminence. But when Sarah died, Abraham took unto him Keturah, and soon begat of her six sons. Keturah doth in its name express the centre of nature. When we form the sensual uncompacted spirits of the letters in this word Keturah, then we understand that Keturah is a formed matrix of nature; which signifieth to us, that Abraham, after he had begotten the type of Christ in the ens of faith, should now beget his own like¬ ness as to Adam’s nature, out of the six properties of the natural spirit’s life, and also set forth and represent his own natural likeness; and therefore he must also have such a vessel thereunto.

3 . Sarah must bring forth but one son : to signify that the kingdom of mankind is given but to one; and that they all do belong to this one; and should in him become the same only one, as branches on one tree; which [one] should be Christ in all. 4. But here Abraham did now with Keturah beget six sons, accord¬ ing to the six properties of the formed nature, of the operation of the six days’ works ; and Isaac, that is, Christ, is the seventh, viz. the day of rest, or Sabbath, wherein the six sons should enter into rest; even as the six days of the creation, understand the six properties of the centre of nature (viz. the working spirit-life), do rest in the seventh: Thus the Spirit of God doth represent the figure in Abraham. 5. And we have here a very excellent figure against the reasonwise, who say, That whosoever is not born by nature in the ens of faith [that is, naturally, as it were, begotten of the seed of the woman, which works only by a particular election of God, as they feign] the same is hardened, and cannot attain to the adoption of God, he is not drawn by God, that he should come to the new birth. This figure quite strikes down their fiction, and shews the true ground; and first, it sets forth Isaac, viz. Christ, and declareth plainly that to him alone the kingdom of God is hereditary and peculiar, and that no man can have it any more for or from the right of nature; and how we are altogether cast out from thence with Adam, and have lost the same; as the children of Keturah were all cast out from the inheritance of Abraham’s goods, and Isaac alone did inherit them.

6. And he sets down hereby, how Adam’s children were also begotten of Abraham, and how he gave them gifts of his goods (Gen. xxv. 6); betokening how free gifts were given to Adam’s natural children, out of God the Father’s, and Christ’s, goods; as Abraham’s goods were given them of grace as a free gift. 7. For Abraham did not cast out his natural children from him without gifts: so likewise God did not cast Adam out of Paradise without his free gift;1 he first gave him the Bruiser of the Serpent in the Word of the Covenant; and afterwards he cast Adam from the childlike inheritance of the natural right; and yet he received him again in the free donation; as Abraham also did not here reject his children and cast them out from the childship, but from the natural right of his goods; yet they were dear unto him in the childship. Therefore he freely gave them gifts of his goods, and thereby he signifieth to us, that the kingdom of heaven doth indeed belong only unto Christ, viz. to the true Isaac. But as he freely of grace gave the 1 Note. — Where the free grace of God was given to mankind.

Covenant to Adam, and as Abraham gave gifts out of Isaac’s right to the sons of the concubines, so God the Father doth still to this day give Adam’s, and Abraham’s, natural children the Covenant and heritage of Christ, as a free gift of grace. 8. And as Abraham’s natural children were not disinherited from the Covenant, but only from his goods; so likewise no man is dis¬ inherited from the Covenant of God, established in Adam and Abraham. Every man receiveth the free-given Covenant in the womb, in which free-given Covenant he hath power to turn in unto Christ’s goods. 9. But he hath not the goods in the right of nature, to take the same at or by his own will, but as a free gift. He shall and must resign himself up unto the Covenant, as a servant, wholly giving up his own natural will in the Covenant, and forsake the will to the right of nature, and become wholly the Covenant’s own; so that he doth not any longer introduce his own natural will into the Covenant and free gift, but give up his will to the Covenant. And then the free gift standeth in the place of the own- will; and the nature of Adam liveth in the free gift, and also enjoyeth the inheritance; but not in the selfwill, but in the true resignation, where the will of the Covenant becomes man’s will.

10. For the will of the Covenant inheriteth the sonship in the right of nature, but the will of the natural selfness is cast out from it, the same must die unto the assuming ownhood; and when it is brought so to pass, it ariseth in the Covenant in Christ, and possesseth the free gift in the right of grace. Christ hath manifested himself in the Covenant in Adam’s freely-given gift in the human nature, and is become the life and will of the Covenant, and fulfilled the same. 11. But now this free-given Covenant which God bestowed on Adam lieth in all men, for as sin passed as a birthright from one upon all, so also the Covenant and the free gift of grace passeth from one upon all. Every man hath Christ in him; but the own- will doth not apprehend Christ, but it crucifieth him, and will not die to its selfness, that so it might enter into Christ’s death, and arise in the Covenant in the will of Christ. 12. The own-will desireth only to be an outwardly assumed or adopted son of grace, and yet it is cast out from the presence of God, as Abraham cast out his natural children from his goods, and dis¬ inherited them, and gave the goods only to Isaac; so likewise the kingdom of God belongs only to the will of the Covenant.

13. Which indeed lieth in all men; but no man can receive or see the kingdom of God, unless he become the child of the Covenant, so that he forsake the natural forth-proceeded will, and put on the will of Christ in the Covenant; so that his will in the Covenant be born anew in Christ; and then he is a branch on the vine of Christ (John xv. 5), and receiveth Christ’s spirit, will, and life; and becomes, as to the Covenant, Christus [or one anointed]. And thus Christ then dwelleth in Adam, and Adam in Christ; and this is that which the spirit of Moses doth represent in this figure. 14. But that Abraham did send the children of his Adamical nature away out of his house with gifts, and did not keep them with him as sojourners, betokens that the external man will, while it is in this life, live in the will of self upon the earth, and that it cannot wholly put off the same according to the earthly man; but this same earthly self-will is cast out of the holiness of God, viz. from the kingdom of heaven. 15. And although the free gift of the Covenant lieth hid in him, yet the outward earthly man is cast out from Paradise and the Covenant of God, and shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven, but he only shall inherit it who is born of the free gift of the Covenant. Not Adam, but Christ in his members; not the Serpent’s ens, and the selfish, rebel¬ lious, Ishmaelitish, scoffing, false will, but the will of the Covenant in Ishmael’s circumcision, where the mocker is cut off from the Covenant ; and Ishmael then becomes Isaac’s brother.

16. The own, self-made, gross, earthly Adam, who by his own lust hath made himself a beast, and received and taken in the devil’s desire and will, into the selfly assumed beast, the same cannot be or remain in the image of Christ. He is cast out from thence, and walketh in the world of vanity, and his own lust, so that he is not capable of the free gift in the Covenant. 1 7. But the right Adamical man, which God made out of the matrix of the earth, out of which the earth had its original, in the same is the Covenant and the free gift; even as a tincture in the gross lead, which doth swallow up in itself the grossness, viz. the gross Saturn in its own desire, and mortifieth the Saturnine will, and advanceth or sublimeth its own (understand the tincture’s will and propriety) in the lead, whereby the lead is changed into gold. 18. Thus likewise we are to understand, that the gross Saturnine self-will, proceeding from the dark world’s property in man, cannot dwell in God’s house: it is without, in the corrupt world; God hath cast it forth out of Paradise; as Abraham cast out his natural Adamical

children from Isaac’s goods. So also our earthly man as to its assumed grossness and ownhood is not at all fit for, or profitable unto, the kingdom of heaven. It is only the axe wherewith the carpenter builds in this life time, in heaven he hath no need of this axe, for he shall not need build him a house for his propriety, but Christ, viz. the formed Word of God, is his house. 19. For as Abraham cast out of his house the sons of his concubines with gifts, so likewise the Adamical man is cast out from God, whom Christ, viz. the Father’s free gift, receiveth again unto himself. For when Christ was come into our humanity God suffered him to be hung upon the cross, and be put to death; but received him again in his free favour, and set him at the right hand of the power of God in heaven, and our humanity also with and in him; but the human self-will must die on the cross. 20. Thus likewise the spirit of Moses doth here signify in the figure, concerning Abraham and his natural children, that the out¬ ward natural man shall not dwell in the ens of Christ, for he is cast out of Paradise in Adam; therefore also he cannot be received according to his bestial selfish propriety unto the possession of Isaac’s goods; that is, unto the ens of faith, viz. in Christ; and albeit Christ, viz. the free gift of the Father, doth dwell in the inward true man which God created in Adam, yet the gross beast, viz. the earthliness and vanity, shall and must in every respect be cast away from Christ. Yea, every man who desireth to be a Christian must cast out from himself the earthly will, which longeth and breatheth after vanity and self-lust.

21. As Abraham (in this figure) did not spare his own children, but cast them out, so likewise a Christian must not spare or forbear his children, viz. his own lust and vain desire, and all whatsoever doth hang or depend thereon; but daily and hourly cast them out by the understanding, out of the true Temple of Christ, viz. out of God’s free gift, and crucify the old Adam. Else, if it be not thus effected, the old self-wrilled Adam crucifieth Christ in him, and so Christ indeed must hang on the cross, and be put to death. 22. Also this figure (concerning Abraham’s casting out his natural children) doth signify that, when Christ, viz. the true Isaac, came into the flesh, viz. into the humanity, Abraham’s natural children, viz. the Jews, should, under the kingdom of Christ, be cast out from the natural goods, viz. from all dominion, from country and kingdom ; and their rule and dominion should cease. For the dominion belongs onlv unto Christ, viz. to Christendom; for Christ brought an eternal kingdom with him: the goods were all his; as Abraham’s goods belonged to Isaac. 23. And although it hath not dominion over all, as Isaac had possession and rule of that only which his father left him; for the natural children of Abraham, born of Keturah, became afterwards heathen, and ruled over the outward goods as children of the outward nature: yet Abraham’s children, who were in the Covenant under circumcision, must, when Christ did manifest himself, be cast out: To signify that the earthly man also, viz. self in the Serpent’s ens which is on the children of the Covenant, must be cast away from God.

24. Thus in Abraham and his son Isaac the figure of the kingdom of Christ was represented. But when Christ came into the flesh, God put away the figure; and took from the external children of Isaac the outward goods of the land, Canaan: To intimate, that now the holy land of Canaan is become manifest: where Isaac’s children shall take possession of the true promised inheritance in Christ, and no longer have the figure only, but the essence of the figure, viz. the perfect substance, and now forsake the outward goods with the figure, and put on Christ in the flesh. 25. But that the Jews, viz. Isaac’s and Abraham’s children, viz. the children in Christ’s figure, did not all turn unto Christ when he did manifest himself in the flesh, hath this meaning: God gave them the law of nature; where, in the law, the government of nature was understood externally, and internally Christ, viz. the Covenant, and the promised free gift of God in Paradise. So that the law of nature was to be Christ’s sojourner, and the true man also was to live under the law of nature in a right rationality, and yet bring his own nature into Christ’s house. And thus the figure of the law must continue among some of Abraham’s children, viz. amongst some of the Jews, to signify that the law is Christ’s sojourner.

26. Understand, that the nature of man shall remain, for it is not so rejected of God, as if clean another new man should arise out of the old; but [the new man] shall arise out of Adam’s nature and property, and out of God’s, in Christ’s nature and property; so that man is become an Adam-Christ, and Christ a Christ- Adam; a Man-God, and a God-Man. And therefore the figure continued still among the Jews; and for this cause they were not all converted to Christ; that so nature might keep its figure and due right; for it shall deliver up its children under the law, viz. the figure of Christ, to God the Father, in Christ. But its figure shall be proved in the fire of God, so that it shall be known who hath been the true child of the natural law in the figure of Christ, that hath been born in the spirit in the law out of the figure of Christ, and who hath not. 27. It is not he that hath the words and title of the law, that is a Jew, born in the figure and in the law; but he who is born of the promise in Abraham’s faith. He that liveth in the figure of Christ, viz. in the law in profession, and practiseth (with mouth and heart) the same, the law of God in Christ’s figure hath comprehended, and will bring him into the fulfilling of the figure.

28. For it doth not depend alone on man’s knowing, that Christ hath given himself into the law, and is become the fulfilling in the law, as the titular Christian boasteth; but it depends on God’s order,1 on the mercy of God. Whosoever hath been a true Jew, and hath put on Abraham’s faith in the law, he hath put on the ens of Christ, which Abraham conceived or apprehended; which ens of faith the humanity of Christ hath fulfilled; and it is hidden to him what it is, for he worketh in the office of nature in the law of God, which Christ hath taken into himself and fulfilled; so that he serveth God in the office of nature, and the office of nature serveth Christ, for it is become Christ’s own propriety. 29. For unto him all power is given both in heaven and on earth (Matt, xxviii. 18), under which power the office of nature also is, in the law. For God, in the spirit of Christ, is even the selfsame who gave the law and the office of nature to do righteousness; together with the figure of the kingdom of Christ, with the ens of faith, to Abraham and Moses; and he is also the very same who fulfilled the faith, and the law.

30. Thus the Jew worketh in his faith in Christ’s office, viz. in the law, wherewith Christ governeth in nature; and hath put on Christ in the Covenant, and in the ens of faith in Christ’s figure, which Christ hath fulfilled. 31. For the Christian who confesseth Christ in the flesh, worketh in his faith in the flesh of Christ, and hath, in his faith, the law of nature, viz. God’s officer, to do uprightly. For Christ ruleth in the law of God (which he hath fulfilled and made a servant) in his children, and killeth the law of sin through the fulfilling of his love in his blood and death; both in them who live in the dominion of his law, and also in them who live in the dominion of his conquest, as the Christians do. 32. For the faith which presseth or cometh in unto God in the law, in the figure, in the Covenant, the same cometh unto God in the ens of Abraham’s faith, out of which Christ was born. And he that cometh in unto God in the fulfilling of the same, doth come or press into God in the humanity of Christ, viz. in the whole process of his suffering, death, and resurrection.

33. A Christian is Christ in the inward humanity; and a Jew is Christ in the figure, and in the office of his law, viz. according to nature. But now Adam in his nature and Christ in the divine nature are but one person, one only tree. Who now is here that judgeth (Rom. viii. 34)? 34. St Paul saith, There is no respect of persons before God. For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and they who have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law. For not the bearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: IVhich shew that the work of the law is written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness to them, and their thoughts within themselves either accusing or excusing each other (Rom. ii. H-15). That is, or signifieth, thus much: 35. When the Gentiles do apprehend Christ, then they do appre¬ hend the law of nature to do uprightly, for Christ is the beginning, and the fulfilling, of the law. But the Jews have the law. Now who¬ soever transgresseth and sinneth (either the Jew in the law of nature, or the Gentile who acknowledgeth Christ in the law of the fulfilling), each shall be punished or judged in his law; viz. the Jew in the law of God the Father in Christ, and the Christian in the law of the Gospel, viz. in the law of the accomplishment.

36. For here is no respect of name, in that one saith, I am a Jew, the other, I am a Christian. The name maketh no difference in the adoption of God, but the spirit in the heart to do uprightly, to obey God. They all come in the grace under the obedience of Christ unto God; both the Jew and the Christian. 37. For without Christ there is neither law nor Gospel; Christ is the righteousness which availeth before God in the law, so that man, without Christ, hath no God. Now let him run either in the law or Gospel, if he runneth in the desire to obey God, then he runneth in the law of the accomplishment; for Christ is the only obedience which availeth before God, both in the law and Gospel. All men who give up themselves in obedience unto God, they are received in Christ’s obedience, viz. in the fulfilling of the obedience, the Jew and the Christian, and so likewise the heathen who hath neither the law nor Gospel. 38. For if the Gentile desires to obey the only God, and yet knoweth him not according to the essence of his manifestation, but presseth into the obedience of God, then he is a law unto himself; and declareth indeed that God hath written his law in him, which he hath fulfilled in his Son, as Paul saith. For he who knoweth the law and Gospel, knoweth the same only as a gift of the Giver, who hath given him the knowledge; but he that doth not know it, and yet desireth the power of the law and Gospel, in him God in Christ knows what he pleaseth.

39. For grace doth not lie only in knowing, that one knoweth the grace in Christ; but it lieth in the pressing into that grace, and in the mercy of God. One presseth into mercy in the law, the other in the Gospel, and the third without the law, and without the knowledge of the Gospel; he that hath neither, but hangs on the grace of God, the same is freely given without his knowledge ofit. 40. Even as the branch on the tree doth not know whence the stock doth introduce the sap and power into it, it only longeth and gaspeth after the power and virtue of the root, and draweth with its desire the sap into itself; even so likewise many an ignorant man doth long after his eternal mother, out of whom he is arisen with Adam, and cometh in his ignorance [or unknowing condition] again unto the free gift of grace which God freely bestowed on Adam in his fall. For the Covenant and grace passed from Adam upon all originally or by way of inheritance, even as sin passed from one upon all: whosoever desireth the grace of the only God, he obtaineth it in Christ, who is the grace itself.

41. The Jews will not believe the outward humanity of Christ, and do deny the same. But the Christians do believe it, and yet defile the same with ungodly conversation; and the one is as the other before God, except the children offaith among the Jews and Christians, whose defiled garment is washed in the blood of Christ. 42. We do not hereby confirm or speak for the unbelief of the Jews and Gentiles, that they should or might remain in blindness, for the time of their visitation is at hand,1 that they shall see; but we hereby disclose and lay open the wicked Antichrist among the Jews and Christians, in that everyone boasteth of his name, and condemneth another: the Jew in the law, and the Christian in the Gospel, and the Heathen in his superstition. 43. Each of them will be God’s child in his knowledge, and yet the disobedience and unbelief is as great among one people as among another; and they are in the knowledge, only as a figure before God, and none is saved by his knowledge alone. For, that I do believe and hold for a truth, that Christ was born, died and arose again from death for me, doth not make me a child of God; the devil knoweth it also, but it doth not avail him; I must put on Christ in the desire of faith, and enter into his obedience, into his incarnation, suffering and death, and arise again in him, and put on the obedience of Christ : then am I a Christian, and not before.

44. The judging, censuring and condemning others without God’s command is only the Antichrist among the Jews, and among the Christians: Without God’s mercy none cometh to the sonship: we must all enter in through the free mercy of God; the Jew, and the Christian, and the knower and he that knoweth not; our knowledge must be filled and abound with the love of Christ effectually, so that we love one another, else knowledge is not at all available. If I bring not my knowledge, with the desire, into the love of God wherewith he hath loved us in Christ, and love my neighbour in the love of God in Christ, with that love wherewith God generally loveth us, and loved us when we were his enemies, then have I not as yet the love of God dwelling in me. 45. But how will he love his brother, who contemneth him for his knowledge’ sake? Did not God love us when we knew nothing of his love? If a man hath not this love of God in him, wherewith God loved us when we knew him not, why doth he boast then of God’s sonship? If he be the child of God, then he hath the free love of God, wherewith he loveth all things: if he hath it not, he is not then as yet capable of the adoption. So now, if any one contemneth and condemneth his brother, who hath not as yet his knowledge, how can he boast of the love of God, wherewith God loved his enemies in Christ, wherewith Christ prayed for his enemies?

46. O thou false cold love of the titular Christendom! how doth the eternal truth strike thee in the face of thy conscience, in that thou dependest only on thy knowing, and contendest about the mere knowledge, and hast not love! Thou judgest thyself alone in thy judging others. One sect and company judgeth and condemneth another, and before God they are no other than the natural children of Abraham, born of Keturah, one laying the blame upon another, that the father had cast them out from the inheritance. And yet they could not see what was the fault, namely, that it was by reason of the evil corrupt nature, which was not a true heir. 47. So likewise your judging and censuring others doth not entitle you to the goods of Christ: nay, the same is wholly cast out from the inheritance, both of the Jews, and also of the Christians, and also of the Turks. All your contention is nothing else but the mocker, Ishmael, who mocketh Christ in his members. Ye do all abuse the name of God with your judging, and condemn the manifold gifts of the Spirit of God among you, and judge only in self, and not according to the love of Christ.

48. Your judging [one another] is only the hurt and wound of the world, wherewith ye make the ignorant to err, and bring them to blaspheme. Ye teach them [the art of] censuring and condemning, and ye yourselves have not the true knowledge in the Spirit of God; ye do not teach yourselves, and yet ye will be teaching and judging others. And in this way and course ye are all, one with another, the dis¬ inherited children of Keturah ; ye contend, bite and devour one another about Abraham’s, viz. Christ’s, goods, and yet ye have them not: if ye had them, then ye would have the love of Christ, which is the true goods. 49. No knowledge without the love of Christ is at all available to the sonship : it is only Babel, and fable ; teaching, and yet effecting and doing nothing, save only honouring the idol Mausim in itself. The knowledge of the high schools, and the knowledge of the devil, with¬ out the spirit of Christ in love, do both of them bring only contention and desolation. 50. If the devil had not known in self, then he had been [remained to this day] an angel; and if Adam had not desired the self-knowledge without God’s love, he had continued in Paradise. If the high schools did not know the sharp acute disputing, they had continued in the simplicity of Christ, and had not

brought the whole world, with their contention and disputings, into opinions, and judgings of one another, so that now there is nothing but contemning and condemning in Christendom, and all love and truth is extinct; and men have set and put salvation in opinions [in this or that way and form], and bound the Master to the servant, so that Antichrist domineereth over Christ, and yet pretends all for Christ; but indeed he thereby only honoureth and mindeth his Lucifer, and his belly-god Mausim, as it is plainly to be seen.

51. Now after that Abraham had sent away all the children of the con¬ cubines from Isaac’s goods, with gifts towards the east , as Moses saith, they came into the east country, that is, into the dominion and govern¬ ment of nature, where the essence beginneth. And Abraham died in a quiet age, when he was old and full of years, and was buried by his Sarah in the cave of Machpelah, which is before Mamre (Gen. xxv. 6-9). The inward figure is this: 52. Abraham’s natural children of the concubines went towards the east: Here the spirit points at the figure of the whole man, when Christ hath manifested himself in man, and possessed his goods, as here Isaac. Then nature goeth into the east,1 viz. into the Father’s property, and worketh, according to the soul, in the first and third Principles ; and Christ sitteth in the midst, viz. in the second Principle, and ruleth over that which nature in the Father’s property doth form and fashion in the divine wisdom. 53. Therefore Moses saith here, that they went towards the east, and pointeth secretly in his figure at the property of man, signifying how nature doth possess the east,2 viz. the beginning or rise of the dominion ; even as Christ also said, that He was as a Vine-dresser who did glean. In God’s kingdom, nature is Christ’s servant, but in the kingdom of nature’s self or propriety, Christ hath given himself with his humility to be a servant, and an assistant, and serveth the Father in his natural manifestation, and continually picketh up or gleaneth: what the Father formeth through nature, that the Wisdom bringeth into its treasure.

54. Therefore saith St Paul, that the Spirit of God is subject to the children of God, and goeth along with them in the searching even into the depths of the Deity (1 Cor. ii. 10). And when it comes thus far, then man is in a quiet old age, and then all things stand in order in him, viz. nature in the morning,3 in the Father’s property, and Christ in the evening,4 in the humility. And then man hath enough of the out¬ ward evil sinful life; he longeth continually to enter with his essence into the cave of Machpelah,5 viz. into the eternal mother, as it is before mentioned. 55. And when he hath brought his life’s forms into the divine 1 Text, beginning. 2 Text, morning. 3 East. 5 That is, the twofold pit, as the Dutch translation hath it. order, as here Abraham had set all things into order, then he giveth up himself wholly and fully in one essence into the eternal generatress, and with his own will he resigneth up himself into mortification and death, and is wholly tired and weary of the life of self, and so resteth in his God. Of the History of Isaac, and also of the Birth of Esau and Jacob, and what hath been acted concerning them; the meaning thereof is hinted to us in this Chapter

I- IV /T OSES saith, After the death of Abraham God blessed his son Isaac, XV Jiand he dwelt by the well of the living and seeingf (Gen. xxv. il). Reason understands this externally of a place where Isaac dwelt, but the spirit looketh upon the figure of the life’s form, shewing how the human nature and creature hath dwelt by the wellspring of the divine ens in the Covenant, which Abraham laid hold of in faith; viz. the soul of Isaac dwelt by the wellspring of the holy Trinity, in which the soul received its light, and saw, and knew the will of God; out of which wellspring the highest love of the Deity did manifest itself to the soul, and out of which fountain, afterwards, in the fullness of time, the holy name Jesus, out ofjehova, did manifest itself and espoused itself for a bride unto the soul. 2. The soul of Isaac dwelt by this fountain of the living and seeing, until the same fountain afterwards did pour forth, and open itself in the humanity of Christ in the soul. And then afterwards the soul dwelt in the fountain, when it was exalted in Christ’s person to the right hand of God; and then the fountain of God did spring forth through the soul, where then it received the divine might as a prince of God, or as an image or express likeness of God, or as a formed word of the voice of God, through which voice God was made known and manifest.

3. So likewise our soul, when it forsaketh the earthly will of its assumed self, and apprehendeth the ens of Christ in the Covenant, and turns itself to God, then it dwelleth also by the fountain of the living and seeing, that is, by God’s eye, which he hath again with Christ manifested and opened in the humanity. Indeed our soul doth not in this time of the earthly cottage dwell in the wellspring of God, as if it did apprehend the wellspring in self; but like as the sun throughshineth the glass, and yet the glass is not turned to be sun, but it dwelleth by the lustre and virtue of the sun, and suffereth the sun to work and shine through it : even so is the soul in this time. 4. And further yet, As the sun doth give its tincture into the metalline ens, and the metalline ens giveth its desire into the sun’s tincture, so that out of them both the fair and precious gold is generated, so likewise it is to be understood concerning the soul. The Deity inhabiteth1 the soul, but the soul comprehends not the same, as to its creatural power; but the eye or light of God, with the holy lovetincture from the light’s lustre, giveth itself into the desire of the soul.

5. For the desire of the soul is the Fiat,2 which takes the power of the holy love-tincture into itself, and makes it essential; so that the divine tincture, proceeding from the desire of the true love-spring (viz. from the fountain of the living and seeing), and the soul’s believing desire, do become one essence. 6. Understand, a spiritual essence. And this same spiritual essence is the inward new man, viz. a new house or habitation of the soul, in which it dwelleth according to the inward heavenly world; the name of which essence is Sophia , viz. the Bride of Christ, Christ’s humanity; in which the glorious Jacob’s Star of the dear and precious name, Jesus, is a shining light, whereby the soul seeth and knoweth God. 7. The soul is not changed into the Deity, viz. into [Lahai-roi] the fountain of the living and seeing, for it is the eternal and temporal nature’s. But the Deity is not nature’s, but the will to nature, and manifesteth itself through the soul’s nature. As the fire manifesteth itself through the iron, where then the iron seems as if it were mere fire, and yet it keepeth its own nature, and the fire also its own, and the one doth only dwell in the other, and one is the manifestation of the other. The iron hath no power over the fire, only the fire giveth itself to the iron, and the iron giveth its ens to the fire, and so both are changed into one, and yet remain two essences: So likewise it is to be understood with the soul and the Deity.

8. And as the fiery property is different from the gross iron, and hath another source, so likewise the new spiritual humanity in the ens of Christ in the divine love-fire is far another essence than the earthly body; albeit the soul is understood in the fire, and in the light’s lustre the body of Sophia; for the power or virtue of the light is the tincture or the beginning to the new spiritual body; which power, the soul’s believing desire taketh, and formeth or bringeth it into an essence: that is, it makes it essential : it becomes an essence or spiritual body 1 Or, dwelleth through the soul. 2 Note what the Fiat is. from the desire, which spiritual essence is the Temple of God, of which the Scripture speaketh. 9. But our Babylon will understand nothing hereof, but will be wholly blind therein; for she will not know how Christ is born in the faith in us , and how faith comes to essence; but she will downright make the half-Serpent man to be an assumed and adopted child of grace, and set it in God’s Temple. But it avails not. Shall the devil sit at the right hand of God in the fountain of the living and seeing? He hath been once cast away from thence, he shall not any more possess the same: a beast is not Sophia: The Scripture saith, Te must be con¬ verted, and be born anew as children, else ye shall not see God (Matt, xviii. 3).

10. The soul cannot see God, save only in its new-born image; only through and in virgin Sophia, in Jacob’s Star, viz. in the name of Jesus, it seeth in Jehova, in the wellspring of the life of God. It is not itself this very fountain : it giveth only the fire to the manifestation of this fountain. But the fountain is understood in the light, viz. in the meekness of the light. 11. Now the soul’s magic fire-source could not so be enkindled that a shining lustre of a light might arise in the soul’s fire, if the divine love-desire, viz. the love ens, had not given itself into the soul’s fire. The ens of Christ out of the divine love giveth itself into the soul’s fire-source, which the soul’s fire eateth into its fiery essence, and thereupon the life of the wrathfulness dieth, and the fair precious light is thence generated; for here Christ ariseth out of the consuming fire of the Father’s property, according to his anger, from death, out of the fire of another life. Here the magical soul’s fire becomes the precious Sophia’s bridegroom, and here are man and wife; viz. both tinctures, of the fire and of the light, become one person, viz. an angel of God.

12. Here Lucifer loseth his throne, and the Serpent his viperous seed, and Christ sitteth at the right hand of God in man; and man then dwelleth truly by the fountain of the living and seeing. And this is that which the spirit of Moses sets forth by this figure concerning Isaac’s habitation: if we would but once become seeing, and forsake the mere husk, and know ourselves aright, not according to the earthly beast, but according to the inward spiritual heavenly man. 13. As to the part of the bestial soul [of man], that attains not the precious image in this lifetime for propriety. The mortal soul, either from the stars or four elements, attains it not; only the inward soul, out of the eternal Word of God, out of the eternal nature, out of the formed Word, out of God’s essence according to God’s love and anger, viz. out of the centre of the eternal nature, which hath its original out of the divine desire through the eternal Verbum Fiat,1 whereby the divine lubet formeth and fashioneth the wisdom into a substance, to the contemplation of the Deity: This [soul is that which] is betrothed to Sophia. 14. The outward soul is now betrothed and espoused to the stars and four elements, to form and bring forth the wonders of God’s formed wisdom, in figures, both in words and works. This outward soul obtains sometimes only a look from Sophia, for it hath the death and mortality in itself;

but it shall after this time be changed again into the first image, which God created in Adam, and leave the Serpent’s ens to the earth, which shall at the end of days be tried in the fire of God, where the Serpent’s introduced desire shall evaporate from it; and then the whole image of God, out of all the three Prin¬ ciples, stands in one essence, and even then God filleth all in all (Eph. i. 23) : This is here to be understood by this figure.

15. Further, the spirit of Moses describeth the children of Ishmael, and relates how he begat twelve sons, from whom twelve princes arose in their generations , and he sets down, at last, He fell in the presence of all his brethren (Gen. xxv. 16-18). Here he meaneth before Isaac’s generation; and yet he waxed great in worldly dominion before them, and potent nations did arise from him; and Isaac with his children and posterity were only as pilgrims, and travelled up and down from one place to another, until they were at last redeemed from the Egyptian bondage, and possessed the promised land. 16. Ishmael, in his twelve princes, typifieth the kingdom of the corrupt nature of man’s property, which kingdom is twofold; viz. six numbers out of the inward life’s figure, and six numbers out of the earthly outward life’s figure; viz. the outward, visible, palpable man, and the inward, spiritual, soulish man. Both these have twelve numbers in the figure, whence twelve princes arose, according to the inward and outward nature’s property. These the spirit of Moses puts in the figure and saith, that they fell in the presence of all their brethren; to signify that the twelve dominions of the inward and outward nature of the human property, in its corruption, fell before

the twelve dominions new born of the ens of faith in their corrupt self ; for the devil had set his dominion and power into these properties. 17. But when the promised seed of faith was conceived in Abraham, it did suppress and beat down the devil’s power in the dominion of man’s self; and then happened the spiritual fall in Ishmael’s line, wherein the devil, as a haughty prince, had set himself to bear the chief sway and domination; for Christ killeth the pride of the Serpent in man. 18. Now saith Moses, Isbmael fell in the presence of all his brethren. This was nothing else but a spiritual fall of the human selfness before God, for as to this world they were famous, renowned people, as their princely dominions do testify; whereas on the contrary Isaac’s generation were a long time only strangers among the nations; which signifieth that Christ’s kingdom and dominion is not in this world’s nature; and yet the kingdoms of this world shall fall before Christ, and be in subjection to Christ. 19. Afterwards, the spirit of Moses describeth Isaac’s children by Rebecca, and saith, that she was barren , and Isaac intreated the Lord for his wife, and God was intreated of him; and Rebecca conceived with two sons, which strove together in the womb. Here now the figure of the kingdom of nature, and also of the kingdom of Christ in the new birth, is clearly set forth: for Rebecca’s two sons which she brought forth, viz. Esau and Jacob, point at two lines; viz. Esau proceeds from Abraham’s own Adamical corrupt nature; and Jacob ariseth in the ens of faith, in which Abraham’s faith’s ens had incorporated itself into his Adamical nature, in which also the Covenant and the line of Christ stood, who should bruise the Serpent’s head in the Adamical nature.

20. And here is deciphered and held forth how the two kingdoms in the two brothers, viz. the devil’s kingdom in the corrupt nature of Esau, in Adam’s own nature of the introduced Serpent’s ens; and also the kingdom of Christ in Jacob in the ens of faith, did both strive together while they were children even in the womb; where then the kingdom of nature in Esau began to fall before the kingdom of Christ in Jacob; for here the woman’s seed already bruised the head of the Serpent’s ens, its might, in Esau; and the Serpent already stung the woman’s seed, viz. the ens of faith in Jacob, on the heel, and therefore they struggled together in the womb. 21. Also we have here a very emphatical pregnant figure in Rebecca, in that she was shut up and could not be opened to conceive of Isaac’s seed, until Isaac had intreated the Lord, that he would open the withholdment1 in the Covenant in Rebecca; where then the Lord was intreated in the Covenant concerning the barrenness of Rebecca, so that he did open the tincture in the woman’s seed to this im¬ pregnation or conception. The inward figure stands thus:

22. The seed of faith was in Isaac inherited from his father Abraham, but Rebecca had not this ens. Indeed she was in the Covenant, but the ens of faith was not in her in the essence, but onlyin the Covenant; and therefore her matrix was shut up, and was not capable of the ens of faith, so long, till Isaac immersed his believing desire into the Lord (understand into the centre of nature in Rebecca), so that the spirit of the Lord did move itself in the Covenant in Rebecca, and moved also the Covenant, together with her Adamical nature, so that the barrenness in her matrix was disclosed, both in the shut-up ens in the Covenant, and then likewise the Adamical matrix, whereupon she conceived two sons, of the property of two kingdoms. 23. And this is the meaning of the saying, The Lord was intreated, when Isaac brought his faith’s desire, through the eternal and temporal nature, into the Lord; and therewith did earnestly press for his wife Rebecca, that the Lord would be pleased to open her through his prayer and faith’s desire, that so she might be with child by him. Which faith’s desire, together with the Adamical nature’s desire, gave in themselves into the barrenness of the matrix in Rebecca, and opened her. Whereupon she conceived both natures’ properties, from a twofold seed of Isaac.

24. Not that we are to think or understand that Jacob was wholly conceived of the ens of faith, but as well of the Adamical sinful nature as Esau; only, the kingdom of grace in the Covenant set forth its figure in the ens of faith in him; and in Esau the kingdom of nature, viz. the right corrupt Adamical nature did set forth its figure; not as a separation, sundry partition or rejection, but to signify that Christ should be conceived and born with his holy divine ens in the Adamical corrupt nature, and destroy death and the stronghold of sin, together with the self-raised desire to ownhood and propriety in self; and mortify the same with the love-desire in the divine ens, and ruinate the devil’s rampant fort of prey, which he hath built up to himself therein; and change the wrath of God according to the eternal nature, 1 Stop, or strong bar; barrenness. in the centre of the dark fiery-world’s property, into divine love and joy, and tincture the Adamical nature with the holy tincture of the love-fire. 25. Therefore the corrupt Adamical nature in its type was repre¬ sented in the womb in Esau, with the type of Christ in Jacob ; and they both must be formed of one seed, to signify that Christ should give in himself to our corrupt nature, and redeem our corrupted right Adamical nature from corruption, and introduce it into his own holy nature in himself.

26. Also God did represent in Esau the figure of his wrath, and [of] the devil’s might, who had possessed the kingdom of nature in man; and shews how he would fight, and exercise great enmity against the ens of faith and the kingdom of grace, which should deprive him of his strength. 27. Reason saith, Wherefore should God permit the devil to fight against the kingdom of his grace? Hear and hearken, thou very blind and altogether ignorant reason: Learn the A B C in the centre, how God’s love, and the kingdom of grace and mercy, would not, nor could not, be manifest without strife and enmity; and then thou hast here no further question : Go forward into the centre of this book, and thou findest the ground. 28. And when the strife between the two kingdoms began in these children in the womb, so that they strove or spurned against each other, Rebecca became discontented and troubled at it, and said, If it should be thus with me, wherefore am I with child? And she went to enquire of the Lord. And the Lord said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels • and one people shall be stronger than the other; and the greater shall serve the lesser (Gen. xxv. 22,23).

29. These two nations, which were conceived of one seed in Rebecca, are on one part the man of the Adamical selfish nature in selfness, viz. the original of man; and on the other part the new spiritual man, regenerated of the kingdom of grace in the Covenant. These came out of one seed : one out of the Adamical nature alone, and he was the greater [or elder], viz. the first man which God created in his image, which became corrupt and died as to God; the other came indeed out of the same Adamical nature, but the kingdom of grace in the ens of faith had given in itself unto it as a conqueror, and this was, as to the Adamical nature, the lesser [or younger], but God was manifest in him; therefore the greater (viz. the first Adamical man in Esau’s line) should serve and be subject to the lesser (who was the least according to the human property, but the greatest in God). 30. And yet we do not see that Esau was subject to Jacob; but it is the spiritual figure, shewing how the kingdom of nature in man should be broken by the children of God, and made subject to the kingdom of grace, viz. to the divine humility, and wholly dive itself into the divine humility, and be born anew of the humility. Thus the spirit of God shewed this by the answer to Rebecca, saying that it should be a striving or fighting kingdom, where indeed the first corrupt man, being the greater or elder in nature, should strive against the lesser, viz.

the spirit of Christ in his lowliness and humility, and persecute him. But the Adamical man must at last be obedient and subject unto the humility of Christ, if he will be Abraham’s child and heir; but if not, then he must be so long cast out from Abraham’s and Christ’s goods, till he doth humble himself and freely yield under Christ’s humility, and forsake the ownhood of the greater and elder self and enmity, assumed in Adam.

31. By Rebecca’s trouble, discontent, impatience and regret, in that she runneth to enquire of the Lord, wherefore the strife was in her, that the children did so struggle together, is signified thus much unto us: That when Christ doth manifest himself in the Adamical nature, then begins and ariseth the strife of both these kingdoms, viz. the devil’s kingdom in God’s anger in the Serpent’s ens, and also Christ’s kingdom. When Christ bruiseth the Serpent’s head, then ariseth great disquietness in the mind, for the Serpent stingeth Christ, viz. the new birth, on the heel, and then ariseth this kicking and spurning, viz. a lamentable and woeful distress. And then saith reason in the mind, with Rebecca, If it should be thus with me, wherefore am I entered into the divine impregnation, into repentance? Am not I thereby come only into disquietness, and thereby become a fool to the world, and to my reason also? And then ariseth the combat, and Satan’s bruising in the mind, with anguish and grief; and then the mind knows not whither to betake itself, but runneth into penitency, and asketh the Lord wherefore it goeth so with it. 32. And then the Lord shews him in his language that Christ now is in him in hell, and assaulteth the devil’s strong rampant fort of prey. Whereupon there is such contest and disquietness in him ; and shews him how his reason, and the Adamical nature, viz. the greater part of his life, must be broken, and dive itself wholly into resignation, into the deepest humility, into the process of Christ under his cross, and

become a stranger to itself, yea, its own enemy, and go with the reason, and the greater Adamical will, into its Nothing. 33. And when this is done, then Esau, viz. the Adamical nature, is indeed born, and cometh forth always first. But Jacob, viz. the spirit of Christ, cometh soon after, and deprives Esau of the kingdom and power, and maketh nature a servant; and then Esau, viz. nature, must serve Jacob, viz. the spirit of Christ. Then it is even here as the Son said unto the Father: Father, the men were thine, and thou hast given them me (John xvii. 6), and I give unto them eternal life (John x. 28). 34. Understand, nature is the Father’s property, for it is the strength and might, viz. the fire-spirit. This fire-spirit was given to the light- or love-spirit in Christ, viz. to the holy name Jesus, which introduced itself in Abraham’s believing desire into an ens, out of which Christ, and then the new man out of Christ, is born; unto whom the kingdom of nature in the Father’s fire-property was given. And he wholly gave his love ens for food unto the Father’s fire-source, viz. to the fiery soul in the Father’s nature: and even there Christ, with love, took possession of the Father’s fire-strength, and changed it into the glory of the triumphant kingdom of joy : And thus also it is to be understood in the new birth of man.

35. And Moses saith further: And now when the time came that Rebecca should be delivered, behold there were twins in her womb. And the first which came out was red, and all over rough like an hairy hide ; and they called his name Esau. And presently after came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau’s heel; and they called him Jacob (Gen. xxv. 24-26). Here now stands the figure so lively and so clearly set forth, that even reason may see it : That which before was hinted at with words in the spiritual figure, that stands here in a lively personal figure. For Moses saith, Esau came forth first, who was red, and had a rough skin. 36. Red betokeneth the Father’s nature in the fire: Rough betokens the earthly bestial nature, which Adam, with his lust, intro¬ duced into himself from the earthliness. His name is called Esau from the sensual language, from the property of the formation of his nature’s property. The same in its formation in the language of nature stands thus: E. is the original ex uno, viz. aus dem Einem [out of the One] : and is the true angelical property created in Adam: Sau1 is the formed beast or self lust, which hath enclosed and shut up the E., and obscured and slain the same in itself, that is, when it was extinct in it as to the light’s fire; yet the Sau , viz. the outward bestial man who

1 Sau signifieth sow, or the earthly swinish property. had changed the E., viz. the angelical image, into a beast, did yet remain in its form. Therefore the spirit called his name Esau, viz. a formed or amassed image of lust, turned from its fine pureness into grossness, wherein notwithstanding the E. did still remain, but wholly encompassed and shut up with the Sau. 37. After this Esau cometh Jacob, viz. the type or image of Christ, conceived in the ens of faith, and holdeth Esau by the heel. This declareth that the Adamical image which God created shall and must be born first, for the same is it, which shall live for ever, but not in its rough beast's hide : for in that Jacob holds Esau, viz. the first man, by the heel, signifieth that the second Adam, viz. Christ, is born after the first Adam, and takes hold of him behind, and brings him back again from the course of his own self will, into the first mother, from whence nature is arisen, viz. to another new birth. 38. But that Esau goeth forward with his birth, and Jacob, by holding him by the heel, cannot withhold him, betokeneth that the earthly man in his selfness should go forward, and not go wholly in this lifetime back again into the mother of the new birth, but he would walk up and down with the bestial man through this time. For the beast shall not be new born, but [what shall be re-born is] the image of God, which was lost or perished in Adam.

39. And it further denotes, how Christ should take the true Adamical created man by his heel, that is, by the mind of his con¬ versation, and put him back again into the first mother, whence he did arise; and how the spirit of Christ should follow after the earthly man in this lifetime. When as the devil would be the earthly man’s chief guide in the anger of God, then Christ should come after him, and take the inward property of the poor, fallen and captivated man, viz. the poor corrupt mind of the soul, into his arms, and draw it back again out of the devil’s nets and snares, as Christ said, That he was as a vine-dresser who gleaned. For in this lifetime the Adamical nature’s image stands before, and the image of Christ [stands] behind; there¬ fore the natural man must die, and Christ must arise and put himself forth eminently in him. 40. And it shews further, how the spirit of Christ in Jacob’s line should take Esau in this lifetime by his heel, and hold and rebuke him ; and by his children labour to hinder and suppress his evil conversation and wicked walkings. But the Esauitish generation would contemn, despise and only trample it underfoot; and lay about them as an evil, malicious, fiery beast. As it even so comes to pass, when God sends his

prophets, that they must reprove and rebuke men; then they even spurn them away from them as dogs, and will by no means endure them. But Jacob, that is, the spirit of God, holds them yet by the heel, and makes them naked and bare, so long till Jacob’s footstep or im¬ pression is known. 41. Jacob signifieth, in the formation of the name in the high tongue, a strong lubet or desire out of the mental tongue, viz. out of the name JEHOV A, brought into a compaction or ens; where the I takes the A, and exalts itself in the A, and takes the sensual tongue into the mental, viz. into the COB, so that the 0 is set for the centre of the word; where then the profound name of God is conceived or brought into the 0, and therein it is rightly understood how the Father’s nature, viz. the spirit of sense in A, C and B, doth form itself into the I and 0, for I is the centre of the highest love, and 0 is the centre of the perceptive Word in the Deity, which is understood [to be] without or beyond all nature.

42. This the spirit hath understood in Isaac, therefore they call him JA COB, so long till this name was moved through the I in the ens of faith, so that the I opened the C and B, and put forth the formed or conceived ens in the 0, seeing the I had formed itself with the 0 in nature, through nature as a holy blossom, and then the name was called JESUS: for the I brought itself again into the enclosed shut-up Engels-Eigenscbaft (angel’s property) in Adam’s nature, and then the A was put into E: for the Father gave his nature in the humanity to the son, viz. to the I, and the Son made again thereout an Engel (angel) of it through the 7. For the I entered into the deepest humility and low¬ liness. And then the figure stood thus IE, out of which the fiery lovespirit went forth, and made itself predominant; and set forth before it its character with the S and V, for the S is the character of the holy fire, and the Vis the character of the efflux, issuing forth or emanation, out of the fire. 43. Thus the name Jacob was in the fullness of time in the ens of Mary changed into the name Jesus, which understanding hath been as dumb and dead both to the Jews and Christians; seeing no nation doth any more understand its own language, and contends only about the compaction of the formed nature of the outward name, and under¬ standing. The mental tongue none will learn to understand, how the same hath formed, imprinted and ideafied1 itself in the words and names in the sensual tongue; and yet the whole understanding lieth

1 Formed and modelised. therein, without opinions. If we were not so very blind and shut up in ignorance, suffering self in pride to rule and govern us, we should soon attain to the deepest understanding. But the Antichrist beareth the supremacy, therefore Esau alone ruleth in the understanding. 44. And Moses saith further, And when the children were grown up, man, and dwelt in tents. And Isaac loved Esau, and loved to eat of his venison: but Rebecca loved Jacob (Gen. xxv. 27, 28). O thou wonderful God, how very simply and plainly are the greatest Mysteries typified and deciphered ! Who can be able to understand, without thy spirit, from whence it was that the precious man Isaac, in the type of Christ, loved the natural man in Adam’s corrupt image, Esau, more than Jacob, in the type of Christ in his figure? If thou hadst not in thy knowledge vouchsafed me to understand the same, I must be here even stark blind : But it is thy counsel, O Lord, that we know thee, and thy time is born, that thou revealest the secrets. 45. Moses saith, that Esau was a hunter, and a man of the field, and the father loved to eat of his venison, and loved him above Jacob. Here stands an external figure, as if Isaac loved Esau for his activeness, cunning skill or worldly exercise, and loved him more than Jacob. So wholly hath the Lord the heart of the wise and of his children in his hand, that his children must not in their will do what they please, and oftentimes well understand, but [must do] what God wills.

46. Also we herein see how oftentimes God withdraws the Mysteries from the most holy, that they must be even children in them; and although they bear the divine play in their hands, and ’tis their work and exercise, yet they must have a child-like heart in the understanding thereof, as it may be seen here in Isaac. 47. He loved Esau more than Jacob. Why so? The ens of Christ lay in him, which ruled him. For Christ should love his enemies, viz. the corrupt Esau, and his natural children; him he loved more than his divine nature; for he brought his divine nature into the death of the corrupt Adam, and loved Adam’s corrupted nature2 more than his holy ens, which he, for man’s corrupt nature’s sake, gave into the fire of God’s anger, that so he might redeem it in his love. Of this, Isaac was here a figure in the image of Christ, who loved his hunter in his evil nature more than Jacob. He did not love his iniquity, but his freed from sin and death. child-like nature, to which he would do much good; as Christ loved us in our Adamical nature, and did us good. He did not love us according to the will of sin in us; as Isaac also did not therein love his son Esau, but [he loved him] according to the Father’s nature and property, according to the child-like filial nature.

The inward figure stands thus: 48. When Isaac entreated the Lord, that his Rebecca might con¬ ceive, his natural desire, with the lubet1 of the divine ens of faith, entered into Rebecca, whereby Rebecca was opened. And so the natural love of Isaac, which was environed with faith, was propagated in his seed, and opened itself in Esau. Isaac’s love did not open itself in Esau as to his corrupt nature; [I say] not according to the kingdom of the nature of this world, but according to the Covenant, according to the second Principle, viz. according to God’s kingdom, which the external nature in him had not as yet apprehended; as the divine ens in Abraham did open and manifest itself according to the second Principle, and not in the mortal corrupt Adamical nature of the out¬ ward world: The like also is here to be understood in the figure in Esau. 49. Not that Esau did receive the ens of Christ in the Covenant as Jacob [did], but [he received] his father’s love-desire, in which the hidden Covenant stood unmoveable. Now there was thus a conjunc¬ tion with his father’s natural love (for every property loveth its own likeness, especially if the likeness be proceeded forth from the essence or thing loving), as Esau was conceived in Rebecca of his father through his love-desire.

50. And it even denotes that the divine ens in God’s love in Isaac loved the miserable human nature, to redeem it. Therefore God manifested his love in Abraham’s faith, and introduced the same into an ens; so that this same love, which God gave to redeem mankind, should love the human nature in its shut-up abandoned condition. As, in very truth, the true real Adamical nature ordained by God was shut up in Esau, and, on the contrary, the kingdom of the wrath had the outward dominion. Now to redeem this, the spirit in the Covenant, through Isaac’s nature, loved his son Esau, viz. the filial nature, and not only because that he was a hunter of the creatures. 51. Yet here also by this hunter we are even to understand the same as is set down before concerning Nimrod, who was a mighty hunter before the Lord. For this whole description of the first book of Moses is God’s spirit’s figure, type or representation, where he playeth1 with the kingdom of nature, and then also with Christ’s kingdom; and he hath so portrayed, delineated and typified the acts of the holy Patriarchs under his figure, that we may clearly see in all the histories the glance or allusion of God’s spirit, how he hath delineated and set forth to the life the kingdom of Christ, and the kingdom of nature, and also the devil’s kingdom in the wrath of the eternal nature. And neither the Jews nor the Christians hitherto have had a right understanding of the same, which among the patriarchs was rightly understood in its true meaning.

52. But afterwards, when their children and posterity gave no heed unto the same, but disregarded the true understanding, and loved their evil nature more than the spirit in the Covenant, then the understanding was put out2 among them; until they at last also lost the Book of the Law,3 with the holy histories, and Esdras wrote for them again the figure and history, in the spirit of God; and that, very short, brief and exactly, according to the spiritual figure; in which they were more blind than seeing; as to this day their eyes are blinded; and that, because they abused the knowledge of the true God, and served the nature of this world, and honoured their evil will, above God. Therefore also God hath withdrawn himself from them, with his Mysteries; and hath suffered them to run up and down with the figure, as children full of ignorance; until the Gentiles’ time, in the manifestation of grace (in which they also have only abused the time of grace, and the open seal, in their evil nature) doth also come to its end and limit: And then the figure shall be fully manifest in the essence for a witness to all nations :4 and after that , the Judgment (Matt, xxiv. 14).

53. And the spirit of Moses saith further, Jacob was a plain man, and dwelt in tents, and Rebecca loved Jacob (Gen. xxv. 27, 28). Reason under¬ stands this figure [as] of a woman-like, motherly, natural love; but the spirit hath not written this figure for that, for Rebecca pressed earnestly, that Jacob might receive the blessing of Abraham and Isaac. She loved Jacob as to his original, which although she might not so well understand externally and rationally, yet the spirit in the 1 Or, sets forth, as in a map. 2 Or, quenched. 3 Esdras wrote the Book of the Law and Histories again after they were lost. Covenant understood it in her, which moved her also to bear such a love towards Jacob; for there was also a conjunction between the mother and son. 54. For Rebecca was shut up and barren; but when Isaac did bring his prayer and earnest desire to God for her, then the ens in the Covenant gave itself into his faith in his desire, and so, forth in the opening of Rebecca into the conception; for herewith also the barren or shut-up mother was opened, so that her fruit, viz. Jacob, and she came into one degree of nature, and received one and the same love from Isaac’s desire : for the ens of faith was conceived in the tincture of Venus in Rebecca. And as it is said of Mary, Christ’s mother after the humanity, that she was blessed among all women , so also Rebecca did here receive the blessing from the divine ens ;

indeed not in the high degree as Mary, but yet according to the property of the Covenant. And hence it was that the love of the Covenant was manifest in her (as the ens of faith was also [manifest] in Jacob, wherein the love of God burned), so that she loved Jacob more than Esau. For the love-desire in the mother and son was from one original, and therefore her desire inclined itself more towards Jacob than Esau; and also because that the heavenly holy matrix [which had] disappeared in Adam, was moved in her image [which was] disappeared or dead as to the heavenly world’s essence, which matrix afterwards was wholly opened in Mary. Now this matrix did long to receive the ens of Christ which was manifest in Jacob, which first was to be effected in Mary; and yet the spirit in the Covenant did take its love-sport and delight herewith [in Rebecca] .

55. But that the spirit of Moses saith, Jacob was a plain [honest] man, and remained in tents , he understands thereby that the true Jacob in the ens of faith remained in the tents of the outward nature; that the ens of faith remained in his nature, which is only a tent thereto; that he did not give himself wholly to the tent, as Adam did, but he remained therein, in his Principle, till God, in the fullness of time, brought him forth in Christ’s humanity through the tents of nature. The Fifty -Third Chapter How Esau contemned his Birthright, and sold it for a Mess of Lentil-Pottage: What we are to understand by this Figure i. T"f then the spirit of Moses had set down the birth of Esau and VV Jacob, he proceeds to relate presently how the natural Adamical man would but little or nothing regard this high gift in the Covenant, and would seek only after the belly-filling of the earthly life, as Esau, who gave his birthright for pottage of lentil, that he might but serve his belly. The figure of Moses stands thus: 2. And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint. And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage ; for I am faint: and hence his name was called Edom. But Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau answered, Lo! I must even die: and what profit will this birthright be to me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day ; and he sware unto him: and so he sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright (Gen. xxv. 29-34).

This figure externally hath but a plain and childlike semblance; but yet it is a figure of the greatest Mysteries. For Esau betokens the first power of the natural, created Adam; and Jacob betokens the power of the other Adam, Christ; thus doth the spirit here play with the figure. 3 . For Adam’s nature came from the field, and was faint, and longed to eat of the pottage which Jacob had. Adam was a limus of the earth, and a limus of heaven; but seeing he died to the limus of heaven, the earthly nature had wearied him in its strife; and in this figure [of faint Adam] Esau here stood. 4. The red lentil pottage, which Jacob had, after which the faint Adam in Esau longed, was the ens of faith, viz. the ens of Christ. The Adamical nature in Esau, in its anguish and toilsome labour, in its corruption and misery, longed after this pottage, which was in Jacob; yet the earthly nature of Esau understood it not, but the soul’s nature [understood it], which also longed after Christ’s ens, which was strange [or afar off, hidden] to reason. 5. Esau’s soulish nature said to Jacob in its longing, Let me, I pray thee, taste of the red pottage, for I am weary and faint by reason of the driver or fomenter of the anxious birth; and from this longing or lust he was called Edom ,

which signifieth, in the compaction of the word, in the formation of the Tongue of Sense, as much as a dipping or immers¬ ing of the captivate angelical property into the pottage; as if there the soul’s longing or lubet, in which the angel’s character did yet stand (although captivated), did dip or plunge itself, with the desire, into the holy ens, and would take the holy ens in the divine pottage, viz. the heavenly essentiality into the lust of self: therefore the figure calls him in the High Tongue Edom.

6. For, the desire of Esau’s soul said to the divine ens in Jacob, Give me thy taste into the essence of my creatural selfhood; but Jacob, that is, the spirit of Christ in the ens of faith, said, Sell me thy birthright for the pottage; that is, give me for it the soul’s life’s form, viz. the centre of the soul’s nature, that so thy first birth,1 viz. the soul’s centre, may be my own; and then I will give thee the ens of God. 7. For Esau inherited the first soulish power from his father, and had the soul’s centre for a natural due right; after this came the ens of Christ, as a divine free gift without a soulish centre. For the holy ens should receive the soulish centre from the Adamical nature. Now here the Adamical soulish nature did woo for the ens of Christ, and the spirit in Christ’s ens wooed for the soulish nature; and the spirit of Christ in Jacob would not give the taste of the divine ens to the soul’s nature in Esau, unless it did give him the fiery centre to the beginning of the soulish creature for a propriety; that is, unless it did wholly resign and give up itself in the natural selfness into God’s will, and forsake the first birth of the creature, and esteem of itself, in its selfness, as dead; and give over the dominion and will of life to the spirit of Christ in this heavenly pottage.

8. But seeing Esau’s reason did not understand this, he said to Jacob: Lo, I must even die, what then is this first birth to me: so very lightly did reason pass over it, and knew not what the poor soul stood in need of. But the spirit of Moses played here in the inward figure, and doth secretly hint hereby at what this externally signified. 9. And Jacob said, Swear unto me this day. That is, the life of Adam in Esau should freely give itself out of the fiery might, and wholly give itself up to the divine ens, and forsake the fiery right of ownhood ; and it should do it this day, that is, from henceforward for ever. And this is said, to swear in God, viz. wholly, deeply and fully to cast, immerse, give up, and resign one’s self into the divine power, and not resist upon pain of God’s rejection. 10. And he sware unto him; and when as he had sworn he was called Edom. For the fiery soul’s nature did dive and immerse itself into the lubet of the divine ens; whence this lentil pottage is said to be reddish. For here in this oath the fiery essence entered into the lubet of the divine ens; and thus the light’s ens received the fire’s ens. And the spirit of Moses playeth here in the figure, [alluding] how the soul’s property in the fire’s essence must wholly resign up and eternally immerse itself into the incarnation of Christ, in the divine light and love ens in the Covenant, viz. into the divine lubet; and how the light’s ens would receive and take pity on the corrupted, miserable, fiery soul’s nature, [and cause it to repent] and quit itself of its lust; and also how the poor soul would give up its natural right for this red pottage.

11. For this is even a figure, shewing how God the Father giveth his nature, viz. the soul, to his Son Christ, in the love ens, wholly for his own propriety, where the fiery right is made subject to the love in the light. For thus it goeth also in our new birth: the soul longeth after this pottage; but if it will taste it, it must give its birth¬ right for it; and moreover it must swear to God this day, that is, for ever, to forsake and quit its nature’s right: which the outward reason looketh upon as ridiculous and foolish, (I mean the children of the earthly lust), that when a man giveth honour, goods, and also the temporal life, for this pottage, they even call him a fool, as here they do Esau. 12. There is in this figure a twofold understanding, viz. inwardly it is the figure of Christ and Adam, as it is above mentioned; and out¬ wardly it is the figure of the earthly man, shewing how carelessly and slightly he passeth over it, and selleth and gives away the heavenly substance to fill his carnal belly, and to satiate his lustful will. The poor soul indeed longeth in its essence after this red pottage, but the earthly reason desireth only a lentil pottage for the lusting belly; as the like also is here to be understood in Esau.

13. The soul of Esau longed after Jacob’s heavenly ens; but the earthly Esau, according to the outward soul, minded only the earthly power; the kingdom of nature was so very strong and earthly in him, that he neither understood nor regarded the eternal, but said, What profit shall this birthright do unto me , seeing I must even die. And he sat down, and did eat and drink the earthly food for the heavenly. 14. And Moses saith, that when he had eat and drunk, he rose up and went away, that is, he filled his belly with the pottage of lentils, and sold Jacob his nature-right, and went with the earthly man away from the divine enjoyment. The inward divine figure is thus: 15. Abraham received the divine ens in his faith’s desire, and the same was the stock and the root of Israel. But he was not Israel: for the kingdom of the corrupted nature, and the kingdom of grace, viz. the conceived ens of faith, were not as yet one in him. As when a kernel is sown into the earth, the kernel hath as yet no root upon which the stalk, branches and fruits should grow; but the kernel’s power draws the essence of the earth into itself, and of both these, viz. of the kernel, and of the earth’s power, grows the root, and then the stalk, and above again the manifold fruit.

16. The like also is here to be understood. The divine holy ens is not nature’s; but the soul is nature’s. Now if the divine ens shall be made manifest, then it must be done through a natural essence [or means], wherein the invisible may come into a visible essence. 17. The divine faith’s ens which Abraham received was of the invisible spiritual property; the same desired to introduce itself through the human nature into a visible, substantial, creatural and natural essence, for a working life, wherein the holy light’s natural ens, and the soul’s fiery natural ens, might work and bring forth fruit in one essence.1 For the Adamical nature was gone forth from the holy ens which was disappeared in it; and here now was the ground or foundation of the union. And as it is with the kernel in the ground, where the power in the kernel did mix itself with the ens of the earth, and afterwards leaves its shell and husk, when the earth’s ens and the kernel’s ens is changed into one ens, so likewise it is here to be understood. 18. Abraham received the divine faith’s ens, wherein stood his justification. But his life’s nature had not as yet laid hold of it to its own power and strength, for the divine essence doth not give itself

1 In one substance or body. into nature’s own power: indeed it gives itself into the essence of nature, but the divine desire doth not incline and yield itself unto nature’s own self-will, so that nature should have the predominancy: a similitude whereof we have in the corn which is sown into the earth. 19. The earthly nature cannot, in its own power, make another corn; and though it draweth the corn’s ens into self, yet it bringeth forth only a stalk; in which stalk the corn’s ens groweth up, and brings itself into a bloom, and again into corn,1 whereunto the earthly nature, with its ens, must be only a servant. 20. And as the earthly nature of the earth doth always first shew its child visibly in the growth, and the corn’s ens doth therein hide itself, the like also is to be understood here by Abraham. The Adamical nature in Abraham did first manifest itself with its fruit, and that was Ishmael; but the divine ens lay still hidden in his nature, and sprang forth with Isaac; and by Isaac the earthly and also the heavenly nature did again spring forth together, albeit in one seed. 21. But as the earthly ens in the stalk, and the corn’s ens in the internal ground, do grow up in and with one another, and yet each sets forth its fruit, viz. the earth the stalk and the corn’s mansion, and the corn or kernel the blooms and fruits, and yet the one without the other could not come to essence: the like also is here to be under¬ stood.

22. Abraham was the field into which God sowed his corn; Ishmael was the root, viz. the first birth; Isaac was the fruit which grew from the seed of God (understand out of the ens of grace); and Ishmael grew from the ens of nature out of the Father’s property. For the ens of grace had given itself into the ens of nature. Now each did set forth its own figure: with Ishmael the kingdom of nature, and with Isaac the kingdom of grace [was represented]. Isaac was the twig which sprang up out of the field of faith, viz. in the line of Christ; and from him came Jacob, viz. the branch forth-spreading and display¬ ing itselfinto a tree with many boughs and branches. 23. Not that we are to understand that Jacob did grow and spring forth only out of the kingdom of grace; for the kingdom of nature, in which Ishmael and Esau stood, was also his ground as to the creature, but the ens of faith had given itself thereinto, and tinctured nature, and advanced its power, viz. the line of the Covenant of God, in nature. 1 Kernels, seeds. 510 24. As a blossom upon the stalk hath far a more pure subtle property than the stalk and root; and as out of the blossom first the fruit and a new seed proceedeth, viz. out of the subtle ens; so likewise in Jacob, the blossom of the kingdom of Israel first came forth;

and no more in the division, as it is to be understood with Ishmael and Isaac, but both kingdoms together, viz. the kingdom of nature and the kingdom of grace, not any more each kingdom by itself or apart in the figure; but in the type of the new regeneration, shewing how God in his love had given himself again into man, viz. into the king¬ dom of nature, and how through his power the wicked ens of the Serpent (sown by the devil into the kingdom of nature) should be broken and killed.

25. Therefore God called Jacob, Israel , viz. a flourishing, forthspreading tree of many boughs and branches; or, as it is understood in the formation of the word in the High Tongue, a flourishing or fresh springing of Paradise. Where the I gives itself into the root, to a new centre, and springeth forth powerfully through the root, with which the Word of the Covenant is understood in the name JESUS. For this I is the character of the Unius, viz. of the eternal One in the divine lubet, which Adam lost when he departed from the I, viz. from the only will of God, and entered into self, and into the various multiplicity of the properties in their disharmony, unequality and discord, to try, prove and taste good and evil, in the five senses. 26. This I brought itself of grace again into the divided, rent and torn properties of the Adamical human tree; and sprang forth through and with the Adamical tree; and hence he had his name, Israel ; being as a great number and power of such branches, all which do spring and grow forth in the new tincture. In which also the ens of the corrupt nature grew up all along; even as the sun’s and the earth’s power do work and grow together in the fruit of the tree, and are always in contest one with another, until the fruit be ripe, and a new kernel for another fruit be produced and also ripe, and then the tree leaveth the fruit, and sows the new kernel for another young tree.

27. In this nature and manner also arose the strife and combat with Esau and Jacob in the womb; to signify that the corrupt nature with the Serpent’s ens should be rejected and cast off; as the tree doth let fall its ripe fruit, and desireth only the kernel [to propagate its like] : so it was here when the ens of Christ did stir itself up in Jacob, then arose the strife and enmity. For the ens of Christ should rule; and the wrath in the Serpent’s ens, that would also rule; and hence came the contest about the dominion and kingdom. The ens of Christ set itself aloft in Jacob, and bruised the head of the essence of the Serpent’s ens in Esau, and even there the Serpent stung Christ on the heel, and thence it came that both the children did strive and struggle together in the womb. 28. Not that we are to understand that Esau was wholly out of the Serpent’s ens. No; he was of the right Adamical nature, from his father Isaac and Abraham; only, God did here set forth the figure of the kingdom of nature, which was poisoned in man, and then [he] also [set forth] the figure of the kingdom of grace; shewing that the natural man must forsake his own evil will, and therewith also wholly immerse and give up himself into the kingdom of grace. And the figure which was here represented in Esau was to shew that the evil1 Adamical man did not at all avail [in God’s sight, that it was not profitable for the kingdom of God, but] it was cast away and rejected from God, and that man must wholly forsake his natural right of selfness, and wholly give in himself into God’s will.

Esau; not that he was personally, and wholly from all eternity predestinated to damnation, as Babel falsely teacheth. How Isaac, by reason of the Famine, went down to Abimelech, King of the Philistines at Gerar; And how the Lord appeared there to him, and commanded him to stay there, and renewed there the Covenant of his Father with him: Of the meaning of this, in its I. fr^HE twenty-sixth chapter of Genesis doth further relate the JL history touching Isaac; how God did so very wonderfully guide him, and renewed the Covenant of his father Abraham with him, and preserved and blessed him and his wife with him. For seeing the kingdom of grace in the Covenant of God was now manifested in him, the blessing of God did now spring forth effectually in his pur¬ pose through the kingdom of nature. 2. And, on the contrary, how the devil was an utter enraged enemy to this blessing, and desired to sift and search the kingdom of nature in Isaac, and in his wife Rebecca (in whom as yet the Serpent’s ens lay in the earthly flesh) through the lust of King Abimelech. 3. And this again is a figure of Adam in Paradise, and also of Christ in the new regeneration; shewing how Adam went into King Abimelech’s land, that is, into a strange kingdom, viz. into the four elements, where he hath denied his wife, viz. the matrix of the heavenly generatress in him, in that he introduced his lust into the bestial property.

4. As here Isaac did stand in fear of his life before King Abimelech, by reason of his wife, even so Adam, in his strange lust in the king¬ dom of the four elements and the stars, did also stand in fear before the strange king, viz. before the kingdom of this world, and denied his heavenly birth out of fear of the kingdom of this world; and gave his eternal will to the king of this world, that it might the better fare with him in his strange lust, as Isaac thought to do with his wife, who stood herewith in the figure of Adam. 5. Which figure the divine imagination did represent unto itself in Isaac, and set down withal the Covenant of the new birth, viz. his promised truth, how he would lead and guide the children of his grace in the presence of the strange king, viz. in the kingdom of this world; and preserve them from1 the lust and desire of this king, and would lay hold of this king with his power, and change his lust and desire, viz. the lust of the stars and four elements, into another will of the essential desire. So that the sharp and severe might of the astrum in flesh and blood should be changed into a covenant of peace, and do no hurt to the children of grace in the Covenant; but it should serve them to bring forth the blessing and fruits, that they might grow greatly, as here Isaac with King Abimelech stood surrounded in the mere blessing of God; and his possession of goods and cattle grew so great, that King Abimelech thought he would be too potent and mighty for him, and therefore commanded him to go out of his land.

6. Which is a figure of the new birth in the kingdom of nature; that if the inward spiritual man doth in divine power outgrow or overtop the kingdom of nature, then the kingdom of the outward nature in flesh and blood in the spirit of the world2 is sore afraid and astonished at it, for it seeth and feeleth its ruin and decrease, and would fain preserve its ownhood and propriety in the outward life. 7. And then comes the spiritual man in the Covenant of the new birth, and reproveth King Abimelech, viz. the outward life in the spirit of the outward world, for the wells of water which the divine thoughts, viz. the servants of the new man, had digged in the soul’s ground, viz. in the eternal centre. Because Abimelech with his ser¬ vants, viz. the evil earthly thoughts, imaginations and senses, had filled them up with the vain lust of the flesh. This sets forth and represents the wells of water which Abraham’s servants, viz. Abra¬ ham’s faith’s desire, had digged in the ens of faith; about which wells Abimelech’s servants, viz. the desires of the flesh, have contended for, and continually filled them [up with earth] ; which Isaac’s servants do again open in the root of Israel, and at last dig up a well wherein they find of the living water; and there they did pitch their tent, which well signified Christ: for they called the place Beer-sheba, viz. an opening, or a contrition; which signifieth the repentance, breaking up, or contrition of the earthly will. In which repentance the water of life, viz. Christ, floweth forth.

1 Before. 2 In spiritu mundi, in the cosmic spirit. 8. This whole twenty-sixth chapter of Genesis is a figure of the poor fallen man in the corrupt kingdom of nature, signifying how he doth swim therein, and how the poor soul is tossed to and fro there¬ in, and seeketh itself in outward things, and labours to advance its strength and power, and yet finds nowhere any abiding place therein, but wandereth from one thing into another, and worketh now in this, and then in that, and soon in another, and seeketh rest, but findeth none; until it comes unto Beer-sheba, viz. into humility before God, and then the well of living water springs forth to it, out of God’s Covenant. 9. Now although the words in this text of the twenty-sixth chapter do seem to treat only of external things, yet it is nothing else but the spirit in Moses alluding or playing, under the external history, with a spiritual figure of the kingdom of nature, and of the kingdom of Christ; for he begins and speaketh of a great famine which was come into the land, for which distress’ sake Isaac went down to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, at Gerar.

The inward spiritual figure is this: 10. When God had created Adam, he came into the famine, viz. into the temptation, wherein the soul ought not to eat of the outward kingdom, but of the inward; but seeing it turned itself with its will into the outward kingdom, it did live in the famine, viz. in the hunger after the outward world’s substance; and therefore it turned itself unto Abimelech, king of the Philistines, at Gerar; that is, to the corrupt kingdom in God’s anger, viz. to the heathenish king, and was subject to it. 11. And then the Lord appeared unto it, as here he did to Isaac, and said, Go not into Egypt (that is, thou poor depraved soul, go not into the bestial lust), but remain in the land which I shall tell thee of-, and be thou a stranger in this land; that is, remain in my Covenant, and be with the soul a stranger in this house of flesh, wherein the soul is not at home; And lo, I will be with thee, and bless thee- for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father (vv. 2, 3). That is :

12. Remain but steadfast in my will, and then I will give thee after this [lifetime] the kingdom of nature, according to its inward good ground, for possession and propriety; and I will perform and ratify my oath (viz. Jesus Christ, whom I promised thee in thy fall, and whom I introduced into Abraham’s faith) unto thee for ever; and I will, in the kingdom of nature, wherein thou must in this time stand, work, labour, toil, and be in need and distress, even multiply thy seed as the stars in heaven-, and give thy seed all the wrought powers and works to an eternal propriety, and through thy seed all the nations of the earth shall he blessed (v. 4). That is : 13. Through thy ens of faith (which in Christ, viz. in the aim and limit of the Covenant, shall be manifested in the kingdom of thy nature and creatural property, and become man in thee) all nations, viz. the whole Adamical tree shall be blessed; and therefore, because Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, commandments, ways, and laws (v. 5). That is, Abraham hath received my working word into his soul’s desire, and obeyed my voice in its operation; which divine operation is the command, law, and form. Out of which operation also God shewed Abraham, by the circumcision, the figure of the kingdom of Christ, that the same should cut off the sin and vanity; which figure God called his charge, law in the Covenant, and his statute.