as 666 is to 1000. And as the Evil Angels having secluded themselves from the meek Majestick Order will yet be as Eminent in their Evil as they can so Man being become bestial willeth to be as extreamly and vigorously a Beast as he may He is conversant about the Dictates of the sensual Man seldom proceeding but so far as the depraved rational which yet were he they both would not only fall utterly short but indispose him to the true Light as a Man brought out of a dark Dungeon is surprized and sees not in the dazling Sun 3. Now how the Seven headed Beast is cast into the Abyss is thus done he is destroy'd by Intestine or as 't is call'd Civil Discord A Beast hath many things like to a Man so the Apocalyptical Beast hath the Notion of Grace making room in the Regenerate by Combat and Warfare to destroy the impure depraved Lusts and cleanse the House that the King of Glory may enter The Beast flatters himself finding a disposition in him to be rid of some Sins though it be as Men are of troublesome Tenants without design of receiving a Heavenly Guest as the Regenerate do for such a one the Beast desires not for he knows no such but doth it only to ease himself of such who are unprofitable Associates Nor is there in the bestial Man a Warfare betwixt Grace and Sin the pure Spirit and sinful Flesh the Holy Virgin Image and the unmortified or revivings of Lust Though in the Astral Man as it is more nearly the Instrument of the Eternal Soul there is something better than is in the bestial Man as in a more simple ingeny where the Tincture is less incurvated or the Mind by assed than in the sensual bestial Man So that unto that Man the Heavenly Applications have readier intercourse more familiarly to impart it self and diffuse its beams therefore was it and still is it that the Soul is often spoken to in Dreams the Visions of the Night finding her best at leisure and emptied in some sort of the bestial Man's Clamors and throngs of Impositions But the War in the unregenerate Man is between the adverse parts and properties wherewith his Soul is endowed or whereof rather it is composed and as resulting from them the strife is between that natural Intellect which distinguisheth him from the Transitory Brutes on the one hand and his impetuous Lusts on the other 4. This Intellect may be call'd his Natural Conscience whereof the Apostle speaks that in those things which they understand as viz. little differenced from natural Brute Beasts in those they corrupt themselves Now in this contest where the depraved Intellect sentenceth that or this to be evil or good the will resulting from the Rebel Affections which will is regent and by Prerogative deems himself unaccountable calls the evil good indulgeth it delights in it and assimilates becomes one with it This natural Intellect the Beast deceived by the Whore calls the new Creature and Regenerator and flatters himself to be fighting the Fight of the Faith of Gods Elect or precious Ones Whereas their dark Heads and inimicitious Hearts are only engaged in Intestine Broils from the disorder of their native contrary Parts or Faculties And this Light is that whereof the Lord speaks If the Light that is in thee be Darkness how great is that Darkness viz. If the Eye be evil and not single the four forms all this while proceed not to enkindle the true fifth but are compassed by the sparks of Fire of their own private Spirits enkindling not Flames of Light blown up by the Spirit of Divine Love And other times the Affections enclined by their good Astral Man or Constellation or perhaps by some surprize of Sympathy have a warmth towards compassionate and righteous Actions but yet at the same time the Mind is abstractedly darkness for death and disorder reigneth there These may give some Light to the inquiring Observer by what ways the Beast deceives precipitates and destroys himself plunging himself into the Abyss of Confusion for all his seven Heads Forms or Properties being so many implacable Enemies to each other rend and ruine him Q. 165. How doth Christ take the Kingdom when this Beast becometh slain The Tenth Distribution A. 1. Here we are come to enquire how that is done which we are taught to pray for Thy Kingdom come out of that Kingdom we like the Prodigal wandered and became as he into a most wretched state desirous to eat of the Swines meat but no one gave even that shewing us he had no right or title to it but either must beg it or steal it having not to pay for it and yet must have it or perish for hunger In this very state and nothing better is every man till Christ introduceth his Kingdom into the Soul And Man 's going out of himself is in this Parable call'd a coming to himself 2. But Reason can neither speak what This Kingdom is nor understand the written or spoken â—anguage concerning it be it spoken with all possible plainness or written with ample demonstration for Reason hath but one Eye and that looks downward like the Eye of a Beast and the Lust of Property and incessant Thirst to gratifie the Flesh by self-pleasing it s own exaltation self-avenging c. like manifold Cloths of Pitch shuts it up from the Kingdom of Christ so that all it can by this reach to is but as a swiming in the brain the receptacle and working-shop of the Sensitive Astral and Depraved Rational Spirits But the Eternal Word is spoken in the Heart which in opposition to that of the Brain is only mentioned and it 's not without signification that the word Brain is scarce found in the whole Bible but always the Heart as that which the Lord regardeth to mention 3. The Knowledge how Christ takes the Kingdom will be much advanced by clearing how Adam lost it For as the Spiritual World breathed it self through the Outward which is its Image so the Divine World filled the Essences of Adam's Soul also swallowed up his Astral Man then capable of Eternity so that his first four Forms were sweetly united in the Image of Holiness and true Righteousness and thus themselves were as it were hidden The Astral Man also was only serviceable to its Illustration and thereby compleatly happy sharing according to its capacity the Glory together with his noble Soul replenisht with his Divine Spirit 4. And his departure from the Eternal Substantiality of the Divine Life was to live according to Astral Reason as to his Inward Man and no higher And according to the Sensual Bestiality in his Outward both which are but the Figure or Shadow of the true substantial Spiritual World thereupon he died to the Divine Life And the Magical Power of his Essences being Those Properties whereof his Soul is composed wanting Heavenly Food became a dark hungry fierce inimicitious Will spoiling his Tincture as is
excited by earnest Love is successful passionately to enkindle Divine Light in such proportion of speed as the heat is in degree for great Divine Fervour having Anguish for its Root hath always according to its own Nature eminent Light and Glory for its Fruit. 2. More particularly 4. To shew his immediate care of the feeblest as tender Mothers do to their weakest Children So here to a Woman 5. To demonstrate his gracious Condescention to the separate Image of the Humanity divided from Adam and first in the Transgression like to the saying Tell my Disciples and Peter who had so lately denied him that it was as the seâ—ting of a dislocated Joint 6. To try the Faith of his most eminent Followers who should first only hear of this glorious Resurrection once and again by the words of others than after the sence of hearing follow'd their seeing him then touching then tasting by their Intellect his heavenly Teaching then participating of the Spirit by his breathing on them Thus became they Witnesses not only of Christ's swallowing up Death by Victory by gradual assurance past all shadow of doubt but also be Witnesses against themselves of their own Diffidence till their Faith was enforced to act its office by Mediation of all the Senses Q. 138. Why did Christ after his Resurrection eat of the broiled Fish with his Disciples and entred in unto them through a shut Door and taught them A. 1. The Text saith They gave him a piece of broiled Fish and a Hony comb and he did eat The first part of this Question may seem curious as well as obscure but it must be noted that all things God discovereth are not alike plain but must be sought out by diligent search comparing and inferring as amongst many the offering strange Fire was not forbidden but God consuming the Sacrifice by his own Fire did by Consequence forbid the other the Error herein cost Nadab and Abihu their lives The carrying the Ark on a Cart was not forbidden but David's not considering and inferring a Prohibition of that by the Direction for carrying it on the Priests Shoulders cost Uzzah his Life 2. And now here the Lord after his Resurrection eats broiled Fish and Hony-comb as before he twice feeds the Multitude with Fish by Miracle we may not think the Eating of Fish insignificant and that again having wrought the Miracle of the great Draught of Fishes after the Resurrection their Dinner was Fish All which hath a double signification 1. 3. More general That as Adam's Fall had laid the Creation under Universal Disorder such as was most aptly represented by the confused troubled â—ea and all his Posterity by Fishes one devouring the other as saith the Lord on this Allusion to his Disciples I will make you fishers of men in this sense concerning the New Heaven c. Viz. At the reducing to Paradisical Order it is written there was no more Sea 2. 4 More particularly whereas Fish was never us'd in Sacrifice and Honey directly forbidden to be in any Offering to the Lord by Fire this with rending the Veil of the Temple was to shew the Jews the time of their Sacrifice was finished But Men signified by Fish were in a more excellent way to be the Lord's and the Kingdom of Heaven like a Drag Net to catch them But their not considering this their gracious Visitation and persisting in their obstinate Sacrificing and wilful Ignorance of the signs of the times cost not the lives of a Nadab and Abiâ—u or Uzza but those of Priests and People City and Nation Desolation of Jerusalem and Sion Temple and Altar and suppression of their supposed Offspring for so many Centuries to this very day 5. Now as his Eating was Paradifical in the Mouth only So his entring the Doors being shut was his being now only in the Divine Principle not to be shut out for the World is as nothing before him The Condensations fiercest Attractions strongest Constringencies are all open High-ways to his Omnipotence for his Conquest was over Hell and he goeth into all the wrath of the first Principle as well as the third all Power in Heaven and Earth being his for ever Q. 139. Why did not Christ after his Resurrection sheâ— himself to every one but to some only A. 1. 1. By every one must be intended 1. Every of those in Jerusalem or 2. Every of the Lords Disciples 1. But so to have done in the larger sence had been cross to his own Inhibition Cast not holy things to Dogs nor Pearls before Swine 2. It had oppos'd the Method of his Proceedings with Men from the time of his Conception to his Ascension 1. His Conception was a Secret imparted only to the Virgin after in a Dream to Joseph then Prophetically to Elisabeth Simeon and Anna and Prophesies had Obscurities 2. His Birth was discovered to the poor solitary Shepherds after that perhaps above two Years to the Wise Men but presently veil'd by his Flight and Absence Thence no more is said of him till he attained to about 12 Years and then though the Doctors were astonished at his Understanding yet they knew him not Neither understood his Parents his Answer on that occasion but he went with them and was subject unto them from that time till he began to be about 30 Years So that for 18 Years nothing appears but as if he had been a common Child of Adam 3. Then the Observation of what passed at his Baptism was instantly shrouded by his Forty Days withdrawing from all Men into the Wilderness 4. And after his calling of the Twelve and Preaching the Gospel he often retreated from the Multitudes divers times from some of the Twelve and sometimes from them all especially for Prayer and all this while unknown to his very Brethren 5. And when his exalted Glory was so conspicuous upon raising of Lazarus that the High Priest c. began to say the World goeth after him that it seemed to threaten the hindering the Baptism he was graciously straightned to be Baptized with and that they feared the People then offered he himself up at once checking the mistaken Hopes and Confidence of Jews and Gentiles This was the Method of the humbled state of the Only Eternal Almighty Son of God 3. 3. The Reason of his thus much concealment was the abuse by vile Mankind of the sparklings of his Glory As 1. Herod begins by shedding the Blood of Innocents 2. The Sharers in and Beholders of his Miracles were obstructive to his other work of gaining Souls therefore he so frequently chargeth Privacy on them 3. The Multitudes that he fed by Miracle offered so much interruption as to obtrude on the Eternal Soveraign of all World 's such Advancement as to be King of a Dunghil and render him obnoxious to the filly Jealousie of Earthy Kings those Gods of Clay and their beastly Tyranny 4 The Splendor
into everlasting Indignation Wrath Tribulation and Anguish who can dwell with devouring Fire under the Wrath of the Lamb Q. 167. What is the Dying of a true Christian What of him Dyeth A. 1. The Dying here inquired is call'd a Sleep which alludes to Adam who not exerting his Power became as one fainting and fell into a deep Sleep in which time his Female Property was divided from him and he slumbered to the Unity of the Paradisical Life and then was opened in him the divided state partly and but partly Paradisical for it was a begun Declension into the Dividings of the Astral Multiplicity And by Eves and his Eating the Fruit of the third Principle soon wrought in them dismal Effects for he lived no longer according to the Universal Will but set up a private Self-will as Law-maker ceasing to Rule over the Astral Powers he fell under them and so sadly as to be relieved and collect support and food from them given up to their contrary Properties and became a Beast as to his outward Body the deadness of part whereof degraded him so far as to render him by his Bones Skin and other insensible Parts to the baseness of Vegetatives and all this not transient as are some Astral Impressions but as a strong Prison out of which is no escape but by demolishing the Walls and Fabrick This is the desolate Wilderness which was signified by the going of the the Lord Jesus out of Canaan into the Wilderness to be there Forty days teÌ„mpted of the Devil after Fasting 2. Thus may a glimpse be seen what Adam's Sleep and after that his Fall introduced It chang'd his first Principle by darkning the Divine Eye of his second from great Power and active Vigor such as is that of the mighty Angels into Discord Rage Envy Fury c. and it chang'd his third Principle from so great Purity Transparency and Aptitude to have done Eternally the Offices of his great Soul and Divine Spirit into a gross obscene filthy palpable feeble sickly bestial perishing Carcass or Sack of Worms 3. Now when the Sun of Righteousness descends into this dark Dungeon he more or less according to the growth of the Regenerate Child by his pure meek Spirit appeaseth the Disorders of the Soul and halloweth it directing correcting and confirming a resolved will to obey as simply as a little Child and to persevere as a strong Man in Christ by which the Internal Man is in great part made God's Child and Image reaching toward the Love flame pressing strongly thitherward and groans to be with the Lord but still is the Body as little affected as the Bark of a Tree with the Virtue of the Fruit or as a Candlestick with the lustre of the Taper or as the Earth with the Astral Vertue rouâ—ing the Principles of Sulphur and Mercury in the saline Spirit in and through it 4. What can be done with this Body If it were possible to affect it so as the East-India Nut-tree doth that the Mercurial Vertue arising with Sulphur into a Nutmâ—g on a Clove for the Stud the Bark should be a Cinnamon it were somewhat but our Carcass is as senseless of the inward Man's Divine Work as the Bone is the Respondence and Intercourse the Spirits have through the Arteries and venal Channels or as the Beasts Hide is of the Astral Impulses moving the Animal Therefore it must like a Husk shell off and the Natural Body as a Grain of Wheat be sowed into the Elements whence it derived as the Corn into the Earth and die before it can increase and rise a spiritual Body 5. Thus dieth the Elementary part of the true Christian. How dieth the Wise-Man as the Fool returning into the Mouth whence it was spoken The Astral Body also rather disappears than dies but being dissolved from the ancient Obligations to the bestial Body it may remain at the Will of the Noble Soul to be its Chariot wherewith as a Medium it sometimes doth vouchsafe a loving Visit to his dear Christian Friend yet in the Body but most easily when such a one sleepeth as to the Elementary Man and seeth heareth and toucheth with his Astral Man for then may the precious separate Soul if it desires it as familiarly have access and converse with his dear Friend or Brother as two Men of one Language may and this hath been and may be to the great Satisfaction and Edification of the surviving Christian though not frequently because of Mens unworthiness or for fear of Impostures and especially because the Lord only is abundantly and infinitely all-sufficient by his own Omnipotence and Omnipresence 6. As Adam slept to the Holy Paradifical Virgin state and awaked to the bestial World's Adulterous state so the true Christian's Death is a sleeping to that sleep of his viz. The filthy sickly cumbring prophane Elementary Life and an awaking to the pure holy triumphant dear sweet child-like angelical Endless Life it transfers him out of the howling Wilderness of Temptation into Eternal Canaan out of a Dungeon into the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God out of the Turba of perplexing Multiplicity and restless wrestling of contrary Properties into the equal Temperature and Calm harmonious complete Unity the private Self being extinct he entreth the Universal sacred Freedom of the Lord's Redeemed ones Q. 168. What is the Dying of the wicked in that it is called an Eternal Dying A. 1. It hath been often inculcated in these Writings that all Men are in all the three Principles of one Blood but their difference is notorious for though they are almost the same in their first and third Principles and much what alike though not without great distance of degrees in their second Principle yet here is the immense difference that in some their second Principle like the House of Saul impairs and gradually as it were insensibly extinguisheth to a dismal blackness to be felt at length and in others the Regeneration calmly yet with irresistible sweet force more and more opens that Principle which as the House of David improves and flourisheth 2. From these dear Children if their Progress hath been Crown'd with Perseverance their third Principle is like Trash and dusty Rubbish scatter'd about a firm built Structure fully finished which Death like an impetuous Storm with rapid Motion disperseth or as a mounting Torrent of Water violently bears away leaving the Fabrick unconcern'd But the third Principle is to the other his Fortress Confidence Retreat Refuge Rest Joy Hope Treasure and his all therefore Death at once surprizing him and snatching that away he and it perish together his only home falleth for want of Foundation the Cistern he hath hewn is broken having no Water in it nor can hold it if any were entrusted thereinto which shews the fault to be in the very bottom else it might hold some Water but the truth is it hath no bottom at all The World to the one is either as it is to
as saith our Lord My Father worketh hitherto and I work 2. Hath not Man brought himself in a most wretched degree oâ— the Curse by the Fall of Toil and Labour and Confusion of Language it is on the Work and Word what hath and is man more A great aggravation of this Misery is either when we sit down under Bondage in Soul and Body feeding among Swine having a Beast's Heart as Nebuchadnezar and groan not after working in God and for God which would gradually deliver from the Curse Also when we mistake our present working-time and flatter our selves with undue and imaginary rest whereas we are here in the Seed time in a Journey in the six days of Work 2. But thou my Soul spare no pains spur thy lazy Assoâ—iate my Body subject it to the Cross to free you both from the Cross endure patiently die daily and having done all stand empty thy self lose thy self pour out thy self Let not thy Will be bought but pay it to the Owner give and resign it gladly and irrevocably As to thy Name be content it should wither as if blasted with the East Wind be willing to be nameless the Memory of it to be as written on the Sand and while here to be a Fool a Child an off-scouring any thing or nothing yet must not thy work stop let it proceed chearfully till thy Body like the Matter of a Taper be consumed if then thou art found so doing no sooner shall this Candle expire but the Sun will rise who shall never set and the Sabbath enter at the end of the Week On the 36th Question and Answer Of the difference of the Mortal Creatures their Chaos kind and how distinguish'd 1. Had we the Intellect of an Angel the distinct Properties would be as an Index by their Idea to the voluminous Book of the great Mystery and the Idea of the Creatures as it were pourtray the Potent Will and Properties of the Abyss Or had we Adam's bright Eye we might read their Names in the Language of Nature and in them the Names Power and Vigor of our own three Principles but falling so far below both as that many of the Bruits themselves may instruct us in several things How weak are our Enquiries how perplext our Aphorisms and Process The ancient Magi direct us to know the seven Properties by the seven regal Stars and Governors which are the Spirits of the seven Metals and impress the Vertues of the seven precious Stones while many of Modern Pretenders to Wisdom having lost the Spirit Life and Essence of Nature fill their Heads only with the Names Mood Figure and Grasp at Shadows of things 2. Behold how various are the Species how curious the Symmetry how agil the Composure even of many Insects how wonderful the Transmigration and Product of the Silk-worm the Confection of the Bee with her Feminine Monarchy how crafty the Nets of the Spiders how providently laborious the Ant wherewith our Lord upbraids our slothfulness and we gratifie our Pride with the Silk and our Palate with the Honey instead of searching out and adoring of the most High in these his little Creatures yet are these little ones great compar'd with those to the bare Eye invisible and only visible in good Glasses which sits spinning in Sage leaves and yet how many Atoms may that Creature be divided into Consider we their Sympathy and Society not only of Flocks and Herds but of Birds of Prey as Rooks Stares Storks also their Antipathy as the Thresher and Sword-fish against the Whale 3. But now how highly necessary is it that from this open Door all should impartially search themselves to see whether their Spirits are imaged according to the Evil Creatures and if they find the Powers of the dark World predominant that they learn to die to them else they die in them shall rise in them and live everlastingly in them and of what infinite concern endless Misery is all reasonable Creatures may judge Whereas if by the Spirit of Life we mortifie the Deeds that is the lusts of the Body of Sin we shall by the same Spirit be raised now in the first Resurrection which excludes the second Death and begets the Divine Life springing up through Death by self-emptying where no Creature nor all of them hath any room but the Lord and those only to Contemplate his Grace and Infinity in On the 37th Question and Answer To what end and wherefore were the mortal Creatures made 1. When the gracious Creator placed Man here it was in a Farm well stockt but that which meets my Meditation on the present Subject in the last Paragraph of the Answer which is the Eternity of them in their Idea how fading and transitory soever they are The glorious Work of the Creation is not a bare Pageantry it must cease as to its present Forms but not vanish into a non-entity for it shall bud forth for the sake of it's Tincture by the strife of the Properties to the Glory of the God of Glory and as Instances or Trophies of the Victory the weak Members of the Almighty Lord Jesus Christ have obtain'd by their Lord's strength fortifying them to trâ—ad his steps and follow him in the Regeneration 2. By the reverting of those Figures shall the blessed see how meekly the patient Lambs and other good Creatures pour'd out their lives how quick and punctually the Fowls contributed as did the Quails and Raven how readiâ—y the Inhabitants of the Water yield themselves as those to the Apostles Nets how liberally the Olive and other Fruit Trees pour'd forth their fatness and the Elements their several Stores And to the cursed Rejecters of God shall all Creatures be plain material Demonstrations of their Abuses by Man's Excess and Cruelty the toil of the laborious Oxe the sweat of the macerated Horse the life of a multitude of other Creatures profusely lavished away to pamper base sordid Lusts run as with one cry not as the Lambs against a devouring Wolf or the Turtle against the Vulture but that as those Devils in Humane shape should ransack the Indies and four Elements to humour their insatiable Lusts. 3. What Arguments my Soul may be drawn hence for Sobriety Moderation Humility Thankfulness Improvement of the Strength given us liberal breaking to the Poor and Mercy to the Dumb Creatures of doing all not only as before the Omniscient Eye who will be a swift Witness before the good Angels Devils our own Consciences but the whole Creation also who as they the Creatures partake of the Properties and Tincture are branches of the whole Astral and Elementary Creation shall in their Aethers be more than a meer History viz. an express material Representation and Wiâ—ness for or against thee in the other Country though the Fool and Atheist will not know it On the 38th Question and Answer Of that whence Man's Body was taken 1. If they to whom the Word of God came are called God's what was
IACOBUS BOHME TEUTONICUS PHILOSOPHUS THEOSOPHUS CENTRALIS Jacob Behmen's Theosophick Philosophy UNFOLDED IN DIVERS Considerations and Demonstrations SHEWING The Verity and Utility of the several Doctrines or Propositions contained in the Writings of that Divinely Instructed AUTHOR ALSO The Principal Treatises of the said Author Abridged And Answers given to the Remainder of the 177 Theosophick Questions Propounded by the said JACOB BEHMEN which were left unanswered by him at the time of his Death As a help towards the better Understanding the Old and New Testament Also what Man is with respect to Time and Eternity Being an Open Gate to the Greatest Mysteries By EDWARD TAYLOR With a short Account of the LIFE of JACOB BEHMEN LONDON Printed for Tho. Salusbury at the Sign of the Temple next the Inner-Temple Gate in Fleetstreet 1691. THE Publishers Preface TO THE READER WE do with all Respects and Candidness present you with the Works of one who was a true and faithful Labourer in his Day his Pains hath been bestowed in watering and cultivating what was sown by another Hand And having imployed his Time and Talent well is entered into his Lord's rest enjoying that Peace which must necessarily result from a faithful Performance of a Trust given by our great Lord. We can give but a very short account of the Author but hope this Publication may produce a fuller from some of his Personal Acquaintance As we are informed it was one Mr. Edward Taylor an English Gentleman the latter part of his time he lived at Dublin in much Privacy and Retirement where he made this his Work and Business He died at Dublin about the Year 1684. His Manuscripts were preserved by the Care of a Friend and brought over hither where they have lain some time in Private But considering how much we are beholding to our Predecessors for their great Pains taken to inform us their Writings Published being a Testimony of their good Will to Posterity And also considering the Labour taken by this good Man for a Publick Benefit we could not in Justice to the Author deceased nor with the respect we owe to all Mankind as our Brethren suffer so Good and Profitable a Work to Perish under our Custody without incurring the guilt of Ingratitude if not of Inhumanity We have hereby indeavoured to set this Light in Publick View and that it may prove of use to direct the Course of any in this dark and dismal Passage towards the Haven of Rest is what we earnestly desire and seek He was a Devout Christian a Sincere Protestant living in the Communion of the Church of England and earnest he was in vindicating the Truth abhorring a bare outside Formality which only hath the Name and Profession but wants the Nature Life and Power of Religion He was not for making Rents and Divisions amongst Men by setting up a new Sect or having a People called after his Name thereby to gain Applause or to make himself great But made it his Business to Learn and Improve in the Knowledge and Understanding of the Divine and Natural Mysteries We are very apt to regret the loss of worthy Instruments such as have been raised up in an Extraordinary Manner and Eminently Qualified above their Brethren hoping that if we had enjoyed their good Converse we might have greatly benefited and improved thereby without doubt they have a great Happiness that injoy such a Benefit and improve it But we must consider that they are but Men and are indeed but Instruments or Vehicles and it is very rare but that the Purity and Excellency of Truth conveyed by them receives some Shadow or Soil from the Medium Their chief work hath been to direct us to the Fountain of Wisdom which is open at all times to all Persons ready to inform all that truly seek Wisdom there And from this Universal Fountain every one receives according to their Capacities And accordingly it is required that every one should Communicate or Prophecy according to their proportion of Faith received now Faith is every particular Man's Evidence and not anothers Thus although one may have a larger Measure or more Mysterious yet there is no disharmony but all tends to the Benefit of the whole And teaching all Wisdom that every one may be presented perfect in Christ. Although we cannot Comprehend all Truth let us remain humble sincere Searchers and in due time we shall be rewarded with her Treasures when the Captious Disdaining Mocking Spirits shall reap their Reward that is to be perfected in that Principle they have given themselves up to as Servants The Writings of the Divinely inspired Jacob Behmen called the Teutonick Philosopher have been by many received with great Satisfaction and have contributed towards the Extricating their Minds out of those Labyrinths and Difficulties wherein Evil Practice and Opinions kept up by Custom had involved them The greatest Objection raised against the said Writings have been their Abstruseness and Uncouth Expressions making them almost impossible to be understood which now is answered and removed Here being a Person raised up to bear Testimony to their Truth who by delivering his Sense in more usual and familiar words it is hoped may have render'd them clear In his Considerations on the Subject Matter and Scope of the Writings of Jacob Behmen He doth from the Types Figures and Sacrifices under the Law from things we are most conversant with through the whole Creation from Heaven and Earth and from Man himself Demonstrate the Truth of his Doctrine to be well-grounded upon the uncontroulable Maxims of Confessed Theology and Philosophy The 177 Theosophick Questions which were propounded by J. Behmen of which he lived to Answer but 13 and part of the 15th the rest of them lying unanswered till this Good Man being spirited thereto took up the task and hath performed it as an able Workman Answering the Remainder and hath given us some Meditations on part of the said Questions and Answers All treating of the highest Mysteries and yet what we in Duty ought to be most conversant about His Extracts of several of the Works of Jacob Behmen were intended for the use of those that had not or could not procure the said Writings and also to give a Summary Account of the whole which may be as an Introduction opening the Gates to us and promote a further Communication of these great and most useful Truths The Apostle Paul preached to the Athenians the Knowledge of that God whom they ignorantly adored Even so these Writings serve or tend to teach us by plain Demonstration what we like the Athenians are too Ignorant of It is written God is one which certainly is as true as where it is said There are three that bear Record in Heaven It is written Our God is a consuming Fire And yet said to be Light and Love and in him is no Darkness at all that he is meek merciful of everlasting kindness and that fury is not in him It
Sperm or Seed to their maturity and declining who all by the due temper violent extream or fading of This Spirit have the proportion of increase or declination to Nullity for This as a Weather glass or Index shews their degrees of vigour or languishing 4. But let it suffice no longer to hold a Candle to the Sun which in conjunction with Mars is in the out-birth the great instrument which doth abundantly demonstrate and figure This 4th Spirit and on the 4th day was the Sun created or enkindled The 4 first Spirits thus distinctly known open us among many others the Scriptures following 5. This is the Condemnation that light c. and men love darkness c. because their deeds are evil that is they are comprised in the first four forms refusing to be enkindled by the light of the 5th form but remain by the Astringency immeasurably covetous by the attraction uncontroleably proud by the property of the anguish repleat and swoln with envy and by That of the fire have fierce furious anger Our lusts warring in our Members the cause of Wars which remain such till the light of God or second Principle enkindles it and so compose Peace Man is become like the Beast that Perisheth Like the Wolf and Swine by the astringent covetousness The Lion Horse Cock by the proud elevating attracting will Like the Toad Torpedo c. by the anguish Like Dogs Tigers c. by the furious fiery property Thus the Soul like the Traveller fell among Thieves where he perisheth till the good Samaritan takes pity 6. In these 4 Adam was dead till God inspoke the Word promising life the way of reviving is by enkindling light and in the light the Divine Love clearly typified by the Law of Sacrifices for as the Sacrifice gave it self up in a flame as of love to ascend leaving only its ashes which were His till then Impediments so is this Indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish on every Soul of Man that doth Evil These are the 4 murthering Spirits But glory honour and peace to every one that worketh righteousness c. Here are the three last Spirits of the seven viz. The 5th the Light or Love-fire signified by Glory The 6th the sound or spirit enabling to heavenly Songs of Praise signified by honour And the 7th the Body or Sabbath in which all the other six spirits being by the 5th and 6th brought into harmony do inhabit rest and dwell signified by Peace CHAP. VII Demonstrations of the Spirit producing Light and the Love fire 1. THis demonstrates it self in every thing more or less on this side the hellish Principle but the first four excluding Addition are in and in a sort compose comprehend and include the dark World and That is the harsh Astringency strong Attraction raging Anguish and hungry Fire These limit the first or hellish Principle which can never comprehend the Light for That never proceeds to enkindle it for it wants oil and must ever want it because their perpetual Enmity doth ever more dry it up 2. Now that which composeth Peace is where the fire proceedeth to the blowing up of Light the Meekness whereof satiateth the hungry Fire and becomes food for the other three Spirits who before like Milstones without Corn grind and impetuously rub and grate each other 3. This did Lucifer and his Legions till the gracious Jehovah not being pleas'd that so great a space of the Salitter as that now included by the Stars should remain under the Darkness which then cover'd that Deep call'd for Light which was this 5th Spirit and its appearing caus'd each of the other four to kiss and sweetly strengthen the other and draw all one way and not prey one on another 4. The Scripture saith Perfect love casts out fear for fear hath torment which it doth by taking away the enmity and harmonizing the first four forms of the discording Spirits Love is the fulfilling of the Law for it doth all suffers all and that always but until the 4th Spirit the Fire attains the Light and Love Spirit the first four neither do nor can fulfil the Law but undo all by their Dissonancy The three first years the fruits in Canaan were to be accompted as uncircumcised The 4th year to be of Praise to the Lord but not to be eaten till the 5th year The three first years signifie the three first Forms of the eternal Nature viz. Binding Attracting and Anguish which before enkindling of the other four Forms are enemicitious and the foundation of the hellish Principle But the 4th year was the fruit to be of Praise to the Lord more nearly than the other because out of it is enkindled the light and love-flame Yet the Tribes of God were not to eat it till the 5th year for then it became good nourishment by the enkindled Light and principle of Love and not before The sweet Perfume was only of four Heterogeneous Ingredients viz. Stacte or Stacus a bitter tasted Arabian flower and Onyca a sweet spice of each a like quantity signifying the two first Forms which are both alike strong or alike weak every where The third is Galbanum very stinking signifying the third Form the Anguish The fourth is pure Frankincense a Gum of sweet Odour to feed the Fire which Fire is the fourth Form Obj. Will any say How are we concern'd to penetrate into the distinct Forms and Properties of Nature call'd fountain Spirits Is not this the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil which Adam fell by searching sounding and feeling after with neglect of the tree of Life Answ. It is true he should not have known this experimentally for his knowing the third Principle separated from the second was as fatal had not infinite Mercy interposed as the knowledge of this which is the first Principle had been to Lucifer and his Angels But Man being fallen it is as highly profitable to him to have the distinct understanding of this as it was hurtful to our first Parents for as the Physitian and Chyrurgeon ought to find the spring of disorders in the Sick or the depth of the Wound even so here our knowing this is as the spreading the snare in the sight of a Bird. This appears it that the Lord is the All in all things with the froward he will shew himself froward c. These four Fountains are the indissoluble band the root of all things visible and invisible the immediate cause and strong might of all eternal things and with the interposition of second causes may be truly said to be the cause of transitory Beings for these are the root of their roots the cause of their causes the instrumental first Mover of their Motion and Parent of their immediate Parents Daniel's vision of four Monarchies figureth the four first Forms all which excluding the 5th viz. the enkindling the Light are called four great Beasts 1. The first like a Lion viz. the
Astringent Binding mighty Power the lofty Babilon 2. The second like a Bear viz. the strong cruel Attraction the inflexible unalterable inexorable Empire of the Medes and Persians 3. The third like a Leopard for anguish is compos'd of several ingredients like as are the colours of the sported Leopard as is also the belly of a Toad And the Greek Empire is said to have consisted of about a Hundred and forty sorts of People or Nations 4. The fourth Beast was dreadful and terrible not likened to any Beast but being as fire is said to devour and break in pieces such were the Romans But one like the Son of Man came and to him was given dominion and glory an everlasting kingdom here is the 5th form viz. the enkindling of the light signified Represented also by the 4 Winds of Heaven 4 wings of a Fowl and 4 heads Thus Lazarus having lain in the Grave four days the true light raised him They are figur'd by four Chariots but Horses in three of them of differing colours one from the other but the 4th was of Horses of differing colours among themselves viz. Grizled and Bay expounded by the Angel to be four Spirits of the Heavens which go forth from standing before the God of the whole Earth Will any think it to be without a mystery that Elisha was wroth with Joash King of Israel for smiting on the Ground but three times saying Thou shouldst have smote five or six times then hadst thou smote the Syrians till thou hadst consumed them for the Prophet had promised he should consume them But Joash being held by his wickedness in the first four forms smote but thrice for had he as the Prophet saith smote five times he had enkindled the Light of the Liberty in his forms as an addition had he smote six times he had brought the illustrated forms into Harmony of Love whereby his Enemies the oppressing Assyrian viz. the Enmity had been consumed Will any think it was without a Mystery that the Prophet Amos eight times reciteth For three Transgressions of Damasâ—us of Gaza Tirus Edom Amon Moab Judah Israel and for four I will not turn away the Panishment thereof For 't is apparent that the three or four first forms comprise all Sin But if the vigorous true Light be enkindled it flameth to a Love of God and is Death to Sin by discovering it awakening it and working it out cleansing the Conscience destroying the Enmity of the first four forms and so creating Peace to them that were far off making them nigh But it may be granted there is an Ingredient of Light admitted into and retained by the first four Forms but it is as that the Apostle Paul saith Science falsly so call'd Such is this it is an insinuation of a faint false delusory-Light comprehending the Craft Subtlety Sophistry Serpentine wisdom to abuse the Senses and mis-imploy the out-born Natural Powers to jugling Deceits uniting Earthiness and Sensuality to devilish Designs Of this Wisdom the Lord saith If the Light that is in thee be Darkness how great is that Darkness Very apt and pertinent to this Discourse is it to consider That though the Perfume ascending from us was compounded of very unlike Parts some of them also very Unpleasant yet the Holy Oyl descending on us was compounded of five Kinds all excellent Good Delightful and Pleasant for we understand that the 5th form enkindles the Light which makes the four first from the Discords to be â— Harmony and a rich Concord Such are all Go'ds approaches to us as Joseph's Law in Egypt was That four Parts should be the Peoples and but the 5th Part to be Pharoah's figuring this 5th form's being taken as the Lord's Part only who is meant by Pharoah Divine Love hath its Root in the Centre of the Essence of the first four Spirits but most immediately in the Light and that from the Fire And the Activity of the four first Spirits as a perpetual Rotation causeth that Love can never Cool Thus is it strong as Death for Love is that Name which the God of Life is known to us by whom thus to know is Life Eternal The Instrument in the Out-birth of this Spirit is Venus CHAP. VIII Demonstration being of the Sound Tone Noise or Voice SHall there be need to demonstrate this which Heaven and Earth Ring of And Hell after its capacity hath also some impressions of It may suffice briefly to shew This to be a distinct Fountain for that it is the Result only of the United Operation of the five precedent Spirits meeting in the seventh is no Argument why This also should not be one for any one could not be without every one The Astringency had not what to bind but that the matter is produced by the other properties and so of the rest 1. As the light is the opening of the darkness thro' the fourth Fountain the fire so is the voice of the first four Fountains thro' the opening of the light revealing the Kingdom of Joy with its Beauty Colours and Ornament where-ever it is treasur'd 2. As we see fire sleeping in a Flint awakened by a stroke so doth the tone or sound start up and disperse it self so far as its vigour conquereth the resistance of contrary motions or solids and then expireth 3. As the life lies in a swound in vegetables till revived by the return of the Spring or as odours lie coucht in dead earth till midwif'd by the Sun thro' the stalks of flowers So the varieties of Infinity remain secret and dumb as in the mystery till this Oratory publisheth till this Herald proclaim it who by its continual motion speaks all and shews all The Representer of this sixth Fountain Spirit is in the out-birth Mercurius CHAP. IX Demonstration of the Body generated out of the other six Fountains 1. IF a mighty Prince should in regulating a world of laborious Subjects directed by a Council of men experienced in exquisite Art wanting neither time or other requisite to accomplish some stupendious structure or vast piece of magnificence should after all be able to accomplish only trifles were strange Or rather what could not mens highest prudence served with the confluence of abundance of willing agents sufficient helps and competent time atchieve acquire and bring to effect 2. And see we not what the six overflowing Fountain Spirits ranged by omnipotence conducted by infinite Wisdom exercising from eternity their irresistible Powers have conceived travell'd with brought forth and improved as the Holy One hath willed 3. And can any doubt they who have served to found and lay the Top-stone of infinite numbers of Fabricks in the Astral Elementary and Terrestrial Worlds should be unfurnished with a Royal Palace for themselves 4. This seventh Fountain Spirit is their Body Mansion and Sabbath the eternal Rest eternally generated In This they work their hallowed wonders in this they
power in every place as it did at his Transfiguration His Kingdom might have come on Earth as it is in Heaven where Paradice might have flourished 28 Demonstration is Natures labour after Perfection and the tincture in it shewing some faint impulses and producing precious Stones Gold and other Metals Medicinal Earths Spices excellent Fruits c. And in the Seas Pearl Amber c. all which are but shadows and reflected figures wherewith the third Principle representeth the Glories of the second 29. Therefore the enlightned Judgment guides the Will not to regard these things for themselves but for the infinite Excellency of that represented by them 30. If it be true that I love not the part I see or touch of my worthy honoured Friend but for that part of him which I see not nor touch outwardly for that is indeed the Excellency and the True Man much less then do I regard his meer shadow CHAP. XIII Of the Third Principle in four Demonstrations 1. IF the Greek Christians think the Holy Ghost proceeds only from the Father and not from the Son they must probably have some other meaning than is known to some of us for the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the Son 2. The four Anguishes of the first Principle generate the Light of the second and from the infinite Might and Strength of the first and the infinite Lustre of the second is generated the infinite Glory and Love of the third which third Principle is the Property of the Third Person in the Trinity 3. Hence is it that the third Principle is not only the growing Vertue of Paradice but also of the Out-birth the Astral Elementary and Visible Material World also Demonstration For as the Air is produced by Fire and Light yet being produced is not only a Self-subsisting body but the food of the Fire and consequently of the Light so is the third Person to the first and second 4. The Out-birth is not the first for it cannot be a Root but a Fruit not a Foundation but a Superstructure not a Creator but a Creation composed of Darkness or substantial matter like a Chaos arising from the first and the Light arising from the second 5. Neither is it the second as is apparent being a distinct Life in a sort inanimate without understanding an Image of the inward spiritual World in the various Figures and Properties thereof representing all as in a Mirrour As we see the outward glorious Sun figures the infinite inward second Principle but is not a seeing but a seen Light or Power 6. What then if it be neither the first nor second can it be but the third And tho' the third it only be yet it hath in every part of it the vigour of the first Principle and vertue of the second in some measure or other for if in any part were nothing of the first there could be no Being but a Nullity and if in any part were nothing of the second there were only Death and Hell manifest 7. Now forasmuch as in some places and things the first swalloweth up the second the Wrath and Curse seems only to be there and in other parts or things the second or sweet Property of the Life is prevalent there riseth a Life for his Light is the Life of Men. 8 Demonstration But in some also the Love in the Light swalloweth up the first Principle And there is a twofold Birth an Inward and an Outward The Inward is Divine Heavenly Holy man Eternal Excellency as in the new Birth or Regeneration but it extendeth not to Tincture the Outward Man because the Curse subjected it to Wrath and Corruption 9. The Lord Jesus Christ brake the Bands for it was not possible he should be holden of them though the weight of the whole World lay on him 10. Because his Heavenly Humanity did not only unite it self to the Mortal Flesh of the Virgin Mary which Heavenly Humanity was the Holy Thing begotten by the Holy Ghost the pure Virgin Image of Modesty Virgin Sophia the First-born of every Creature the Heir of all Things the Lamb slain from the Foundation of the World the Word that was made Flesh. But the same Divine Man which both came from Heaven into or in the Virgins Womb but also then was and is in Heaven this very same Word united it self to the second Person the Almighty Son of the Almighty God Thus was it that this Saviour and Mediator our Immanuel is the Mighty One on whom Help was laid for in Him the Three Principles shew themselves in their several Incomprehensible Fountains 11 Demonstration The Love in the Light can also Tincture the Outward Man in the third Principle and the Outward Man may by the pressing of the Inward into and through it with Power put off its Old Garment of Sickness and Infirmity and be cloathed with the New Robe A glimpse whereof is seen in the Faces of Moses and Stephen and more fully in the Translation of Enoch and Eliah but above all in the Lord's Transfiguration and Converse after his Resurrection But it is a very hard great Work because the Third whole Principle in us is estranged and dead to it by the very heavy Fall 12 Demonstration It may also be observed that the Love in the Light hath its outward Figures and impresseth it self in this Third Principle to the outward Senses 1. As in the Astral Kingdom principally in the Sun Jupiter and Venus 2. In the Air in the Concord of the Elements giving delightful sweet Weather 3. In the Sensitive Creatures as Doves Lambs c. 4. In Harmony of Musical Sounds and Voices of Birds 5. In Vegetables by most Sanative odoriferous excellent Fruits Roots and Seeds 6. In curious Colours of Flowers in the shadows of degrees of Light in Clouds 7. In Minerals as in Gold Silver Copper and by the Tincture giving lustre and vertue to Pretious Stones and Gems 8. In the Seas in Pearl Amber Coral c. So if the outward Heaven shew the Glory of the Lord the Earth shews his Handy-work CHAP. XIV How the Sacrifices shew the Three Principles 1. THe three grand Sacrifices were 1. The Burnt-offering 2. The Peace-offering 3. The Trespass-offering or Sin-offering unfolding the Threefold Mystery 2. The first grand Order of Sacrifices was the Burnt Sacrifices which consisted of four Kinds Either 1. Of the Herd 2. Of the Flock 3. Of Fowls 4. Of the Meat-offering Even so doth the first Principle shew it self in four and but four forms But agen the Burnt-offering differed from the other two Sacrifices in three things 1. That these must be only a Male the other might as well be a Female 2. That it must be all cut in Pieces whereas the other must be only divided not cut in Pieces and the Fat of the Inwards offered to the Lord. 3. The Burnt-Offering was after only washing wholly offered no Part with-held shewing
spark like the whole Origin a clod like the whole Ball. CHAP. XVI Man's Estate before his Fall 1. MAN being ranged a little lower than the Angels yet with one Principle more hath a Spirit penetrating as theirs if brought into an earnest hunger to search and knock Let none forbid so doing for God delights to be sought and known by such can he be most loved and admired that most discover of him 2. And those his Children who know most clearly what they fell from will strive most to be recovered and those that penetrate deepest into that dismal plight whereinto they have plunged themselves must needs be most profoundly Humbled and Those that find the prosecuting of their own Wills to be a Fighting against God their Restorer will be easiest prevailed with to lay down their Arms Die to their Wills Resign themselves to His Conduct Repair to His School Bear His Yoke at any price Buy the Pearl Fight the Battle of Faith that they may lay hold of Eternal Life Wisdom calls They only are the Sons of Wisdom who will hear I come now to the following most Important Points and Enquiries 1. What Man was before his Fall 2. By what degrees he fell 3. What Fallen Mans Estate was and is 4. What may be his Recovery 1. Concerning Man's Estate before his Fall 3. God made Man in or after His Image as hath been shewn how he was God's Image viz. an Extract out of all the Three Principles The Ignorance whereof befel Audeus in the fourth Century after the Incarnation who said God had Hands and Feet 4. But God's Image was to express in Adam that He had in Harmony His whole First Principle and all things subordinate to It so that the four Forms did mightily establish him and This Harmony stood by the Love-Fire and Holy Light of the Second Principle by which also he could Rule over his Third Principle 5. He was so perfectly God's Image as that he was capable of Eternity without any necessity in his own constitution to make him obnoxious to Mortality Else how is his Death denounced the Penalty of his Disobedience 6. Nor could he be clogg'd before he fell with a Dark Body stuft with the Elements and built upon Bones to bear it up as may appear by four Evidences Evidence 1. The Elemental Fruits are Mortal therefore are proper Food to support the Transitory Creatures that feed on them Evidence 2. Bones proceed as Stones also do from the too hard coagulation of the Astringency producing in the Saline Element the Principle of Mortal Salt Evidence 3. The food from the four Elements requires a gross Elementary Carcass to digest and draught to evacuate their Earthy Part both inconsistent with the Purity and Eternity of Paradise Evidence 4. The Elements themselves pass into their Ethers and cease as to their present Existence when the Mystery shall be fulfilled and the End hath found the Beginning 7. Adam was a Virgin of Purity with both Masculine and Feminine Tinctures as is evident for 't is said when Adam only was made Male and Female created he them so compleat was He as able to Increase and Multiply and Blessed thereunto v. 28. By both Tinctures not by two Persons for Eve's being made is not recorded till Gen. 2. 21. 8. Will any say Adam and Eve were made at once Gen. 1. 27. Gen. 2. 28. but only the Order more at large given 9. It is answered by the Holy Ghost where the Apostle convinceth by One Argument the reasonableness of the Woman's Subjection because of the Priority of Man's Creation 10. This must also be noted the Woman was not given him as were the Females to other Creatures Also that before her being made God said all was Very Good Rested from his Creating work Blessed a Sabbath Planted Eden Watered it caused it to Grow and the Sacred Records name the Rivers and several quarters whitherward their Effluxes directed themselves what Lands they washed c 11. But farther that the Propagation of Adam's Race should have been by Adam alone is demonstrable among many other produceable by the following Arguments 12. There was no Rending of the body to have been for Rending is inconsistent with the Happy Perfect Eternal State of Union dividing the Properties caus'd Enmity as in Heat Cold c. 13. The hanging on him the Bestial Genitals is That whereof Nature it self as depraved as now it is is Ashamed of and Blusheth at The Soul hideth it self all it can from This Monstrous filthy Brutish Deformity which it would not do had it been it self of no higher Extraction This the very Fallen Man well sees to be a New Strange Hateful Image whereto therefore It would not be subjected by the Creation 14. The Law of Circumcision on That Member shews God's displeasure at That New gotten way like the Beastial Propagation 15. The Lord Jesus His preferring the Chast Virgin Life tho' of pity to our Impotence and Infirmity restraining them only to it to whom power is extended thereunto signifieth as himself said in another case not very forreign to this that in the beginning it was not so 16. The sad and affonishing Effect as the first fruit of Copulation after dividing of the Tinctures was when Eve brought forth Cain she said I have got a Man from the Lord more truly rendred I have got a Man The Lord intimating that she thought That Son was the Seed promised should break the Serpent's Head But he prov'd as the Seed of the Serpent the Murtherer of him who bare the Image of the promised Seed which was so great a consternation that she conceived no more till after 70 years 17. The disregard God sheweth towards That Divided Image who also in the Transgression shewed a disregard towards the Inhibition of the Most High God which disregard for Humbling That Sex appears 1. By enjoyning Their Subjection and she to have power on her Head because of the Angels that is to say Those flaming glorious Virgins in whom the Tinctures are in inseparable Union are God's immediate Vicegerents and would not that the separate Tincture should forget its Declension and forgo or surmount its Station but be Modest Submissive and Humble 2. By not admitting them any Token of Resumption into the Covenant under the Law whereas the Males had That of Circumcision 3. By admitting and enjoyning only the Males to Worship at Jerusalem thrice every year and when the Women came they came only into a Court at the Lord's House more remotely scituate than the place for the Males 4. By the little mention of the bringing forth any Woman before the Floud and without Record of the Age of any Woman in the whole Old and New Testament Sarah only excepted 18. The Law of Uncleanness after Child-bearing shews how impure This way of Propagation is for the Woman having brought forth a Man-child was unclean seven days and to
is still greater if it perpetrate the purpos'd Evil 't is heavier yet 6. If it extend to many of the True Worshippers or if it could to all it is become the Blackness of Darkness drawing on themselves all the righteous blood-shed from Abel to the day of doing or willing the Evil. 7. What need much be said the Hunter or Persecutor is known for tho' the Goatish Creature may undiscerned associate among the Sheep till the Judgment of the great day yet the Wolf is notoriously distinguisht from the Lord's Flock of Lambs 8. They are the figure of the Christian and Antichristian Churches to the end of time Also here to the considering mind it is evident that cruel Persecutions rise not but from the strong stern lofty bitter Forms of the first Principle who are so cruel each to other in an Intestine Wrath that it is exceedingly more facil for the Sons of the Humble Light Principle sweetly to yield up themselves a Sacrifice than for the Evil Ones to perpetrate it and still or quiet their own clamorous Consciences in and after the fact but such bitter persecuting Spirit existeth not in nor resulteth from the third Principle or due Natural Magistracy Q 81. In what Grace was the first World saved without the Law What was their Justification A. 1. Tho' the 75th Answer contributes much to the solution of this Question yet the more plain full and direct Answer of this is That the Lord Jesus Christ the Eternal Almighty Son of the Father was and is and is to come the only alone Redeemer Justifier and Saviour by him for him are all things to whom all Knees shall bow and all Tongues confess him by uniting the Heavenly Humanity to the Seed of the Woman 2. In the Volume of the Book it is written of Him He is in His own holy Principle in the Light of the Life or Heart of every Man that cometh into the World He cannot be comprehended by space for all Heavens are comprehended by Him He is a Branch in the Infinite second Principle whence is the Divine Virgin of Wisdom 3. He was inspoken by the Father into Adam and Eve at That needful Time as a Refiners Fire or as the Holy Fire which descended and transmuted the material Sacrifices or as a Tincture ennobleth Metals He is to the Soul as it is to the Body to the Understanding as the Light of the outward World to the Eye to the Deadness of the Soul the Animation Food to its Hunger an Appeaser to its Tumults reducing her of meer Grace from the Multiplicity to the Unity such was He to the Old World and in the fulness of Time the Divine Wisdom and Purity assumed the Woman's Seed 4. For at the instant of the Father's inspeaking Christ did re-implant Himself in the Light of the Life of Adam's and Eve's Souls to dispossess the Strong Man and through all Generations doth stand in the Door of the Heart of every Child of theirs none excepted reproving Sin warning of the Judgment to come and Preaching Salvation This is the Light shining in a Dark place the name of This is Infinite Love and it is also the Word of Reconciliation To Him give all the Prophets witness and also all the Holy Ones which have been since the World began 5. Here are no Novelties nor in any of the blessed Jacob Behmens Writings may such be found But whereas men have dark confused notions of God like those of Athens dedicating their Altar to the unknown God of Him therefore whom men ignorantly worship do Jacob Behmens Writings give a clear certain demonstrable and distinct knowledge and of all things and Worlds also of all Creatures from the most holy Angelical Princes of Eternity to the most despicable excrescence of Time Q. 82. Was Cain condemned for his sins Or whether did Cain become damned in respect of his sins What was his doubt or despair of Grace A. 1. The heinousness of his sin appears 1. That Abel provoke't him not who in truth of heart offered but Cain only in shew the one really did what the other only pretended to do Aggravation that on fall of his Countenance and rising of his Wrath the Lord reprehended and warned him before his perpetrating the fact 3. Aggravation his false and stubborn Answer after he had done it before Sentence I know not Am I my Brother's keeper 4 Aggravation his desperate Answer after Sentence My punishment is greater than I can bear or my sin is greater than can be forgiven 5 Aggravation that he went out from the presence of the Lord to marrying and building So that were there no more in the Text it had left him in a most desperate forlorn state His sin therefore under these Aggravations must of its own Nature and by its own Writ condemn him 2. But Cain is under a twofold consideration one as to his own Person and so he was a Sacrificer a Priest and Worshipper of the True God Nor may it be doubted but that the Offering in it self was well warranted for God's approbation of Abel shews it had Divine Institution yet was Cain a Worshipper with an Evil Heart that is an unresigned Spirit but a Self-will and therefore not accepted 3. Cain is to be considered as a Figure of the Formal Hypocritical Worshippers and of them 1. Such who pretend to worship the True God 2. That in the Outward Form of what they do suit their Worship much according to the Letter 3. That yet are strangers to the Spirit Life and Power of Divine Worshipping 4. That have some Outward Dignity Priority or Authority over the humble resigned Worshippers As Ishmael and Esau had the Primogeniture of Isaac and Jacob. 5. That they have a strong disposition and preparedness to Anger and Envy against the Faithful Worshippers and do make all such Approaches to their hurt as they can As did Balaam and Corah with whom Cain is ranked 6. Such as when they can hurt or kill have so great impenitence as hardens them against Self-accusing and impudence to deny their Evil Facts 4. Now to close the Answer It is true all such Churches or Persons as are figured by Cain are whilst they continue unregenerate seeking to please the Self-will in a lost desperate state under the first four Forms and shut up in the first Principle 5. But forasmuch as God did set a Mark on Cain thereby defending him against the destroyers all this may be without his particular personal condemnation Q. 83. Why did God make a Mark on Cain and said he or whosoever that slayeth Cain his blood shall be avenged sevenfold A. 1. Cain said From thy face shall I be hid also every one that findeth me shall kill me It could not be the Outward Man there meant for that could not be hid from God but the Inward might fall into Darkness and so be as it were hid Noâ— was it the Outward Man that
he was then as tho' two dead Bodies come not of their own accord one to the other they may be brought together but they embrace not each other and being parted again grieve not 2. Man is what he wills for the Magical power of the Will especially if it be strengthened by the Astral Spirit is by far an over-match to the Elementary as is the Eternal Soul to the Astral now and especially after dying of the Body Therefore when Adam and Eve's will were gone into the Out-birth of the third principle the Lord tells him Dust thou art 3. Lot's Wife looking back was a captivating her self again so directly against Gods goodness and Mercy that it is said Remember Lot's Wife And is a figure of all Apostates like those Israelites after the Babylonish Captivity who returned to Egypt to their own destruction 4. Thus those who in their simplicity are come a little way out of the Antcihristian Yoak and Cheats yet suffering themselves to be drawn back by the advantages of this World are near Lot's Wife's condition So the Israelites long'd for the Flesh-pots And Demas and Judas drew back to perdition Q. 93. Wherefore did the Daughters of Lot lye with their Father and first made him Drunk that they might be with Child by their Father whence arose two Potent Nations what doth this Figure signifie A. Such as can see no more in Noah's Drunkenness than what the Letter recorded nor in this of Lot but the Incest c. would make the Holy Scripture to be only a bare Narrative like other common Histories 1. But the figure of Lot shews how Adam and in him we all went out of the Paradisical order into the Bestiality of the Out-birth whereby we were overwhelmed and as one drunk and hath made his and our propagation so far estranged from the Divine purity in which Adam before the dividing of the Tinctures should have propagated his holy Race as may be best figur'd by inordinate incestious Bestial Lust. 2. And wheteas this came in his sleep shews the sleep of Adam and our death neither of which should have been had the Divine order been observed 3. Again as of this came two potent Nations Moab and Ammon we see how near of Kin the faln impure incestuous bastard brood of faln Mankind are to the holy Seed the Lord Incarnate for Lot was Abram's Brother Ha ran's Son so they were of Consanguinity as betwixt Abraham the Man of the Covenant and Lot the Figure of the Lords sacred ones and redeemed of whom came these Incestuous productions 4. For Ammon and Moab were not so forreign to Israel but that God commended to them the care of his people to be their covert from the spoiler in requital of Abraham's rescuing Lot from the four Kings 5. This openeth a Door of hope to all the faln Mankind tho' in Adam sinfully conceived as David confesseth yet the Covenant placeth it self in and near unto us viz. in our Souls and the Lord himself humbled himself to become our Brother 6. And lastly Whereas the two Daughters of Lot did this to preserve a holy Seed of their Father which was but an impure Bastard Seed thereby they figured Eve who thought her first-born had been the holy promised Seed saying I have got a Man the Lord which was Cain the accursed Seed Q. 94 What doth the figure of Moses signifie that he must be drawn out of the River or Lake of Water and be preserved to such a great Office The Sixth Grand Distribution A. 1. What can figure the wretchedness misery and helpless state of all faln Adams woful Offspring more to the Life than Moses lying in an Ark of Bulrushes amongst the Flags in the River Nilus Where neither his Father or Mother after they had hidden him three Months could better provide for him 2. To an Infant cast out in the Green Field was even Jerusalem compared but this figure was something more for the Field will support the Body but not the Water without an Ark. The Earth also hath besides Men several Creatures that may shew kindness to an out-cast Infant but the Water hath none also that River wanteth not devouring Creatures He was sentenc'd to die as soon as he was born his very Existence was a Capital Crime 3. The figure thus considered hath these express significations viz. 1. Moses his so forlorn Estate is the true circumstance of every Child of Adam 2. Amram and Jochebed are Adam and Eve 3. Pharaoh Gods severe Justice 4. Pharaoh's Daughter the Divine Virgin Sophia 5. Her Maid Servant the Inspoken Grace in us and outwardly the Prophets Apostles and Preachers of Righteousness 6. The Ark of Bulrushes all the conveniences our first Parents could leave us 7. The Sister of Moses our dearly affectionate Guardian Angel 8. The River the dissolution and mortality of our Astral and Elementary Man 9. The devouring Crocodiles the Evil Angels 10. His being drawn out saved nursed and honoured the Regeneration 4. The figure tells us that all Persons and Nations Jerusalem as others are by the heavy Fall as wretchedly helpless in as absolute peril and of themselves as ignorant of the same as was that out cast Infant With this grand addition that as they grow in the wisdom of the World they wade deeper into the miry Flags are more hazarded and sinfully hardned till in a moment they go down into the Grave as a prey to the Destroyer 5 Virgin Sophia stirs up the Inspoken Grace by the Ministry ordinarily of the outward publishers of the Glad-tydings whereby Man is carefully nursed and safely preserved notwithstanding the Decree gone forth against him by the severe Justice from perishing by the River or evil Monsters the mortality of our Astral and Elementary Man from the Devils 6. And the sweet loving blessed Angels figur'd by the Sister of Moses are concerned Spectators of our calamitous state and willingly ready by their Ministry to help save and retrieve us But all such dark obstinate Men and Women who will not quit their Ark of Bulrushes but load themselves with the slime and be defiled with the pitch wherewith it is covered do grow unactive and unweldy as to Divine Works and stick faster and sink deeper into the filth becoming an unavoidable prey to the Destroyers Out of which perswade us O Lord to suffer our selves to be drawn Q. 95. Why did the Lord appear to Moses in a fiery flaming Bush when he chose him A. 1. It hath been often shew'd that Man's Fall was his going into the third Principle or Out birth therefore did God doom him to the toiling about Earth which was by the Curse made Barren for the first Principle meekned and glorified by the Properties of the second doth where it entreth into the third Principle triumphantly make it a Paradise 2. But the afflicted Sons of Abraham groan'd under the toil of the third Principle which they inherited from Adam
and travel'd to be deliver'd from the Bondage of it crying to God because of the Rigor of their Servitude as the Poor where-ever they are oppressed may do assuring themselves their cause is weighed 3. In this needful time God appears to Moses in the Fire of the first the Flame and Lustre of the second in the Bush representing the third both to shew them what they had lost and that as the Fire could burn in the Bush without consuming it so could the first and second Principles have well consisted with the third had the due order been kept 4. For when the Harmony was preserv'd the first with its four Properties was as a Root to the whole the second as a Life to the Root and the whole the third a Fruit or Vertue of and in the whole 5. Whereas in the Severation and Disorder the first was a fire to the whole the second only as an incomprehensible unknown Life and Witness and the third a Life of Vexation Sorrow and Pain and loaden with the Curse 6. Therefore was it the Lord appear'd in the Idea of the two first Principles and so appearing sanctified the third which was meant by the Command that Moses should put off his Shoes because the place was Holy Ground 7. By the first Principle is signified the Lord's Jealousie and Zeal and by the second his merciful Love and Pity Therefore is this Figure as are many others repeated over a thousand times from Age to Age on and towards the Souls of all God's ransom'd and Redeem'd ones Q. 96. From or out of what Power did Moses do his Works of wonder before Pharaoh A. 1. The Apostle saith I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me But to shew what Power enabled Moses to do his Wonders It must be known whither go the Groans and Complaints of the oppressed It is answered into the Principle of God's severe Justice such time as wicked Oppressors destroy and devour Wicked Men like themselves 2. But when cruel Beasts grind and hunt the Lord's Flock who are not of their Game though they also have the Beasts Hide on them but return Good for Evil Praying for their Persecutors This passeth into the Principle of fierceness with respect to the Enemy but the Holy World the Fountain of Grace and Compassion is strongly prest upon with respect to the wronged Children 3. And unless the Oppressor enter into the Grace Principle by humble earnest Repentance all his Works Words Thoughts and every their Aggravations go into a Substance and are treasur'd up for God's Judgment and then those that sow the Wind shall reap the Whirlwind 4. And from the Holy World is it said I have seen I have seen the affliction c. I have heard c. and am come down So that Moses ability lay in the Abyss of God's Power and Holiness that is in both first and second Principles 5. For whereas the Avarice Haughtiness Envy and Cruelty of the Driver goes into the Treasure of God's Wrath so the Patience of the Lord's Family goes into the Treasure of God's infinite Love-Principle and Holiness as we therefore reap Wheat or Cockles whence we sowed them so is it here thus Moses had Power out of his first Principle of awakened Zeal to Muster the fierce Qualities in the third Principle and bring them like a Victorious Army upon Egypt and out of the Treasure of Divine Grace to visit secure and exempt Gâ—shen 6. Yet God is but only One thus the sweet Odour of fragrant Herbs and the fumes of foetid Weeds differently ascend from one fire wherein they are burnt 7. Is it occasionally ask'd whence is the Power the Magicians did their Wonders by It 's answered it proceeded out of the divided Properties and Powers of the spoken formed Word or Out-birth which the Ancients were skill'd in yet was theirs impotent when in competition with the might Moses exerted for his was the speaking forming Holy Powers whereof theirs was a Figure and Representation 8. But our Modern Pretenders to Wisdom in Nature are Men of Words having neither Divine Substance as was in Moses and the Prophets nor true Knowledge of the figure or formed outward Powers as had the Antients but pretending Divinity to Umbrage their shallowness do call God's Power in the Out-birth Diabolical and pretending Philosophy fill their Schools and Books with an empty Sound of vain words fictitious and fabulous neither knowing what they say nor whereof they affirm first Coin feigned words then contend about their Etymologies thus fighting with a shadow themselves give being to instead of seeking the Spirits of the Letters of the Holy Tongue whence we departed by our Confusion at Babel Q. 97. What figure is the Departure or bringing forth of the Children of Israel out of Egypt A. 1. Man exchanged Paradise for the third Principle the Substance for the figure or obscure Representation and thereby his till then immortal Body became by the Contagion of the Fruit of the same like the Beast an Accident no longer a Substance Whereunto was added a Curse that by toil and sweat he should gather his sustenance out of the barren Earth which himself was near come to be 2. A tast and earnest figure whereof was Israel whose Males were either to be Drown'd as soon as Born or Vassals as long as they Lived which yet was but a figure of the best Life Man hath in this World compar'd with that we departed from and whereof Solomon writes his black and pale Characters that it is altogether Vanity and Vanity of Vanities Vexation of Spirit and sore Travel 3. And whereas God tells Abraham his Seed should be in Bondage 400 Years it is a figure that all Poor Mankind undergoeth the Servitude of the four Forms of the first Principle and the four divided Elements 4. And now the figure of their departure out of Egypt stands thus As Man by falling into the third Principle stood with his Astral Man in the four Elements and his Soul in the four Forms of the first Principle which either murthered them at first falling to them or kept in rigorous Vassalage till laying off the Body 5. Out of which a series of Miracles only could deliver So Man can no more ransom or deliver himself than these poor oppressed ones could by their own Power call down the Ten Plagues guide their way and divide the Sea and Jordan 6. And the spoiling the Egyptians by borrowing and bringing away their Jewels shews that God's Children shall carry out of the place of their Captivity under the first and third Principles a Soul and Spirit wholly resigned to God signified by the Jewels of Gold and the Quintessenâ—e or Divine Tincture of the Humanity signified by Jewels of Silver the Seventh or Lâ—â—ar Property 7. And that Moses the Son of Amram of the Tribe of Levi one of their Brethreâ— should be their Deliverer hath this Signification That God raiseth up in Man a Prophet of his Brethren
out of the four Forms of the first Principle blowing up his Light and Love Form which is a fifth as a Brother to the four who becomes a Leader a Deliverer as was Moses 8 And whereas the Red Sea was no other of its own Nature but a hindrance to them yet by Miracle became Defensive and Instrumental to their safety by overwhelming their Enemy Pharoah c. hath this meaning that Man's fragil fleeting earthy Life shall be driven out of the way as was the Red Sea into two Parts signifying the parting of Man's Astral Spirit from his Elementary Body giving open passage towards Canaan 9. And whereas the Sea was on each side a Wall to them and such a defence as over-whelmed their Enemies it shews that their inward and outward Enemies can follow us no farther than to the dividing of our Astral and Elementary Man but are there stop'd and over-whelm'd 10. Spiritually also was the Sea and Cloud a figure of the Baptism and we that is our first Principle is Buried with him in Baptism in and by the Spirit of Holiness and Love Q. 98. Why must Moses remain Forty Days upon Mount Sinai when God gave him the Law A. 1. To signifie a certain Proportion of time wherein Adam was in the tryal or Proba and the which Mount Sinai was a figure of Bondage in which Adam enthrall'd himself and us all which was often repeated As 1. By Moses remaining once and the second time forty days in the same Mount. 3. It rained forty days then came the Deluge 4. Esau lived 40 years then Married two Evil Women 5. Israel's forty Journeys in the Wilderness 6. Their being forty years there 7 Goliah's challenging the Host of Israel forty days and then kill'd 8. Eliah's fasting forty days 9. Christ fasted forty days and was then tempted 10. Was forty hours in the Grave And 11. Was forty days on Earth after His Resurrection 2. This forty days stay of Moses once and again on Mount Sinai the Mount of Bondage as the Apostle construeth shews us that the whole time of Man's Life is a time of Straits and Thraldom 3. And whereas Moses was twice on that Mount and each time forty days and did neither Eat nor Drink it shews that Mankind was doubly distrest that is in his Soul by the four Anguishes of the first Principle and thereby is kept as Cain said lest whosoever that meets him should kill him viz. in fear of Eternal Separation from God it 's true Life 4. And by the second time of Moses remaining forty days on the Mount is pointed us how also Man's Body is imposed on influenced by composed of and subjected unto the four Elements that is to its rigorous heat and extream cold oppressing and swaying it to Pain Sorrow Sickness and Mortality 5. So that hereby both Soul and Body are excluded the true Food and detained in a place of Abstinence and Deprivation from the Paradisical Eating and Drinking whereof Moses fasting was a Representation Q. 99. What is the Law in one Total Sum A. 1. The Lord Jesus teaching which is the First and great Commandment saith Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy might and with all thy strength and that the Second was like to it Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self and that on these two hang all the Law and the Prophets Again reneweth it giving the New Commandment that you love one another and that so shall all men know you are my Disciples 2. And our Apostle saith Love is the fulfilling of the Law But seeing the Law was given because of Transgression therefore to the restoring that Love which is the fulfilling of the Law it is necessary we know what kind of Love our Transgression deprived us of and how and what an ill Bargain we made that deprived us of that Love 3. But to avoid Repetition of things I refer to the 45th 46th and 47th Answers for should I give my self liberty to wade in this sweet River it would be a Volume and swell more deep and high till it issueth into the Ocean of Eternity where dwells that Love which casts out Fear for Fear hath Torment My Soul for ever bless the God of Love who hath Pitied and Redeemed thee Q. 100. What were the Offerings of Moses How was Sin blotted out and appeased through these Offerings A. 1. The 79th Answer contributes largely to the Answer of this to which this is referr'd It is further answered That the legal Sacrifices were of three grand sorts viz. 1. The Burnt-offerings 2. The Peace-offerings 3. The Sin-offerings answering to the three Principles The first or Burnt-offering consisted of four Kinds viz. 1. The Herd 2. The Flock 3. The Fowls 4. The Meat-offerings figuring the four Forms of the first Principle 2. The Peace-offering which was only of two Kinds viz. 1. The Herd 2. The Flock signifying the two Tinctures Male and Female United by Jesus Christ interposing the Peace of the second Principle 3. The Sin-offering which was only of one Kind viz. A Bullock signifying the third Principle which is but one only and that a figure of the inward Spiritual Worlds and should only have accompanied Man as his shadow doth 2. By these three Distributions was the whole Man consisting of Soul Spirit and Body offered up and what had he more It was therefore accepted where-ever heartily done and sincerely intended but the bare Performances had no Acceptation as we see by Cain's offering but a coming under the Lord's reprehension as the vain Repetitions and thinking to be heard for much speaking 3. Such Offerings the Prophet compares to the cutting off a Dog's Head and to Swine's Blood Sincerity without meer outside Service and Hypocrifie is intimated by the inwards that were strictly charged to be offered but the skin was the offerer's part only in the Sin offering it was to be burnt as the World thereby signified shall be 4. As for Acceptance it is plain in the Epistle to the Hebrews That it was impossible the Blood of Bulls c. should do away sin But the Acceptation Value and Vertue was in the Sacrificer's Faith and Hope Expectation and Affection to the one Sacrifice signified by the Incense and sweet Odors offered on the golden Altar viz. The true High Priest offering up Himself outwardly once for all and inwardly often to every one Q. 101. What is the Ground of the Prophetical Prophesyings By what Knowledge and Spirit did the Prophets in the Old Testament Prophecy A. 1. In the Old Testament the word Prophesie is not always restrained to future Events nor is it in the New for as the Prophets Exhort to present Duty Dehort from prevailing Sin and on Obedience or Rebellion prophesie Good or denounce Evil So in the New Testament Prophecy is understood in the same fence viz. to Exhortation and Monition as we read one Praying
the 75th 81st and 90th Answers which laid together are a compleat Answer to the present Question according to what I have attain'd Q. 103. What was John Baptist Christ's forerunner A. 1. The Lord saith of him That among them that are Born of Women there hath not risen a greater Prophet than John the Baptist that is in the Father's first Administration nevertheless he that is least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he that is in the more clear day and Manifestation of Christ. 2. The Lord saith also of him This is Elias which was for to come as saith the Prophet I will send you Elijah the Prophet c. And Isaiah saith The Voice of him that crieth in the Wilderness Prepare ye the way of the Lord c. The same saith John of himself Let it be said What is the Voice that crieth and what the Wilderness wherein he crieth And the Question lyeth open 3. 1. The Voice is not properly the Voice of Jesus Christ for this was Preparatory to his coming 2 Nor was it the Voice properly of the Holy Ghost for his Administration succeeded that of Christ's 3 Nor a bare Human Voice for so much Power and Conviction was in it that all men acknowledged him a Prophet and his Baptism not of Men but from Heaven 4. The Wilderness was not of Earth Rocks and wild Beasts for such are not prepared for Christ But Man stray'd out of the Garden is the Wilderness here meant that was cried in and unto to repent because of the near approach of the Kingdom of Heaven 5. The Voice crying in the Wilderness is the Father's drawing as saith the Lord Jesus Christ No man cometh to me except the Father draw him 6. Elias in the Spirit of Zeal is John the Baptist's Antitype figuring as did John the Baptist more eminently and immediately the Father's fiery Zeal in the Holy first Principle for Elias and John's Administration was in the Father's Property 7. The great Confluence of all Judea c. to his Baptism shews the Universality of the Father's Applications Convictions and Drawings 8. The reprehension of the Scribes and Pharises calling them Generation of Vipers c. Shews the Father's drawings to Repentance to be not only general but particularly in and to his resolved and designed Enemies Also shews the rejection of Man's Wisdom and outward Formality even in the true Religious Institutions 9. Thus the Groans of Penitent Souls and Impenitent Mens Gripes the Mournings of the one and the Stings and Horrors of the other proceed from the Father's condemning Convictions whereof John the Baptist's Ministry and himself is the representation Q. 104. What kind of Virgin was Mary in whom God became Man before she Conceived A. 10. The Virgin Mary was of low Estate and Degree Daughter of Joachim and Anna not as such wholly pure as some feign but came from faln Eve Much less was she the Virgin Sophia for the first Adam had repudiated himself and all his from that Heavenly Virginity and gone into Adultery into Lust. 11. So that of Mary it may be said as Daniel of himself This is not revealed to me for any Wisdom that is in me more than in any â—iving Or as Peter saith of himself and John Why look ye on us as if by our Power and Holiness we had done this c. 12. But though Mary before she conceived was in Soul and Body such as other Daughters of Eve who by the Regeneration were in the Holy Element Yet to say what she came to be in and after her conceiving will fall under the Answers of the two following Questions Q. 105. Why must Mary be first Espoused or Betrothed to Old Joseph before she Conceived of the Holy Ghost A. 1. An Espousal of the sort here signified is a solemn mutual Contract between two of different Sexes exclusive of all others such was This of the Virgin to Joseph a thing usual with the Jews To which allude both the Prophet The Love of thine Espousals and again Paul I have Espoused you to me The above definition hath these parts viz. 1. It must be mutual between two 2. Of different Sexes 3. Exclusive of all others 4. Solemn 2. By this Espousal is signified that the Virgin of Wisdom the promised Seed was Espoused to Man's Soul This Virgin Sophia is the Tincture in the Holy Element in Paradice viz. the Holy Ternary or Heavenly Earth 3. As the Spirit or as some have call'd it the Soul of the Outward World is to This Out-world and Elements a giving Mind Sense and Virtue to the Creatures Such is the pure Sophia in the Eternal Glorious World The Soul and it were as one but by the Apostasie became two 4. Again This Holy Pure Virgin is Espoused to Man's Soul or Fiery Property ' her self being of the Tincture of the Light World and so were they of two Sexes 5. Also This Espousal is exclusive of all others for the Soul must cleave to her and not joyn it self to the first or third Principles 6. And the Solemnity is no less than that which either enters the Soul into the Life Eternal and Love Kingdom which else is precipitated into the fierce Wrath. 7. Now that Mary's Espousal should precede her Conception by the Holy Ghost was To shew what Infinite Grace did immediately on the heavy Fall For Man even ready to be devoured by the third Principle and to devour himself by his first is by this Espousal the Covenant of Grace stayed from the Abyssal Fall which stop or betrothing must needs be now or never That it was only an Espousal and that before the actual Conception was to shew that Man could not be entrusted at least not yet with so inestimable a value To signifie an intermission or intervention of Time or Ages to pass and occur before performance of what had been promised being as the Apostle phraseth it the end viz. us upon whom the Ends of the World are come as had said the Angel to Daniel To shew what a vast distance Man had removed himself that his Restoration must be wrought by tract of time as men creep out of Chronical Diseases so that the time of Espousal was as saith the Apostle My little Children of whom I travel in birth again till Christ be formed in you as till an Embrio mature to a compleatness or a Seed to be a Tree To attest the Genealogy of the Lord 's Earthy Humanity to be of David For besides the express frequent plain and full Testimonies by the Prophets and Apostles concerning Christ's Lineage both Genealogies in Matthew from Abraham for satisfying the Jews and in Luke to Adam for comfort of the Gentiles do pitch on Joseph wherein Mary is included because none married out of their own Tribe and consequently none Espoused out of it The certainty of Mary's Genealogy is demonstrated only by her Espousal with Joseph to keep
8. Why the Temptation lasted forty days is referr'd to the 78 Answer Also why a God-Man should be Tempted is shewn above His Temptation must needs be of the Devil or otherwise as from without his Divinity and Purity exempting him from such variety as we poor miserable Creatures are surcharged with from within our Souls and outward Man and Objects of our Sences are as so many Snares Serpents and Devils in us about us and waiting way laying us 9. And lastly that all this must precede his working of Wonders and Miracles teaches us the method of the Eternal World also is manifest in all Created Existencies viz. That from the anguishes of the first four forms should result the glory of the second Principle or other three Properties But I close here because if God will that I live to meet with more of the dear precious golden inestimable Contemplation of the Process of Christ it may fall under the 117 Question Q. 113. How was Christ in Heaven and also on Earth both at once A. 1. Men may not think Heaven and this World to be so sever'd as that Heaven cannot be said to be here till the present World pass away for though this World cannot be in Heaven by reason of its Impurity yet Heaven is in this World for it comprehends it and is the whole second Principle where-ever the Infinite God is in his Love there is Heaven 2. This understood it must be acknowledged Heaven is in every Heart that loves God but every Child of God is not yet in Heaven for they are so present in the Body as that they are absent from the Lord that is their love c. hath an allay of Dross 3. But the Lord Jesus Christ and also the first Adam before his Fall were as Men or in their Humanity in Heaven for their love was perfect and it must be noted that the Lord saith not the Son of God but the Son of Man which is in Heaven I farther refer this Answer to the 77th and 108th Answers Q. 114. Why did Christ upon Earth teach before the People concerning the Kingdom of Heaven in Similitudes or Parables A. 1. We read All these things spake he to the multitude in Parables and without a Parable spake he not unto them 1. Adding that it might be fulfilled c. I will open my mouth in Parables seeing therefore the Text gives that for a Reason must we not receive it as such The second is The Reason the Lord Himself gives His Disciples To you it is given to know the Mysteries of the Kingdom but to them it is not given The Text also gives viz. with many other Parables c. as they were able to hear it The fourth is drawn from the Lord's warning and inhibition Cast not Pearls before Swine nor Holy things to Dogs of whom it is said by the Lord I speak to them c. because they seeing see not and hearing they hear not nor do they understand Of them also it is said Make the hearts of this People fat make their Eyes heavy c. 2. Summarily then the Children by means of their weakness were not able to hear it otherwise than in Parables though to them apart they were open'd and the Multitude by reason of their Wickedness were not worthy to hear it otherwise because the proud Rejecters of God were inwardly devilish and outwardly bruitish and are call'd Dogs and Swine to whom the Childrens Bread might not be given for God resisteth the Proud 3. Because Man was fallen into the third Principle over which he should have been Ruler so that the regenerate themselves were outwardly bruitish and in their inward and best part were as young Children to them the Gracious Lord vouchsafed to bow down and as it were lisp and to feed them with Milk 4. For as much now as Man was gone out of the Unity into the Multiplicity God of infinite Bowels follows him into it and there teacheth him by the Earth Corn Fruits Stones Thorns Sheep Fowls Ants c. Making them speak to him pursue convince and judge him by the Good and Obedience of the very Oxe and Ass gratefulness of the Earth for Rain and Bounty of Heaven in the Seasons and when nothing will do he makes the Stone cry out of the Wall and Beam out of the Timber to answer leaving such not only without excuse but accused by the whole Creation Nevertheless by these Parabolical Applications call'd the foolishness of Preaching was Power found to save them that Believe Q. 115. Why hath not Christ himself described his Gospel with Letters in Writing but only taught and left it afterwards to his Apostles to write down A. It may be supposed and argued who so sufficient as the Omnipotence of the Son of God Who could so exactly discover the Mysteries therein as the Author thereof Who could so challenge and command Belief as he who is Truth it self with the like reasonings 1. But we must know that the Three glorious Persons have Three distinct Operations viz. The Almighty Father or Infinite first Principle doth Eternally beget and generate as his Love Delight or Heart the Eternal Son whom he giveth The Almighty Son or Infinite second Principle is Eternally begotten every where in the Abyss giving Himself who is the Light of Divine Life having Life in Himself is Himself the Gospel written in the Heart Ye are manifestly declared to be the Epistle of Christ. The Almighty Spirit Holy Ghost or Infinite third Principle doth Eternally proceed from the Father and Son and Eternally publish propagate figure declare image and manifest the first Principle and the second also the first in the second infinitely through the whole Abyss 2. Thus was the carrying on publishing abroad or prospering this wonderful Work of the Arm of the Lord to restore lost Man being like making dry Bones live the proper operation of the third not of the second Person Therefore saith the Lord to the Disciples What I tell you in the ear preach you on the house tops Again He that believeth the works that I do shall he do and greater works c. And saith the Spirit when he cometh shall convince the World c. 3. Thus Abraham figured the Father's property or operation giving his Son a Sacrifice Isaac the Son's property giving himself but Jacob that of the Holy Ghost multiplying first into 12 Branches then became as the Stars and the Evil Seed only professing are like as the sand for multitude sand for their earthiness 4. Thus as the Lord saith the Father hath born witness of me And again speaking of the Holy Ghost saith for he shall take of mine and give it unto you not filling Jerusalem only but the whole World with his Doctrine Q. 116. Why must it be the very High Priests and Scribes or Scripture learned who taught the People that must speak against or
9. Here may be noted that never was Subjection Patience Humility and Obedience to Parents and all placed over us enforced by any so cogent and irrefragable Argument as it is by this Subjection of the Lord Jesus Christ to them Even to Joseph no otherwise His Parent than by Espousal to Mary and that not for a short time but a Tract of many Years even after His being among the Doctors about the Business of the Almighty Father 10. In admiration of this Condescention behold here Oh my Soul the only Son of the only God the Soveraign of all Worlds that He might pluck thee as a Firebrand out of the Fire of thine own kindling content to burn Himself that He might Redeem thee from dark Chains of Everlasting Vassalage became Himself a Servant subject to His Inferior Subjects because Man revolted from his Obedience to God God obediently subjected Himself to Man The Wisdom of God learnt Obedience by the things which he suffer'd 11. Doth my Soul beg to know His sweet Name Where dwells He and who or what is He like I am told He was like a Servant no Thing Creature or World may be liken'd to Him but that His dwelling is with the humble many times in old Cottages and strong Prisons And that one of His great Names is but a Monosyllable viz. LOVE 12. A Name that calls for Love and commands Obedience for the delight found in Love That Heart therefore that reading and meditating this and weeps not the heart that groans not bleeds not melts not breaks not flames not is not the Heart of a true Man but of a Beast or a Devil Metamorphos'd iâ—to Human shape 13. The third Mystery is of His Thirty Years privacy the Types of which are in the 110th Answer and in the first part of that Answer is the Ground why Thirty Years was the due proportion of time for compleating actual Righteousness 14. Else it may seem marvellous that He who was the Light of this and all Worlâ—s could with-hold any of His infinite diffusive Vertue Also that seeing He was only the saving Light and Fountain of Salvation without whom the World perisheth should conceal His Glory His Omnipotence not being obnoxious to the Conâ—agion of Sinners with whom He might converse which our impotence exposeth us to 15. May we not on this occasion be warn'd to put a strong bridle and restraint on our Tongues the Herald of our impetuous Lusts in our Applications to others knowing how often it wounds us and others and inverts the End for which it was vouchsafed us 17. May I not hence also convince my self that very much of my Work is within rather than abroad and that God's Holy Work with us is entirely within Men for the bestial part of us is the Monstrous Image got by departure from God so alienated that all Communications and Approaches to it must be Image-like if intelligible to us faln Men. 17. And whereas the Divine Work is agitated in Man's superior part it causeth a departure from the brutish Man therefore was this of our Lord 's most inwardly a Sacred silence privacy or secresie for so great a part of his Pilgrimage in Flesh on Earth wherein he was literally separate from Sinners 18. How cross to this is the precipitance of our rushing to speak our supposed Knowledge and of unmortified Mens hypocritical Stage-Plays in Pulpits and other publick Oratories 19. How opposite to this is our needless associating for Curiosity with Company to whom we cannot do and from whom we may not hope for Good 20. How diametrically thwart to this is that River of Thoughts like swarms of Locusts which are uncontroulably allow'd to consume our precious Fruit and these Thoughts are mostly generated in the stinking Lakes of discomposing converse with bestial people 21. Christ's sweating Blood in his Agony was when his Sufferings came to the breaking of the fourth Form which is the Fire for then did the other Forms severally grow prevalent surrounding him with Death that state being such as Men mean when they say the Heart is broken for in the Heart is the Fire-life All which did our dear Lord bear because Adam had enkindled in himself a Fire which had not Gracious Love even then interposed and been inspoken had soon devour'd him 22. The Lord was betray'd by Judas his pretended Friend and Servant for such seemed the Serpent to Eve and by a Kiss a fatal false Friendship of Eve to Adam thus we still fall by mistaking Enmity for Friendship perishing for want of Knowledge 23. Our Saviour was apprehended and bound for Adam our Undoer going out of the Liberty was bound by the prevailing Anguishes of the first Principle and Mortality of the third Principle 24. Jesus the Eternal Light was thus dealt with by Night because Adam went out of the Eternal Day into Eternal Darkness therefore was the Lord carried to the Murtherers by Night 25. Our King the Lord of Glory was mocked reproached derided and scorn'd by vile Men because Adam had introduced such odious shame as made him the scorn of the Devils 26. The Prince of our Peace was scourged though the Innocent Lamb of God for Adam awakening all the Properties made not only the Essences to be inwardly Raging but his outward Body as that of the Beast to be subjected to the Whip which the gracious Lord refus'd not to endure for us 27. The Son of God Heir of all Things and King of Immortality was Crown'd as if he had been a false King with Thorns because Adam would in his Pride be like God and wear this World's Crown 28. And as all these were but Fore-runners or Entrance of Adam on the borders of Everlasting Destruction whereinto he was plunging his whole Man and Posterity so all these things were done to the second Adam and meekly endur'd by Him before His Passion 29. And all this was to make a plain and terrible Demonstration to all Mankind that Sin unrepented of becomes a Substance crying for all inward and outward Vengeance for ever See 25 Chap. of the Three Principles Q. 118. Why must the very Teachers of the Law bring Christ to the Judgment and yet must be put to Death by the Heathenish Magistracy What doth that signifie A. 1. That so it was appears Now to answer why it was so Let it be noted that Persecutions proceed not out of the second Principle for in that all are United in Love and Meekness nor out of the third wherein Civil Magistracy standeth for that of its own Nature if not unwarily heated persecuteth none as is found in Christian Republicks who have no oppressive interest to advance or support Persecution introduceth not its sting 2. Nor in such only but in the Mahometan Monarchies is not Religion as such persecuted but Conquests made for the greatning their poor outward Momentary Power And this is found not only among the Turks but Persians under
debilitate or commit a Rape upon that Virginity which is the Tincture of the holy World according to which he was Begotten by the Holy Ghost but it exalted to the highest the assumed Soul 7. Nor was his uniting our frail Astral and Elementary and Sensual Man unto the holy pure Element any Impeachment to the holy Element which in the instant of the Virgin Maries Conception was like a Tincture blessedly put into our Body in him but it was as the first Resurrection to our impair'd divided sleepy impure mortal Man 8. For thus the Soul in the Virgin was taken into the Trinity and the Body in the holy Element which is every where present and evermore pure before God was made Lord in the Heavenly World 9. Yet is thâ—s whole Heavenly Man a Creature tho' the First-born of every Creature and is the Food of our Souls neither is this a confounding the Deity with the Humanity of Christ no more than the Apple is the Tree Or the living Vertue of the Sun in the whole deep is the Sun it self 10. This Virgin of Wisdom is the Image of God the Delight of God the Spouse of Jesus Christ and of so high descent as to be possessed by God in the beginning of his way c. Read Prov. 8. from the 1. to the 31. verse but yet is not God or the Infinite Almighty Deity Thus see we how Christ was on Earth and in Heaven as Son of Man or in his Heavenly Humanity at once and is so still and it is his Office to expel bind vanquish and chain all Devils every where and reign in the Throne of expulsed Lucifer to kill Death and take away the Sting for Hell cannot withstand him 11. This is demonstrated by the Operative Astrum particularly by the seven Regal Stars See we not how Saturn tho' most remote is equally potent in coagulating petrifving giving weight c. as in Lead Stones c. as if he were at the nearest distance Also how Mercury in Jupiter causeth Sensitives and Plants to sprout up tall c. And how Mars Influenceth Men and confines Plants checks Oaks to he crooked knotty dwarfy Shrubs And how calmly and sâ—renely Venus Influenceth every where how the Moon acts Bodies the Circulations and Fluxes of Blood and the Tides which some call the Pulse of that Element How also the Sun chearfully bears witness to himself All these do variousâ— work through all the Creatures within their principle or as 't is term'd the Sphere of their activity all at once in all places of all kinds 12. And shall we straiten the sacred power of the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ in the holy principle to narrower bounds than we can do the outward Sun which is his outside Image which at once dwells in all the Stars and whole deep in every Creature on and many under the Earth and in every piâ—e of Graâ—s 13. It is demonstrative in the four Elements the same Air fills all Cranies and with degrees of purity so doth it the deep as also the other three Elements in the Out-birth Only within or above the Firmament is another principle understood to be a holy Birth of which it were digressive to speak here 14. And shall we think the one holy pure Element the vertuous Eternal Mother of the more Impure Prophane and Mortal four Elements to have less vigor to operate in the holy principle as the Eternal living Body of Christ than they in the drowsy Travels of Mortality for Productions and Dissolutions 15. The like might be demonstrated by the outward principles of Sal Sulphur and Mercury And how they operate in degrees of Purity according to their several Subjects And in a word it may be demonstrated in whole Nature and every Travel it hath But it 's better to be contemplated than exposed into many words Thus the Lords descending to Hell to overcome Death and all Devils is evident not to have been a going a great way off c. but what and how it was and is effected Q. 130. How did Christ 1 Pet. 3. 19 20. preach to the Spirits which in the time of Noah believed not A. 1. Truth hath found worse Entertainment than the Lords seamless Coat for some pretenders to it have rejected what other pretenders have wrested Thus as Maâ—s wickedness makes him unworthy so makes it him unable to hear the truth But tho' we are justly offended at the fictitious Purgatory which Covetousness prompts to tell of yet we must submit to God in his Word all which magnifieth his Mercy and Goodness 2. The Spirits mentioned by Peter were of those overthrown in the Deluge which tho' * one Interprets expresly against the Text to be the preaching before the Flood The Error and Vanity thereof will appear by the following Particulars 3. 1. This Preaching was to Spirits not to Men in the Flesh and certainly they that perished in that Flood were Men living and dying in the Flesh. 2. The Text takes notice there were of that World but few to wit eight Souls saved which hath a serious consideration like that of God to Jonah concerning Popuâ—ous Nineâ—eâ— 3 It is said Christ was put to death in the Flesh but quickened by the Spirit By which also he went and Preached It is not said that Spirit by which Christ was quickened went and preached but he that was put to death and quickened went and preached 4. The first World Imaged the first Principle and Reuben Jacob's First-born figured the first World And yet Reuben tho' otherwise sinful in a high degree was the only innocent of all Joseph's Brethren of the severity used against him which might open a Door to them viz. the first World figured for the second principle graciously inclineth to inlighten the first Reuben is also readiest to reflect on their sin against Joseph in their distress in Egypt for he was the first Worlds figure as Joseph was the Figure of Jesus Christ. 5. It was to Spirits in Prison not to Men at large Christ when quickened from the dead did Preach which the same Apostle explaining according to this meaning saith 1 Pet. 4. 6. For this cause was the Gospel preached to them that are dead not living 6. The Apostle saith he preached to Spirits which were but sometimes disobedient also telling us when viz. in the days of Noah while the Ark was preparing implying they were not disobedient at this time of preaching To this sence are referr'd the words of the Prophesie of Zechary Q. 131. What doth Christs rest in the Grave signifie that he must lye Forty Hours in the Grave In the 98th Answer concerning Moses being Forty days on the Mount is what may be the compleat Answer hereunto to which this is referr'd Q. 132. Why must Christs Grave be guarded with Watchers What doth that signifie that the High-Priests should resist or oppose Gods Power and Might and would keep Christ in
the Grave A. 1. If it be clearly known what the High-Priests were and what Figure they bear it may also be known why they would resist God and strive to keep Christ in the Grave And what they were and figur'd is manifest in the 128 Answer They were as to their fiery Zeal Captives in the Properties of the first Principle without enkindling the Light of the â—econd which makes Men free Their heat as to their Law was rooted in Enmity which is the true cause of all Persecutions 2. For if they had been moderated by the Maxims of the third as obscure as they are Tho' the Divine Light had been withheld and not enkindled yet cruel Persecution could not would not thence naturally have proceeded See 118 Answer 3. It is written Cast not Pearls before Swine left they trample them under their Feet which Swine are the Bestial Men in the third Principle Again Cast not holy things to Dogs lest they turn again and rent you These are they of the Wrath Principle or first Principle whose Root is in the dark fiery property and anguish of that first Principle So that a Hog is better than a Dog 4. Whenever we are shutting out the Rebukes of God in his Providences against our wilful Contrivances or the Convictions from his Word Preached or written or the just Reproofs of good or bad Men for our faults or the checks of our own Hearts and Gods Witness in our Consciences and would by our partiality and indulgence to our selves flatter our selves hide our evils like Adam seek excuses stifle silence extenuate or any way palliate the Matter charg'd on us then are we as those Watchers keeping Christ as much as in us lyes from the Resurrection out of the Grave Q. 133. Why did the Evangelist say that the Angel removed the great Stone from the Door or Mouth of the Sepulchre Could not Christ have riâ—en else out of the Grave A. 1. This is the eighth Angelical Ministration to Christ recorded by the Evangelists there being ten in all viz. 1. To Mary before the Conception 2. To Joseph concerning her 3. To the Shepherds at the Nativity 4. To Joseph to fly from Herod into Egypt 5. To return on the death of Herod 6. To â—he Lord aâ—ter his Fasting and being Tempted 7. Again to the Lord in his Agony in the Garden 8 This removing the Stone 9 Two Angels in the Sepulchre after his Resurrection 10. Two Angels at the Ascention 2. By reason of Mans folly and slownes of Heart to believe the great and important Doctrine of Christs being risen did it please the Lord to condescend this way to help Mans Infidelity and confirm their weak Faith And therefore came the Angel of the Lord and rouled back the Stone and sate upon it and there was a great Earthquake and the Keepers did shake and became as dead Men for the countenance of the Angel was as Lightning 3. There was no need oâ— the Lords part to roul away the Stone for his Heavenly holy Body which enâ—red to the Apostles the Doors being shut could not be detained by the Stone of the Sepulchre For the Heavenly Humanity is not included nor exclusible by any thing but passeth unapprehended through all things being Lord of all living in himself in his own holy Principle the Eternal Liberty 4. But the poor Earthy Children of faln Adam being Captives in the third Principle have need enough of all Gods gracious Condescendings to work Faith and confirm our Confidence and ground our hope for which gracious ends was the glorious Messenger of Irresistible Majesty sent on this Errand But so obstinate and great â—s Mans hardness of Heart that all this and what followed were needful to settle a Foundation for his Apostles and Martyrs to build their and our Faith upon But for ever blessed be the Almghtâ— God that all his gracious Promises and Purposes are abundantly ratified and opened for he is for ever the yea and Amen 5. Thus as Adam in the Face of good and bad viz. of the Holy and Hellish Worlds felâ— into impotence into the Our birth of the third Principle So the second Adam bâ— the Ministry of the glorious Ambassador of the mighty power World whose Countenance was as lightning and in presence of the astonished Souldiers figuring the Hellish Principle raised the right Humane Nature And thus also must we if we will arise with our Head be as Passives suffering the Lord to exercise all his Rights in and on us with a resigned sence of our inability wretchedness and vanity Q. 134. What is the power of Christs Resurrection through Death How did he make a Triumphant shew of Death on his Body What was it then that he did with it A. In the 45th Answer is shew'd what Adam was before his Fall In the 69th Answer is what Adam's Fall plung'd him and us into and in the 121st what the death of Christ and effect of it is Every of which three Answers being duly consider'd will conduce much to the opening of this We come to search what the power of Christs Resurrection is whereby he Triumphed over all opposite Powers and Principalities and made a shew thereof in his Body 1. The Fall and Curse brought wrath into Adam's several Principles viz. the four properties of the first into Enmity and Rage Also so captivated obscured and buried the Transparency of his second Principle that the Virgin of Divine Wisdom totally disappearing retir'd into her own Heaven thenceforth he became wholâ—y impotent and utterly dead to the Divine Magia only the Siderial Magia did â—it as Councellor in his Earthy Reason whereinto the Serpentine subtilty can familiarly insinuate 2. But so much of the Tincture remained in him as is inseparable from the several Existencies and for the sake whereof the very Out-birth of the Creatures shall in their Idea's have a Resurrection by Vertue of the Tincture in them 3. His third Principle was also as wretched as its Capacity extended to for the Astral Man was under a series of Evil Cross Conjunctions and Aspects The Elementary was brutish degenerate and like the worst of Beasts Where was now the dear first precious Image of Modesty when he was now half Devil and half Beast 4. Of this fierce State and Death it is said O Death I will be thy Death which is done by introducing of Life and the Life thus enkindled is as the Tincture transmuting Metals by feeding their hunger by such part of the vertue of the second Principle which the hunger longeth after and is capable of 5. And the Divine Love fire begotten and arising in the Soul is the Soul's Resurrection of which it is said Blessed and holy is he that hath part of the first Resurrection for of such the second Death shall have no Power 6. The great Doctrine of the Resurrection hath had many Enemies besides the Athenians who laught at it for the Sadduces amongst the
wide open So that in the resignation it lives one Life with Christ in God and hath its passage through one Death with Christ to God and is in the Resurrection thus begun in one Spirit by the Eternal Spirit the heavenly Flesh and Blood or Humanity of Christ is its Food it is God's Body or Christ's Body the pure Element and Virgin of Wisdom and Modesty is his Companion 5. For thus his violent griping Astringency is sated by the Lord 's infinite giving yielding Power and Vertue this causeth him instead of violent Attraction to be like a water'd Garden breathing out his sweet Odours His Anger and Rage is foil'd and kill'd by calm serene Meekness Humility Patience and Sweetness His Envy by Love which grows to a kind of Emulation to give if it were possible more than any Saint or Angel yea as much if he could to God and for God as he receives from him 6. This Soul loseth himself for he is not his own but in an excellent sence is besides himself as the Brethren of the dear Jesus said of him and would have laid hands on him This Door thus opened gives such access that the Soul once and ever and once for all gives all without the least reserve and so hath nothing and yet then and for ever receives all and hath all for losing his own poor narrow miserable beggerly all he finds himself rich with Eternal fulness which still he surrenders with deepest Humility 7. But how can words export what the Soul cannot contain or broken Letters express what a broken Heart breaketh and melteth in the Contemplation of How can the shallow brutish outward Man fathom what the New and Spiritual Man is swallowed up with These things are the matter at the time of Sacrifice but what it is always the Hour of Prayer it is always the time of Sacrifice in this Temple Amen Q. 136. What doth the Pilgrimage or Journey of the two Disciples from Jerusalem to Emaus signifie where they complained in Anxiety for their Master and yet Christ walked among them and enquired of them and taught them and yet they knew him not A. 1. This Journey is fitly compared to that of Hagar who by leaving her Mistriss Sarah was in great Anxiety and then comforted and instructed by the Angel and shew'd the Well Lahairoy and that both with respect to Hagar whose hope concerning her only Son was like to the over-whelming sorrow of these two Disciples their only hope being on the Lord's restoring the Kingdom was reduced to a great degree of despair distrust and offence at their fail'd hopes Also with respect to the Angel appearing to Hagar at the needful time of her despair and which is the first recorded to have appeared So is this at as needful a time and on a most important Exigent of Despair and the first day of the Lord's Resurrection 2. And now founding the Discourse by alluding to this Parallel it will be obvious what signification this Historical Occurrence hath viz. That as Hagar figured the state of Bondage as did Mount Sinai which our Apostle teacheth us were an Alâ—egory Only by the way it may be noted had not so good Authority explain'd it thus but that the self same Exposition had been made of it by â— Modern Pen though guided in some measure by the same Spirit our letter Wise men would probably have call'd it Enthusiaâ—m So doth this Journey of the two Disciples from Jerusalem to Emaus sigâ—â—fie the 〈◊〉 of a 〈◊〉 quitting Divine faithful waiting on God in any obscure Dispensation when the Providences are too deep and high for their faint feeble dull disquisition and reach then they depart from Abraham's abounding stedfastness of precious Faith to Hagar's dry Bottle of Reason but like Cleopas in Anguish say we trusted this Man should have redeemed Israel viz. this or that should or should not have been c. implâ—ing their trust is expiring 3. The Bridegroom was taken from them now was the day of fasting and heaviness the Shepherd was smitten now were they scattered This was the hour of the power of Darkness such as God's Children usually meet with esâ—ecially the beginners who having tasted a time of love think presently to have all they hope for Dreaming of the Journeys end at first setting out when conâ—rariwise their Mr. is taken from their head inward or outward Temptations perhaps both like a Torrent sweep them downward 4. Then are they apt and usually do let go the exercise of the Divine Magia where Faith and Love support each other and betake them to the Astraâ— Magia their own Reason where in disconsolate anxiety they shew their Hope is giving up the Ghost 5. The Lord 's joyning himself unto them signifies such a time of recollection as is a day neither dark nor light they are seen and that in mercy but their infidelity with-holds them from seeing It is neither Day nor Night their Understanding outruns their Eyes their Hearts burn but till farther discovery their fire gives little light but in the Evening it shall be light it was so with them viz. when our Reason the Issue and Child of the third Principle doth set as when their Evening was come then the true Eternal Light in Jesus discovers it self breaking the heavenly Bread and the same hour they return to Jerusalem 6. But let all such offended poor Disciples know the Lord may be with them while they are surrounded with Laments let them stay for he will not tarry long but if they wholly depart they may lye down sadly 60 Furlongs from Jerusalem as is too grievously to be seen in the Potent Eastern Nations who are lain down under the Doctrine of Siderial Reason their Regulation of the third Principle As far also as the Western World is with-held by Antichristian Maxims they feed upon Ashes the â—rash and fictitious Formula's of the same third Principle joyn'd with the cruel Properties of the first 7. And lastly It must be noted that by the Lord 's appearing to them in their anxious state is sigâ—ified the natural Production of Divine Power and Glory out of the anxious wheel the struggling of the four mighty Forms of the first Principle as out of its natural Root or Centre More might be said but none will deny that which is said to be according to the Analogy of Faith Q. 137. Why did Christ after his Resurrection first appear to a Woman and not to his Disciples A. 1. More generally 1. To shew his Prime and Particular regard to a Soul excelling in Love to God did he first shew himself to Mary Magdalen to whom much had been forgiven therefore she loved much And 2. it was to proceeâ— in God's usual Method who standeth not in need of the Wisdom Ability and Excellency of Men to work his Designs but doth it for and in Babes and by them to and for others 3. Again to give preference to the Holy Zeal and Fervour which
Name 5. But Lucifer making an harsh jarring Tone and changing his Golden Letters into black of poysonous composition raced himself and his whole Hierarchy out of that fair Record Then did the creating Word speak or incert and interline Man into that part of the Book out of which Lucifer and his Angels had been raced which with the additional skill of Interliners had the Out-principle as an adjunct to him this was the second race of Intellectuals 6. And tho' the skill of the speaking Word were perfect yet as usually it is in Interlinings the obliterated Letters had left some flaws or scratches tho' not in the holy Book yet in the adjunct shadower or cover viz. the Out-birth which being new bound and the lacerated pieces cemented in the cover rested such stains and rents that thereof came the perillous poysonous stinging Animals and Vegetables and Beasts of prey bearing the impressions of the clauses of the dark World 7. Whereinto when Man fell their contagion so affected him that he could not sound a due consonance to the Harmonious Dialect of the Holy Book which as to him became so closed and sealed that he could not read open nor so much as look thereon But as Men Illiterate cannot Spell nor Read so the Language of Nature of the Heavenly Holy World our true Mother Tongue was lost he had no Ears to hear the Angelical Ravishing Voices nor Tongue to utter it till the Fiery Cloven Tongues descended 8. Now come we to the Holy Language it self which if any could speak would not some say this Man is full of new Wine But we may mournfully tell of our Losses easierthan regain them we must say that Language was one and but one For its Nature it is pure for its extent it is comprehensive of all and therefore no wonder all understood it for its power it hath Authoritatively Omnipotence in it actually or executively it hath the Keys of Life and Instruments of Death this Word slew Ananias and Sappâ—ira and freed Tabitha from the Bonds of Death 9. Now as in Mens ordinary Affairs the Reason and Understanding prevail to move the Mind so that after Debate a Will is formed this Will is the Result of all consideration and is the Man the Soul the Spirit the Body the Passions Affections all make one Intire Will and the Magical driving power of all this becomes the Word this Word is the Executive Instrument and not barely the Herauld of the Soul or whole Man It is the Energy and expressed Vigor of all the Powers wherefore it is said By thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned for the word is the work and the worker 10. Thus and no otherwise is the Divine Language which the Holy Ghost opened in the Apostles viz. the Result and Law or Abridgment of all the Powers of the hidden Holy World it was the Opener of all Doors the Epitomy of all Openings the understanding of which is offered by this simile 11. The Intricacies of the perverted perplexed confused Tongues in the multiplicity is compared to the Night season when a Man can only see the House or Room that contains him and that not without the aid of Fire or Candle Light where is much shadow many uncertainties some colours not distinguishable And the explicating opening and voice of the holy one Language is compared to the Noon-day which shews every thing at once without Door and within 12. Thus the Divine Word or Language comprehends all opens all Doors therefore was it that all Nations understood them for the unity contains the multiplicity as every Genus doth every of its own Species or as the Element of Fire doth every Spark of Fire This hath the Life of all openings as the Vowels are the Spirit of the whole Alphabet All the sounds Musical or otherwise are contained in three and in seven both Concords and Discords All Voices or Tones expressing the Passions and Affections in the two Extreams of Joy and Sorrow and the Mean of Equiponderating Solemnity of Humane Creatures or others are comprised in the sixth Fountain Spirit or property of the Eternal Nature and must have its efficacy in every formation Q. 147. What doth this shedding forth of the Holy Ghost out of Christs Resurrection and Ascention to Heaven profit or benefit us How may that be also effected in us A. 1. When the Epâ—esians who had been Baptized by John were ask'd Have ye received the Holy Ghost since you be ieved Answer'd We have not so much as heard whether there be a Holy Ghost they may not be thought wholly ignorant of the Eternal Existence of the Holy Ghost for all the Holy Men from the Creation were guided by him But that these knew not of this glorious and plentiful Effasion of the Holy Ghost on the whole Assembly 2. And now how the pouring forth of the Holy Ghost profits us is not only that records deliver this to us as once done in them but that the same is vouchsafed more or less Eminently as those sacred Visits are more or less welcom'd by joyful Obedience or grieved by stubborn Resistance For as the precious Ointment going down to the Hem of Aaron's Vesture is not said to be spilt on the Rocks or sterile Earth so neither doth the Holy Spirit always strive with Gaâ—sayeâ—s 3. Again the coming of the Holy Ghost out of Christs Death and Resurrection profits us also that whereas it finds us in as many pieces as there are Properties in Nature and drawn by as many contradictory wills as there are subordinate Species in those Properties figâ—â—'d by the confused Languages at Babel this Holy Spirit unites us as Fire unites all sorts of Fuel into a like Flame 4. Thus it found some of them in one form and extream some in another some Busied with Curiosities others Brutishly Ignorant and Remiss some seeking by fraud or otherwise to establish their particular propriety some making Ambitious Designs their Idol c. The sacred Spirit putting out their several false Fires and Gloworm fictitious Light brought them and willeth to bring us into one Kingdom by one Spirit to mind the same things leads us by one will to be imploy'd in one work for our scatter'd Interests extravagant Desires and private selfish Contrivances must as Rubbish be removed before the Lords House be Erected or as Weeds be eradicated before the good Seeds flourish 5. 'T is true our Humane Powers and the Spirit of the great World in us and the Tincture convey'd us thereby may be used by the Almighty Architect as unhew'd Timber rough stone and other Materials whereof to frame a Building like as the Principles and Properties were extracted out of the first Chaos So may our confusions be consecrated and made conducible to the work of the new Creation which is effected in us by dying of our first wilful desires For by giving up the might of our first principle into the Intellectual
what is a Shepherd or Pastor in the Spirit of Christ. It is answer'd Christ is the alone Shepherd of Souls for alluding as before to the outward Sun As the Sun directeth the Creatures to get good and prevent evil by his daily steddy course such is Christs providential guiding us by his working for and sacred Epistles written to us and by assisting us by some loving Brother he substitutes this is his outward Pastoral Office 6. Again as the Sun not only directs the Creatures to the place of their Food but by his vertue makes it to be Food so that they are fed by his secret vertue in the things fed on and the things themselves are but the Medium Thus is the Soul fed by Christ by whom the Medium is caused and the Soul by him also hath a preparedness and capacity thereunto and the good Shepherd thus gives his Life and Vertue for and to the Sheep and they feed on him But Men calling themselves Shepherds are only at best as Ink and Paper wherewith the Lord Jesus writes his good pleasure teaching others to read it So is the Church call'd the Epistle of Jesus Christ. 7. And to the last part of the Question What is a Teacher of the Letter without the Spirit of Christ in his Office It is answer'd he is dead for it is the Spirit only that quickeneth both in respect of himself is sensual not having the sacred Spirit and in respect to his Work the Letter killeth Therefore tho' a regenerated Child may receive some strength from the Teacher of the Letter yet the Divine Principle by him who is himself only in the Anguish of the first Principle viz. the Covetousness Pride Envy and Anger or in the Image or Shadow thereof the third Principle properly call'd the Valley or Shadow of Death the unregenerate Souls are by such misled into the Ditch 8. What is that power then whence the Blind Guides issue and derive Authority From the holy Spirit of Christ it is not for that is pure peaceable gentle easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits If they were founded in the Regeneration they would proceed in the Divine Impulse but being sprung in the Astral Magia which is but the Figure or Shadow of the Eternal World the driving is from without and being so from beneath cannot ascend higher Preachers in that Spirit are only the Apes and Counterfeits of the Divine Living Spirit and the Super-intendents or Ordainers of them are Men neither Authorized by the Law nor Gospel Thus after the choice Youth of Christian people are prepossest with Aristotle's Heathenish and dry Breasts of Philosophy like the Children prostituted to Mâ—lock They are spirited by Men who by a fatal Name are call'd School-Doctors 9. These come abroad with unmortified Luâ—ts imperious Wills imposing Principles in contempt of the humility simplicity and plainness of the Doctrine of Christ and of the Self-denial Charity and Love in the practice of Christianity but will be Teachers of the Multitude yet being ignorant of God of Nature and of themselves being very great strangers to Christ in whom only are all the Treasures of true Wisdom Q. 150. What is the Office of the Keys How may they become rightly used or who is worthy or â—it for this Office or whether is he himself the Office Or whether hath he freely given it to man so that he may without Christ's Spirit forgive Sins or how is it done A. 1. People of the Roman Communion say Their Bishop hath the Keys of Heaven left him by Peter but why they derive from Peter they should shew for Peter was the Apostle to the Circumcision they were Gentiles and Paul was the Apostle of the Gentiles Thus far they are as the Jews that as the Jews Persecuted the Head these do the Members 2. But were it so they derived rightly from Peter which cannot be and Peter only from the Words of the Lord Jesus which were a direct Error as of such who know not the Scriptures to think yet let it be observ'd the Lord said to Peter I will give thee the Keys of the Kingdom c. It is not there said I do give c. Nor seems he then fit being ignorant of and offended at the Notice of Christ's designed Sufferings his Answer on that occasion caus'd the Lord to say after this Promise Get thee behind me Sathan c. But when that Promise was performed it was to the other Apostles equally with Peter for when the Lord Jesus shew'd himself to them he breath'd on them saying receive ye the Holy Ghost whose Sins ye remit c. 3. But we read of the Lawyers who took away the Key of Knowledge as these do for the Pardon of Sin is not like the Remission of Mens Penalties by a Magistrate at a Bar but is a great Work therefore said the Jews VVho can forgive Sins but God alone And Moses interceeding for Israel saith Let the Power of my Lord be great and Pardon c. It was Power that created the World but great Power goes to the forgiving of Sin 4. But Power of Remission and Retention of Sin was given by the Lord Jesus to the Apostles together with a Commission to go and Preach the Gospel wherein more was meant than what was conferred on the rest of the World for it was not only a Power of bare Verbal Declaration which others might do but a Delegation of Commissionary Authority All Sin is against God those against Men are against God as Men stand related to God and as they Transgress the Righteous Law of God Therefore no Sin can be Pardoned but by him against whom Sin is committed And 't is the Infinite can extend Infinite Mercy which only can secure a sinful Creature against Infinite Wrath. 5. Men may as Ambassadors declare their Lord's terms of Reconciliation in general to all and they may ratifie Peace with particular Persons if they are directed by the unerring Spirit of God to discern them from all others but Samuel himseâ—f was mistaken by the goodly Presence of David's elder Brother Such an Error in this Case may both invalidate the Absolution and Shipwrack the Man into a Lethargy Presumptuous Dream Slumber or translate him to Fools Paradise 6. And it may be doubted this discriminating Eye is dimn or shut when the Concomitants disappear for now the glorious Effusion of the Holy Ghost enabling to take up Serpents drink any deadly thing heal the Sick eject Devils Prophesie speak with new Tongues are all controverted as a misunderstood History rather than to be things practicable by the Pretenders to that great work of Pardon 7. Let it not therefore be thought a designed Sacriledge of part of Ecclesiastical Authority to warn all to see they have salt in themselves and not be led by the Eyes of others and those also Eyes confessedly defective But that the Apostles did this was because they
the Almighty Power of the Holy Ghost the latter perfected and consummated by the same Power concurring with the Gracious Providence of Infinite Wisdom The first so great an inward Divine Work as none but such in whom it is wrought can speak more of it but as Parrots so that the Experimental Work only enables rightly to see taste feel and know it And the Spirit working it can only rightly open the Mouth and guide the Hand to tell and describe it And this being spoken in the plainest simplest way can yet be received and profitable to such only who by the same Spirit are not only enlighten'd but made alive by the new Regeneration 2. Therefore in answer to the first part of the Question we are to know that God made of one Blood all Nations of the Earth and all Men in one Principle viz. the third consisting of the first four Properties for its Root But the second was Mans Paradisical Garland his Heaven his Crown and Divine Image This our Root and common Father the first Adam suppressed extinguished and caused to die and disappear Thenceforth Man became like the Cursed Earth whereof some plats bear Thorns and Briars others fetid Weeds others poysonous Plants others less noxious Products according to the prevalency of every of which the plat is named So some Men are hurried by the impetuous storms and fury of the four Anguishes of the first Principle and so are Devilish others are swallow'd up of the voluptuous Lusts of the Elementary Spirit and thence rightly called sensual others steered and regulated by the Maxims of the Siderial World and these can be no more or better than Earthy 3. Now out of all these the Divine Power ingenerating Faith not only acting in the understanding but swaying the Scepter of the Will also self-denial both as from abhorrence of the defiling self and also from self-interest property and self-pleasing which is as the Flower of Grass then cometh a hunger after the unseen Manna which is the Root producing the meek resignation of self-pleasing desires patient submission to the Cross which as it were insensibly enkindleth in the Soul the sweet dear silent retirement rest and peace the passing into the fifth form and this walkt in gradually regenerateth and tinctureth the dark perverted Soul with the noble new universal Power and Might And these are as different according to the procedure of Men as years distinguish the growth and stature of Children But done so silently by the Holy Spirit in Mans Spirit as the Blossom issueth and after it the Fruit. 4. The true new Regeneration in the Spirit of Christ is always new and that continually and successively renewed if indeed it be true not as the natural Birth of Children into this World who are so Born but once but rather as the growing of the Embrio in the Womb to a formed animated perfect Child Nor as an Arrow flying through by the force of its first push but as a Ship sailing through successive Perils and always returning to its latitude from various aberrations and passing through raging Surges as over so many Deaths Or as young people recover out of escaping from and through many Sicknesses and Relapses For the Lord himself teacheth saying to his Disciples who none doubts were before that converted Except ye be converted and become as this little Child ye cannot enter into the Kingdom of God Which then they were not for their quest was who should be the greatest thus tho' Metal upon Metal be false Herauldry Conversion upon Conversion is true Christianity 5. Nor is this less plain and evidently real in it self to the Children of the day tho' Nicodemus the Night Visiter misunderstood it than that the outward Suns Diurnal appearances on the Earths Revolutions make so many new days and every advance of the new Born Soul towards Perfection is such another thing than was the former as this Harvest is than the last was for the Soul can no more continue to grow by the first stirrings of the Heavenly World in it than the Body be nourished and supported by the Food it received the last Month or the Plants by the Rain they imbibed the last year or the Manna gathered one day be Food the following day when grown Verminous Thus God saith Behold I make all things new 6. Such therefore who pinfold their apprehensions of the new Regeneration by the Gage and Glass of the Natural Birth of Children may as equally infer the Mortification or Dying to the corrupt Man to be one only act Contrary to the Apostle I die daily Whereas we both die daily and are daily regenerated as Night and Day Winter and Summer are successively perpetuated Among the Roman Ecclesiasticks their Novices are under an absolute Arbitrary Subjection to the Tyranny of their unaccountable Superiors but the higher the Soul advanceth to the superior parts of true Regeneration the more simply and resignedly obedient is he till he actively passively and compleatly become as a little Child 7. And now to the second part of the Question Is it done in this time or after this time It is answer'd in the immediately preceding Discourse on the first part of this Question That the Regeneration is not wrought by one act as neither is Mortification done at once but gradually by little and little effected as a Summer hath its Spring a Day its Dawning a Vintage its sprouting out Obj. 1. â—8 Is it objected Omnipotence may perfect the Regeneration at once by one single act A. Without the Censure of confining Infinity it 's queried on what Ground is this presumption Built God shews us his way by all his gracious Discoveries for instance that of the Creation of the Out-world leads us as by the Hand to the view of the progress of the new Creation in which not to touch particulars which were repeating what is elsewhere done and digressive it may not be denyed but the Light call'd for at the beginning might have been multiplied into the inkindling of the whole deep that all had been as a Sun and so the alone figure of the Heavenly World but how then had this Out-birth figur'd both Worlds or both Principles wherein the seven properties should impress themselves in their distinct powers Therefore was that Light collected and the place of the Sun ennobled with the preheminence of the Empire of the Out-world as the Representer of the Holy Infinite second Principle the Son of God And the Darkness which before covered the Deep was conserved by condensation of the Terrestrial Globe whereon we creep and the Crassitude of the other Stars to figure the Infinite Eternal first Principle whereinto according to the dark impression thereof Man fell and out of which he is gradually recover'd as by way of similitude the Suns lustre attenuateth the gross Air by his continual variation by steddy orderly and regular approaches toward either Tropick Obj. 2. 9. But God new regenerateth the Spirit of Christ in
of the Country a Self-murtherer their shame and indignation but the unknown number of wounded Souls and self-murthered Souls are not regarded tho' it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for such Gospel-Apostates and Haters of Christ. The malicious Enemy of Mankind who wounds himself that he may murther Souls so greatly he hates Man draws into the Anguishes of his Central Forms whole Harvests of Reprobates in whom he hath no true Right or Propriety by his offering Baits and Cheats for Food and Realities while woe to the World the most glorious gracious and adorable only Son of the only High God whose we are by Absolute Propriety and whose Love to Mankind was so immense and unsearchable as that He made Himself vile and a Sacrifice to whom He offereth Real Highest and Eternal Blessedness yet hath only the gleanings of the Harvest or Vintage while the World lieth in wickedness and their Posterities approve of their saying calling the proud happy and perpetuating the Black Art of Self-murther like Fish hasten greedily to catch the same Bait wherewith others had been hookt or Birds speed to be taken in an evil Net so throng Men to be ruined reject the only Hope precipitate into irreparable desperation Others seeming less obstinate are as fatal Foes to themselves telling and flattering of tomorrow while such futurities of safety expose them as Fools to perish to day while Wisdom saith To day if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts and that This is the accepted time This is the day of Salvation The time of the coming of John the Baptist was in the year of Jubilee yet then saith he The Axe is laid to the Root of the Tree 17. Our gracious God infinitely out-doth and out-bids all to make us his and restore his Image in us for in Man's Creation he did much more than for any or all the visible Creatures of the Out-birth or third Principle in his Redemption for restoring the Divine Image he did infinitely more for him than any or all the invisible Creatures of the first Principle the Apostate Angels for whom is given no Sacrifice nor Mediator Also in Man's Consummation Perfection Sealing and Glorification and Preparation thereunto is much more done for him than for the Holy glorious Angels the Sons and Inhabitants as morning Stars of the bright Heaven the Holy second Principle for the Spirits of just Men made perfect the general Assembly of the Church of the first-born are Fellow-Citizens with the Angelical Worlds and so share of the infinite Goodness of God as they and also have this more that they have had in the Lord their Head the Bowels of infinite Pardoning Mercy drawn out for them which is peculiarly extended them and treasur'd up only in the Emmanuel for them 18. This most dear boundless Goodness calls for the highest and deepest Contemplation 't is so profound so large so adorable so admirable that neither can the Earthen Vessel bear it the Syderial Man find any thing whereunto his Bounty may be likened the Immortal Soul be properly said to know it for it is what passeth Knowledge but the Soul is known by it as it is more or less enlighten'd therewith and Man's intellectual Spirit is so far from throughly penetrating it that it only shines and flows by Influence and Reflection of it for it self is as a drop of the Abyss enlighten'd by a beam of the Eternal Sun it burns and flames in the self-evidencing splendor of that incomparable inexhaustible Treasure and excellent Majesty This poor vile hand lyes prostrate at the Footstool of this Grace the Elementary and Astral Man the Eternal Soul and Spirit is herein swallow'd up once and for ever 19. How reasonable necessary and natural was what our Apostle saith I beseech you Brethren by the Mercies of God that ye present your Bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto God This is the Riches of his goodness forbearance and long suffering to lead man to Repentance There is a Promise that Men shall fear the Lord and his Goodness Man's contempt of Bowels of Infinite Mercy shews him less rational than the Bruits than the Insects who all shew the desire of Self-defence while he refuseth to be shielded from the greatest of horror by the free goodness of his God purchased by his own Blood with sorrows aggravated to unexpressible mysteriousness yet is Man offered all at the cheap Price of Acceptance and importunately besought to open his Hand Mouth and Heart to receive Pardon from day to day perhaps for many years still in vain whil'st he riseth early compasseth Sea and Land with his Life in his hand sweats freezeth bleeds frets wounds his Conscience and sells himself What therefore can the account of such Rejecters of the Invitation to the Marriage Supper be seeing to Ungratitude is added Stubbornness to that Despitefulness and consequently desperate Madness being one who having more done for him than for the Holy Angels and yet thus doth more against the glorious Grace of God in Christ by exalted Wickedness than the very Devils 20. Behold this and Blush ye Heavens ye Sun and Stars gather blackness let the Earth be moved let the Stones of the Streets and Walls be Witnesses let the Brutes and Animals stand amaz'd melt ye Rocks of Adamant relent and sigh ye Mountains of Ice let Marble and Pummice-stones weep come hither discover your inward Forms ye savage Bears cruel Tygers Vultures and unnatural Vipers The Heavens Sun and Stars were never Witness of the like Tragick Stupidity for had they seen the Angels that fell become Devils yet had they not known them refuse Mercy freely continually and importunately tendered the most brutish Animals reject not but greedily snatch what they want the Adamantine and Marble Rocks are all easily dissolvable by their proper Separators and Dissolvents the Mountains of Ice are as unwilling Captives Bears Tygers and Vultures are not only kind and friendly to themselves but compassionate to their Young the Viper though he destroys his Genitrix yet seems to do it of necessity to preserve its own Existence where therefore can be found so obdurate a thing as the Impenitent Heart of Man so great a Monster so ferine a Brute such a Prodigy of Ingratitude so implacable a Creature as the hardened obstinate Sinner No such Ingratitude and Cruelty can the Astral World demonstrate in the contrary Wills of the Martial Mercurial and other cross Constellations nor in the Elementary Offspring of them nor all whose Differences result to Harmony in the Earth or Deserts Air or Seas no not in Hell the dark Abyss or Devils no Sinners against so great Mercies and means for Recovery no Sinners against a Redeemer against the bleeding Love and Bowels of a Saviour there but Man the Devils are those for whom nothing of Mercy is prepared Oh therefore that Men were wise that they knew this and would hear that their Souls might live and not sink
to be risen with Christ and guided by his Light within them Let it be observed by such who wilfully oppose or not regarded at their Peril And for satisfaction of such who are willing to know the truth viz. That Christ had a true Natural Humane Body of Flesh and Blood from Mary Heb. 2. 24. For asmuch then as the Children are partakers of Flesh and Blood he also himself likewise took part of the same that through Death he might destroy him that had the power of Death which is the Devil Q. 3. But is it askt how is this Body and Humane Soul the same of ours It 's answer'd 1. By way of Concession that it was so far other than ours as it had the Holy Ghost instead of Mans Masculine Seed 2. Yet took he as the above Text with many others plainly tell us part of our Flesh and Blood and so was our Brother that is such as the Children had part of were of or are partakers of and this is also ours of what Nation soever we are for it is written Acts â—7 16. God hath made of one Blood all Nations of Men to dwell on the Face of the Earth Q. 4. Is it ask'd what of this was raised again It 's Answer'd all of it for the Women and after that the Disciple whom Jesus loved and Peter saw there was nothing left in the Sepulchre after the Resurrection but the Linnen Cloaths wherein he had been wrapped Q. 5. May it be fully so with other Bodies Answer Matth. 27. 52 53. And the Graves were opened and many Bodies of Saints which slept arose and came out of their Graves after his Resurrection and went into the Holy City and appeared unto many And it must be remembred that it shall be so with ours at the last day it was the Faith of Martha who saith unto him John 11. 24. I know that my Brother shall rise again in the Resurrection at the last day Q. 6. May it not be otherwise with us our Bodies must putrifie and the Incorruptible only rise Answer our Apostle saith 1 Cor. 15. 53. Our Mortal shall put on Immortality and our Corruptible shall put on Incorruption and all this as a consequence of Christs Death and Burial according to the Scriptures also of his rising again and after his rising again was seen of Cephas then of the Twelve after that of above five hundred Brethren at once 1 Cor. 15. 3 4 5 6. Q. 7. Shall it be a Resurrection of all Answer The Lord saith Marvel not at this for the hour is coming in the which all that are in the Graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth they that have done good to the Resurrection of Life and they that have done evil unto the Resurrection of Damnation Let it therefore no longer be charged justly on us as formerly on the Jewish Rabbies That we err not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God 1 Thes. 4. 14 15. If we believe that Jesus died and rose again even so them also which sleep c. Q. 8. How is it effected Answer As Lazarus was raised That voice which gave Being to all call'd him up and that voice shall call all up every one in his own Order May it never be said of us as of the Jews Because they knew not him nor yet the voices of the Prophets which are read every Sabbath day they have fulfilled them in condemning him So may it not be said now Because they consult not frequently nor heedfully regard nor will understand the holy Words and Writings of the Lord his Apostles c. which they may daily read they yet sit down with a confused Notion of this great Doctrine and bury their drowsie Intellect some with dark Heathenish Maxims begetting Atheism in Judgment and Practice a degree worse than Devils 9. Other some there are having a glimpse of a true Light wherewith they think themselves rich and to have need of nothing and there shut it and themselves up without proving it by searching like the Bereans and without improving it by trimming their Lamps But not imploying themselves in the Lords methods do obscure or bury their Talent and so by degrees let their foolish Heart be darkened not only in this but in many other of the plain and precious Truths of the Kingdom of God which great evil and defection is as ever heretofore in all other forms accompanied with sharp Censures of others and peremptory unwarranted Injunctions of their own Reason Whereas the more we approach the Divine Life the more comprehensive is that Soul the more ready to bear and forbear to do and suffer to become all or any thing to all that it may beget of that meek Spirit in others to be swift to hear to have an open naked Breast whereon it begs the Lord Jesus to write his whole Pleasure is so vile in his own absurd Judgment that is easily induced to think highly of others Q. 173. How doth this World pass away or vanish And what doth remain thereof afterward A. 1. To some this Question may seem only curious and to others so occult as if incogniscible to a third sort such as if possible to be resolv'd were needless because it fruitlesly anticipates say they the thing which in its season shall demonstrate it self But on serious mature inspection it is found possible important and greatly necessary to be known and believed 2. It is said that when Cortis with a Brigade of Spanish Horse and Infantry Invaded the West Indies and had charged them of the Republick of Tlaxcallan upon the Fall of any Spaniard either Man or Horse care was taken so to bury them that the Americans might not know it which made them despair of withstanding such whom they thence concluded to be Immortal Thus not to discover the end of this present World which the dark World and the Prince of it would conceal were to insinuate as if it were indissoluble and consequently uncreated and so Brutishly to introduce Atheism and Atheism is that fatal Evil which may be justly accounted the worst of Errors of the worst of Men. 3. But this World had a beginning and shall have an end as it is written Psal. 102. 25 26. Of old thou hast laid the foundation of the Earth and the Heavens are the works of thy hand They shall perish c. They all shall wax old as doth a Garment c. Heb. 1. 10 11 12. And tho' no History scarcely records any who mock'd at the coming of the Lord yet is it Prophesied 2 Pet. 3. 3 4. That in the last days Scoffers shall come even at that which will then be at the Door saying Where is the promise of his coming c. For such Mens Lusts Biass them to abuse Gods long-suffering ver 9. Who is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to Repentance Ezek. 18. 31. 32. 2 Pet. 3. 10. And it is told
for him for to give him more Divine Light were but as Water to increase his Fire And God willeth to have no fiery Spirit in Paradise his Brimstone Spirit is inkindled and remaineth unquenchable desiring to get above the Meekness of the Heart of God which shuts him up Eternally CHAP. XI Of all Circumstances of the Temptation 1. WHen God did set the Fiat in the Will to Create Angels he separated all the Properties as hard four bitter harsh fierce soft c. as we see are in the various properties of the Stars and created the Princely Throne Angels as so many Fountains Then in each Fountain came forth a Centre in many Thousand Thousands and every Host got a Will such as was the Fountain or Prince whence they proceeded giving their will to him as the Stars do to the Sun Tho' all thoroughly irradiated with Divine Splendor yet had every Host some one of the Properties of the first Principle most Eminent in them 2. Of the Princes one is fallen and his Host for standing in the fourth form his Fire Elevated him above the End of Nature 3. The Fiat in the Creation separated the Matrix also of the Out-birth created after the other according to the forms of the inward World and out of the Properties of the first Principle came Creatures of all sorts good and bad as Lambs Doves c. as also Wolves Toads also in the separation of Vegetables are good and hurtful Plants And that the evil is also profitable is seen for that in every Creature is a poysonous Gall being the cause of Life 4. Adam was created of all the three Principles but in perfect clarity an Image of his Creator and Epitomy of all Creatures 5. In the Garden of Eden were all Paradisical Trees pleasant to look on and good for Food wherein tho' they sprung out of the Earth yet in them was imprinted the Divine Vertue of the second Principle and yet were truely in the third Principle Death stuck only in that Tree of Good and Evil that was able to bring Man into another Image 6. God willed not Adam should eat of it for he not only barely warned him of the danger but forbad him with a severe Menace 7. Nor was he Created with a distinct Female as other Creatures that on his Fall he might the better be helped 8. Nor will'd he should need any other clothing than Glory else would have given him a Hide as other Creatures But as a Heavenly Man he should have eaten Heavenly Fruit. Now follows the Gate of the Temptation Adam had all the three Principles or Worlds in him and in all he looked on without him 9. The Heart of God would have him to abide in Paradise being his similitude The Kingdom of Wrath would have this great Lord because he proceeded out of the Eternal Mind of the Darkness that through him might be shew'd great power The Kingdom of this World would have him be his Housholder for that he lived in it and was part of it saying Eat and Drink not only Divine Food thou art not yet a meer Spirit eat not that which is incomprehensible Eat my sweet drink my strong which is comprehensible 10. Here Adam thought seeing I am on the Earth and that it is mine I will use it as I list 11. Then came the Inhibition on pain of Death not to eat the Earthy Food wherein was mixt the evil for the Tree was neither better nor worse than that we have But God saw his eager imagination so set on the Earthy Fruit that he could not generate a perfect Paradisical Man but an Infected one out of himself that would fall to be corruptible did let a sleep fall on him CHAP. XII Further of the Circumstances of the Temptation 1. MOses at the Bush was commanded to pull off his Shoes shewing his Earthy Birth God gave the Law at Sinai and establisht it in clarity but by Thunders c. in the Spirit of the great World for in Gods Heart is only Love and Kindness because after the Fall Men lived therein viz. in the Spirit of the great World 2. The Law demanding obedience and the false voluptuousness of Israel were in strife Forty days till they fell to their sinful Calf And Christs tryal Forty days c. shew the time of Adam's Temptation Of Adam's Sleep 1. Adam's sleep was his being Captivated by the â—triving Stars and Elements whose wrestling so far overcame him that his Tincture became enfeebled and he as dead who should as we in the Resurrection have Eternally with open Eyes beheld the Infinite Glories This God so greatly loathed that Adam could not long continue in Paradise The Highest Gate of the Life of the Tincture 2. The Tincture is that which separateth the pure from the impure and graduateth to the highest all sorts of Life in all Creatures Yet in some strong in others weak It s Birth is from the Vertue of the Deity and imprints it self in all things yet so secretly that none of the ungodly can know it It is Eternal but the Spirit given it by the Fiat is according to the kind of every Creature At first it was implanted in Jewels Gems Metals 3. It was generated in the fifth form that of Love out of the Heart of God And tho' its Spirit in the third Principle abide not for ever yet for the sake thereof the very figures of this World shall remain for ever But in the second Principle the Tincture standing in the Spirit and Substance in Angels and Men is Eternally fixt The Tinctures Essences 4. It is the flash of Life and Lustre whose Root is Fire causing the faculty of seeing in all Creatures It Chrystallizeth impure Water separateth the Light from Darkness imageth it self in what it hath made pure making it also sweet shining like Oyl and Fire Mixt with the Matrix of VVater by the mixture becomes fixt and thick and by the Property of the Fire is colour'd Red and is the Blood in which the Noble Life existeth Of the Death and Dying 5. In so great and hourly danger stands the Noble Life in the Tincture and hath so many potent Enemies that either on the Efflux of the Blood the Tincture flyeth away or on the over-prevalency of any one of the four Elements or ill Conjunction of the Constellations darting their Poisons the Band of Life breaketh and the flash goeth out in Meekness How the Heavenly Tincture was in Adam before the Fall and shall be in us after this Life 6. Adam's three Principles whereof he was were three Births the one not comprehended by the other viz. The Worm or Brimstone Spirit generated out of the Eternal Will of the Father The Virgin or Wisdom of God And the Spirit of this World The two latter were given to him to his right and left 7. The second was to illustrate the first in the power whereof he was to rule over the third It is
pure Element 7. In the holy Ternary and pure Element spring the Paradisical Fruits and the Virgin of Wisdom is the great Spirit in the whole Heavenly World and the Holy Element is her Body But the Deity is Incomprehensible yet as a Soul to a Body in the Holy Ternary The Virgin of God's Wisdom Christ brought with him to be a Bride to our Souls and the Holy Ternary which is his Body is the Food of our Souls Amen John 6. 56. 8. Baptism was not instituted in respect of the Earthly Man which belonged to Earth nor of the Heavenly Man which was pure already but for the poor Souls sake for though we may have a new Body we cannot have a new Soul that being out of the Eternity Therefore as the Holy Ghost over-shadowed and impregnated Mary so the Water out of the Heavenly Matrix coming out of the Holy Ternary in the Baptism over-shadoweth and filleth the Soul and so reneweth the Earthy Water of the Out-birth washing it clean that it is in resignation a pure Angel and may eat of the Heavenly Fruit which is the cause of Baptism Thenceforth if it incline it self forward into God this World is only bound or tyed to it till it enter into Death CHAP. XXIII Of the Testaments of Christ Baptism and the Supper 1. CHrist said he would be with us always and would give us his Body and Blood for Meat and Drink 2. The Deity is not divided and if the Father be every where so is the Son his Heart nor is the Son divided and a spark of the Deity in his Body and the rest every where When Christ sat with his Disciples he gave them his Flesh and Blood viz. His holy Heavenly Body in the second Principle and his holy Heavenly Blood in the pure Element wherein is the holy Tincture and Holy Life 3. The holy pure Element is every where and substantial generated of God therein is the Ternariâ—â— Sanctus and that is the heavenly Body of Christ with our here assumed Soul in it with the fulness of the Deity therein 4. Thus the regenerated Soul putteth on the Body of Christ viz. his Eternal Humanity which is out of the holy Element and which giveth the new Body Meat and Drink The Father every where from Eternity to Eternity doth generate the Son and from both doth the Holy Ghost every where proceed 5. The inward Element which compriseth this World became Christ's Eternal Body the Deity espoused it self thereunto and acteth the Heavenly new Humanity which is an Omnipresent Creature such as captivated all Devils Thus all Men who earnestly and stedfastly draw near to Christ are in their new Man in Heaven who acteth their new Humanity Christ hath taken this Pledge of us viz. our Souls in Mary 6. Christ began his Baptism by John his fore-runner who was born before Christ signifying that Water is the cause and beginning of the Life and in it by the Tincture cometh Sulphur wherein is vital Motion And in the Sulphur and Water the Tincture after causeth Blood 7. In the same order is the Regeneration that the Soul be Baptized in the Water of Eternal Life and then the grain of Mustard-seed of the Pearl be sown that it become a new Fruit in God 8. Children ought to be Baptized or the Covenant is contemned for though Children know not that which is done to them yet it is not in our fore-knowing but in God's that the Covenant stands and if thou as the tree be in the Covenant so may thy Child as the branch thy Faith is its Faith Art thou a true Christian Thy Child at the kindling of its Life passeth into the Covenant yet omit not to Baptize for when 't is born 't is sever'd from the tree and thou must with thy Faith and Prayer present it 9. And because the outward Body is in this World therefore the outward Water is requisite and with the inward Water of Eternal Life the Holy Ghost in the Covenant baptizeth the inward Man 10. Yet if after the Soul depart the Virgin passeth into the Centre of the Light of Life but if it again return is receiv'd And therefore was the other Testament of the Lord's Body and Blood left in which the outward Man hath the outward Elements of Bread and Wine The inward new Man feeds on Christ's heavenly Flesh and Blood and the Soul feeds on the pure Deity 11. The unworthy Receiver feeds outwardly on the four Elements and inwardly on the Wrath of God having departed as did the fallen Angels out of the Love CHAP. XXIV Of true Repentance 1. TO enter into true Repentance the Mind with all the Thoughts Purposes and Reason must be collected wholly into one will resolution and earnest desire to forsake all Abominations and fix the Soul in a stedfast Confidence in God's Mercy 2. That which terrifieth and with-holdeth arising from the greatness of Sin is of Sathan but every though but the least thought inclining the Will towards God and that it would fain enter into Repentance is not from self but the Love of God draweth his Spirit inviteth the noble Virgin calleth 3. Neglect not to give the Lord a meeting who will certainly give a hearty welcom Come Knock Pray he knows the Language of a hearty Sigh Depart not press from Sin so doth the Kingdom of God press into thee wait from day to day the greater the earnestness the greater will be the Jewel 4. But this Seed is not instantly a Tree The Devil would root it up many Storms rush on it every thing in this World is against it sometimes Sins cover it Conscience upbraids the Traveller even God's Children themselves rush on him he sometimes doth what he reproves in others even against his own Light and Purposes 5. When it is thus the Tree of Pearl is hidden for not being sowen in the outward Man which is not worthy of it but is Sathan's Seat that doth what the Soul opposeth It is sometimes done by the Spirit of the Stars in Man So that a Christian is not known to himself how much less to others and is often wounded in the strife for the Field in which the new Man grows is barren harsh cold sour and bitter but the new Man arm'd by the sharp Sword of Christ's Death is Conqueror growing as the Herb or Flower out of the Earth by the pleasant Sunshine CHAP. XXV Of the Dying Death Resurrection Ascension of Christ and his sitting on the right Hand of God his Father Also our Misery and the Divine Power of his Love 1. THE outward Man and its Actions Thoughts and Intents are Instruments of the Spirit of the great World which after Corrupt 2. None therefore should scorn another having our several Compositions Habits and Mutations according to our Constellations and Influences which are not wholly rooted out till Dissolution though Regeneration oppose the falshood of the outward corruptible Man 3. But the outward Man 's not
in the Body of Christ holdeth the Anger together with all Devils Eternal Prisoners as Darkness stands shut up before the Eternal Day CHAP. XXVI Pentecost The sending of the Holy Ghost 1. ON the seventh Day after Moses ascended the Mount was he call'd and the Lord spake with him And Christ when he was ascended into his Throne was on the ninth Day glorify'd and the Holy Ghost went forth from the Centre of the Trinity into the whole Holy Element also opened the Doors of the great Wonders 2. So that the Apostles spake with the Languages of all Nations for the Holy Ghost went out of all Essences and filled the Essences of all Men who had but an earnest desire to it 3. And the hard palpable Body of Christ was received into the Holy Ternary only the source of this World was destroy'd in Death And though he be swallow'd up as to our sight and apprehension yet shall he come again at the last Judgment Day and manifest himself in that same very Body to good and bad CHAP. XXVII Of the Last Judgment 1. AT the time before the Fire of Nature causeth every thing to dissolve melt and pass into its Aether cometh the Judge of the Living and Dead and with him the Angelical World Then all not comprehended in the Body of Christ shall howl tremble yell roar blaspheme gnaw their Tongues and would hide themselves in Holes and Caves from the Terror of the Lord. They Curse the Heavens Constellations and Stars that inclined and drew them to Evil they Curse the Earth that bare them and buried them not sooner They Curse their Parents that brought them up and had not strangled them They Curse their Priests that flattered and misled them They Curse their Superiors whose Cruelty and Evil Example influenced them They Curse their ungodly Associates that accompanied them The Tears of those they had oppressed like fiery Serpents sting them Their abused Authority Wealth and Might stand in the Tincture in the Substance of Eternity 2. The Devils also stand trembling they see how every Fire burneth in its own life in themselves they feel the Hellish Fire in the fierce Wrath. 3. The Angelical World in the Light Lustre and Brightness is as the Sun in Triumphant Hallelujahs 4. The Angelical Quire of Holy Men stand there before the Eyes of them that Murther'd Opprest and Reproacht them for the Truths sake whose Guilt like Mountains of Lead holds them down and Speechless 5. And then the King calls and enthrones all his Members And pronounceth that formidable and irrevocable Sentence on the Wicked that they depart from him c. 6. At the Moment of Departing pass away the Heavens Sun Moon Stars Earth and Elements and time shall be no more 7. Nor can the Holy Principle touch the other any more to Eternity nor conceive a Thought of the other The Parents of their wicked Offspring or Children of their wicked Parents or Relations but Eternal Joy fills surrounds and Crowns them See more in the Answer of the 30th of the 40 Questions AN APPENDIX OR THE Threefold Life in Man I. The Life of the Spirit of this World II. Of the Life of the Originality of all Essences III. Of the Regeneration and Paradisical Life 1. BY the Ternarius Sanctus in the Aurora and the three Principles is not meant Holy Earth but the Holy Body out of the Vertue of the Trinity and properly of the Gate of God the Father whence all things proceed as of one only substance 2. For in the Creation proceeds from one only Fountain good and evil life and death joy and sorrow love and hate appearing in all things especially in Man 3. So find we the Threefold Life in Man in the Gate of God the Father See we also how joy is turn'd into sorrow and again joy return'd and by the prevalence of either a substance is made according to which the Mind commanding the Thoughts and collecting them sets the Hands Mouth Feet c. to obey what the Mind willeth and though all the forms of Nature are in Man yet that which is predominant causeth all other to lye as if dead and become as a nothing 4. There are especially three forms in the Mind all superior to the outward for the Mind is anxiously desirous and can see feel smell taste and hear what the outward Senses know not 5 And if the Divine form be Paramount it is in God and the other two are as half dead 6. But the Mind can raise the Spirit of this World of Covetousness Pride c. which instantly openeth the first form out of the Eternal Indissoluble Band in falshood envy malice c. To whom therefore you yield your selves Servants his you are whether of Sin or Righteousness 7. This Life is the sowing and growing time and in the time of this Elementary Life the mind may open which of the three Principles it will but at the dissolution of the Body the Mind standeth in one only Principle having lost the Key of the other two for when the stalk is cut it is no longer a Plant but a Fruit and can stand no longer nor open no other Principle but be Eternally in that which he here kindled 8. But if God hath regenerated us to enter through the Death of Christ into his Life then hath our Immanuel who abâ—sed himself to enter into our Humanity exalted us to enter into the Holy Flesh and Image Adam lost which is out of the pure Element And then the Trinity worketh really in us and we stand in the Life Body and Property of Christ and our new Man standeth in that out of which Heaven and Paradise is generated and the Earthy Man doth but hang to it 9. Put on therefore a true earnest purpose desire and resolution which is Repentance and the Regenerator is ready deep in the Mind in the Light of Life to help the earnest Wrestler and so soweth himself as a Grain of Mustard-seed or as a Root to a new Creature and if the Souls earnestness be great the earnestness in the Regenerator is also great 10. But this is known by them only that feel and experiment how the Regenerator changeth the proud fierceness into humble Love for the new Man is not of this World but hidden in the old For the true knowledge of God is in no Man till he be Regenerate 11. Christ gave not the Flesh and Blood of his Creatures to his Disciples but the Body of the pure Element wherein God dwelleth and is present every where in all Creatures but comprized in another Principle to eat and drink under Earthy Bread and Wine And as the outward Man is Baptized of the Elemenâ—ary Water so is the new Man with the pure Element which appeareth only in the second Principle 12. No Reader understandeth this Author rightly unless he be Born of God it is not folded up in an Historical Art But as Earthy Eyes cannot see God so neither can a
hath a good Constellation at the time of the Spirits awakening it gives him a Friendly lovely outside whereby such a one can give good flattering words from a false heart for he dwelleth in two Kingdoms in this World is he a History Hypocrite and his Soul in the Anger Kingdom with the Devils 8. But the Grace of God appeared by Christ's becoming Man to bring our Human Souls out of Death and the Abyss of Anger into the Tenth Number the Eternal Tincture to be again the Similitude of God upon the Cross whence the Soul originated And then when the Soul is turned into the Will of God in great Humility having Christ's Body it passeth through Death or from Death to Life in the Death of Christ through the Anger of God into the Ninth Number before the Holy Trinity and is imbraced by the Majesty The great open Gate of Antichrist 9. Antichrist in Men professing Christ is a contrary will to the Divine Will yet a Counterfeit of it but as the Soul becomes born of God more or less in such proportion the renewed Will quits the Principles and Dictates of corrupt Reason and self Desires cover'd by Hypocrisie and by a sincere faithful Love rooted in the Life of Christ a holy Flame of self-evidencing Light ariseth giving a distinct discovery of Antichrist before which it falls and by which it is destroy'd for the going from Antichrist is the going from the Fire into the Light The highly Precious Gate also the Gate of Immanuel 10. Is it askt How can Christ's Body be ours How can we dwell in the Body of Christ It is Answer'd As we have Adam's Flesh Soul and Spirit which Christ becoming Man hath yet remaineth God but receiv'd in the fair Virgin of Wisdom the Eternal Flesh which Adam's was before dividing of the Properties and the Property of our earthy Flesh so Christ's Soul is ours and his Body ours and his Virgin ours whereby we live in Christ when we give up our selves to him wherein also he liveth in us and will at last present us wholly pure with the Heavenly Flesh Blood Tincture and Majesty of Christ. Thus also he liveth in us and we are his Members Temple and Body 11. Where one saith Here is Christ and another There it is because they have lost the Key for the Body and Blood of Christ is in the Eternity and not shut up by space or place but as the Sun shineth from East to West and whose Light fills the World how much more doth Christ fill every part of his Incarnation And when we desire his Flesh and Blood we receive it and are fed by it for as the Father gives Being and upholdeth all so the Son gives Vertue and Light The Congregation of Christ is in every Nation where Men turn from their Sins to God be they Greeks Turks Asians Africans c. God respects not Persons nor Opinions but seeks the Heart those who call on the only true God in plain Simplicity are in Christ but the Tyrannous Proud Covetous Malicious Blood-thirsty Antichrist with their endless Contentions and Disputations offend the Heathens whose Life and Customs are far more Innocent and Pious and when Antichrist's Lyes have stifled him broken his Murthering Sword and laid him in the Pit then shall Christ feed his Lambs and the Turk be of the Fold of the Lambs 12. The whole World is full of God the inward holy Life dwelleth in God and the inward dark Abyss standeth in God's Wrath the strife is which may Image us into it self in this outward Life here God sets Light and Darkness before us and all the teaching here is to warn of the severe Property of the Fire for every thing hath Free-will with an Inclination to its Property therefore we must either embrace the true Good or the certain Evil. Young Children are our School-masters with all our Cunning we are but Fools to them who first play with themselves and after one with another this the Devil grudg'd us and made us fall out at our Play and so we quarrel till we go to sleep and then others Act over again the same quarrels and all is about a defiled Garment which yet is not ours while we should obediently search for a new fair Garment when amongst the Roses Lillies and Flowers we shall in our own Country sing the Song How the Driver who did set us at variance is captivated CHAP. XII Of the true Christian Life and Conversation What Man is to do c. COnsidering well the 34 first Verses of this 12th Chapter it may be comprised mostly in these words He hath shewed thee O Man what is good and what doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to do justly to love Mercy and to walk humbly with thy God The Way we must walk through this World into the Kingdom of God We must if we will so walk Crucifie Self Repent Convert from Evil hourly pass out of Death into Life we must not take pleasure in our selves but so humble our selves before the clear Countenance of the Trinity before whom we always stand and look on Jesus who always sitteth on the Rainbow in us I say we are so to converse without Self-pleasing that our ways may please God the heavenly Hoasts and Man The rest of this sweet Chapter is of various and copious Rules and Monitions yet so conspicuous that the perusal is rather to be recommended than the particulars extracted Only this asserteth That a Self-defence against outward Force or War having only a desire of Self-defence is not against God for he whose House is on Fire may quench it CHAP. XIII Of Christ's Precious Testaments the Lord's Supper and Baptism 1. VVHEN Christ's Apostles and Disciples met together after fervent Exhortation of one another They took brake divided amongst them and did eat Bread in commemoration of Christ's giving his Body for us on the Cross as himself had commanded So also took they the Cup in their hand saying one to another Take this Cup and drink the Blood of our Lord which he shed on the Cross for Remission of our Sins to shew forth his Death till he come again to Judgment and bring us into himself This was the true great Paschal Lamb inâ—â—ituted by Christatier they had eaten the Passover 2. He gave them and they did eat and drink his Flesh and Blood not his earthy and mortal Flesh and Blood to be chewed with their earthy Teeth and swallow'd for that Body of his was not divided amongst them but he gave them his immortal holy Body and Blood new and unknown to the earthy Man yet which did hang in or was United to the outward on the Cross this holy Body became as a Body to their Souls making them his Members 3. As the Eternal Virginity Substantiality and Wisdom wherein was the promised Word gave it self into the perished Tincture became a new Man at the Incarnation in the Virgin Mary so the new Body of
they were both yet in the Garden of Eden and in Paradise Adam's desire had imprinted it self into the Magical Image as a Mother doth on a Child in her Womb therefore the Woman had Earthy Lust so soon As to this day most of that Sex coming to any years selfish Will or Lust is predominant appearing inglittering Pride contrary to Virgin Modesty Chastity and Humility 2. The Devil then in the Serpent laid himself on the Tree of Temptation for the Serpent was more subtle than all the Beasts of the Field because Lucifer falling from his Divine Hierarchy and infecting the Essence of the expressed word in the Fiat according to the dark Worlds Property his desire drew the thorny subtilty out of the Centre of Nature which as to one part was the Serpents Ens. 3. Tho also in the Serpent is found by the wise excellent Art and Vertue for the Devils Poyson being taken out there is Divine Power in a fiery hunger in him As is also in the Earth where may be found the Arcanum of the World 4. The Devil by the Serpent insinuated to Eve as if God had with-held some great thing from them and that if she would eat she should as God know good and evil which was true For the Essences of that Tree were Discordant but said not that Heat and Cold Sickness and Death would force into her But that by the Serpen's eating thereof he had attained so great prudence 5. Eve liked well to be a Goddess and so fell from the Divine Harmony from the resignation in God and united with the Devils Desire 6. Then the Holy Spirit departed and the Heavenly Limus in the Flesh disappeared or died As the extinguishing a Candle which enlightened a dark Room 7. VVhile Man stood resigned in God all the Properties were in Harmony equal weight and measure as time is in Eternity or in God But when Man 's own will began effectually to work the whole Magical Astrum wrought also contrariety and enmity in the outward Astrum and four Elements 8. The Properties of all good and evil Beasts did awake and become domineering in him yea of a Fox Bear Wolf Lion Dog Bull Cock Cat Horse Toad and Serpent Also that Astrum which is most predominant at the time of Conception hath its desire in the Seed and also Figures the outward Person and the poor Soul becomes Married to such a Beast unless a Man be Born anew forsake this Bestial Property and come as a Child into the Kingdom of God pointed at by Circumcision and Baptism 9. How great was that Horror and Anguish now in Man When in Astonishment they crept behind the Trees in the Garden from the dread of Gods awakened Anger making their Love fire tremble on Knowledge of their new-gotten Bestial Properties Even so did the Limus of the Earth whence Adam's outward Essence was extracted tremble and shake when the Lord Jesus on the Cross with his great Love in his Heavenly Blood did overcome Gods Anger which was effectually working in it CHAP. XXI Of the Impression and Original of the Bestial Man and beginning of Sickness and Mortality 1. THAT only which stands in the Temperature hath no Destroyer but subsisteth Eternally for opposite Essences weaken and destroy each other Yet if the captive Essence of the Heavenly Property may be redeemed from the curse and wrath of Nature it comes into the Temperature and awakens the Heavenly Worlds Essence in a living Body if such there be in that Body and expelleth evil 2. So great a sway the outward Beastly Man hath over the hidden inward heavenly Man that it holds it as Gold shut up in the gross Oar unable to shew itself but lyes as dead it must therefore be Born anew and fed with the second Principle or remain ever uncapable of the Kingdom of God It must re-obtain Divine Essence and die to the Beast and Regeneration to its first Estate is brought to pass in Christ. 3. The Scope of this Author is 1. To search out the Image of God 1. How it was Created 2. How Corrupted 3. How it shall be restored 2. What is the New birth out of Christ. 1. What is the Inward and Immortal Man 2. What the Outward and Mortal That being known how it was corrupted it may come again into its first Estate CHAP. XXII Of the Original of Actual Sin c. 1. EVery word of Man proceeds from an Eternal Ens either of Love or Anger A word conceived becometh substance when 't is sounded and then must have a place of Rest either in its like in another or it will return to its Mother the Fountain or Mind whence it is 2. Doth a wicked Man Curse Eccho a word of Love against him let not his Curse enter infect and take Root but will return and heap Coals of Fire on the Reviler for the enkindled Spirit layeth hold of the Inventers very outward Body 3. Sin at first and ever since is Born of a strange Ens when the will leaving the pure simplicity in which it was Created entreth into the Serpents Craft and Poison But tho' the will to good may have evil adhere to it yet if it hath not consented to the evil but rejects it that the sinful desire cannot come into Essence that good will hath not hereby wrought evil but the holy Word judgeth the false 4. The Serpents Ens was a Virgin of Heavenly Beauty but Lucifer introduced thereinto the dark Worlds Property yet hath the Serpent according to the right of Eternity both Tinctures The Pearl is in it but hidden because of the Worlds false Magick that the holy Virgin Ens might not be introduced into an ungodly Serpentine one It were good the Artist knew this 5. The Children of God are the Temple of the Holy Ghost who dwelleth in them without this there is no true knowing or will but strife by the Craft of the Serpent about confused verbal wranglings as did the Jews carry Moses words in their Mouths but mixed them with the crafty Serpents Ens and so it must be still that the word in Gods Children may be stirr'd and whetted and the Truth struggle to the Light Therefore must the Body die it cannot Inherit the Kingdom See more of the Original of Sin in this Book of Extracts of Aurora and in the sixth Chapter of the Book of Predestination And mentioned also in the 15th of the Forty Questions CHAP. XXIII How God recalled Adam and his Eve and ordained the Saviour 1. AFter Adam and Eve had eaten of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil seeing their gross bestial flesh hard bones and deformed Worms carkass shewed it self in their tender delicate body their shame drove them behind the Trees for God's rebuke awaked in them as it had done in Lucifer and they as revolted Rebels were in great shame before God and all the holy Angels and scorn'd by the Devils Into this shame and scorn did Christ enter which caus'd the
in our Humanity but Christ would have it for a Natural Right 4. By Canaan understand the holy Chrystalline World or Earth which shall be manifest 5. By the two fold Cave or Pit of Machpelah is signified Man hath a two fold Humanity one out of the Divine Ens and Heavenly Essence the other out of time this Worlds substance both which should be put into an Eternal Sepulchre and lye in its original Mother leaving the one will in Death so that God might alone live rule and will in the Soul and Mans Life be only his Instrument For the Soul hath turn'd itself aside from the only Eternal Word into self-hood This Distemper and unlikeness must be buried and put again into a two fold Cave and thence come into the Temperature the Essence whence the Body and Soul did arise CHAP. L. Of Abraham's sending his Servant for a Wife for Isaac 1. ABraham is herein the Figure of God the Father Isaac in that of Christ Abraham's Servant in that of Nature The Canaanites in that of the introduced Serpents Ens the Besâ—ial Man which shall not Inherit Here God makes his Servant Nature by whom he governeth Essentially bind itself that it will not introduce the Serpents Ens the dark Worlds Bestial Canaanitish Property for Gods Childrens Yoke-fellow but Nature must take substance out of Abraham's true Humane Essence in pure Love of the Heavenly Matrix that so the New Birth might be holy in its Virginity as to the inward Man 2. Nature saith How if c. viz. the right Humane Ens will not follow me And God said Beware c. viz. go not according to thy Reason but an Angel shall go before thee viz. the Divine Will for self-will and reason must not Lord it but Nature must be a Servant do as it is commanded and commit it to God to bring on the â—ternal Marriage But iâ— the Humane Will will not follow the Messenger hath discharged his Office The Rain ascends not up again without Fruit Nature must declare that God hath given Christ all his Goods and now desireth Man to be his Wife And the Servant sware c viz. When God put his Holy Word with the formed Wisdom into the Natural Ens of Mary then the Humane Nature sware Obedience 3. And the Servant took ten Camels and went to the City of Nahor in Mesopotamia viz. the ten Forms of the three Principles to the Natural and Supernatural Life viz. seven Forms of the Centre of Nature and three Forms of the three distinctions of the Principles which are they whereby God causeth all things and the Goods of the Lord are the formed Wisdom of the great Wonders and Powers 4. And the Servant caused the Camels to kneel by the Well near the City at Evening At or in the last time or days of the World The will of the Fathers Nature the Mystery of the Nature of the three Principles the Carriers of the formed Word hath laid it self down by the Well-spring of God the Divine Fountain 5. The Silver and Golden Jewels Bracelets and Ear-rings given to Rebekah signifie the Heavenly Humanity of Jesus Christ which is not given wholly into the power of the Fire-soul in this Life lest it become haughty as Lucifer and Adam but Virgin Sophia meant by Rebekah remaineth with her Bridegroom Christ in the second Principle 6. The Spices signifie the Holy Spirit Then they sate down to eat viz. the Marriage Feast the Joy whereof none but the Children of Christ know And when Rebekah saw Isaac c. When the disappear'd Humanity discovers Christ in it self it falleth into deepest Humility and is ashamed vailing its Face before Gods Holiness and Clarity that it hath lain so long Captive in the Bestial Man but Christ taketh it into his Arms and leadeth it into his Mothers Tent into the Heavenly Worlds Essence And then was Isaac comforted for his Mother for the disappeared Matrix which was lost in Adam now re-obtain'd in Virgin-like Chaâ—tity for his Spouse CHAP. LI. Of Abraham's taking Keturah to Wife and of his Six Sons and Death 1. ABraham was old when he had Isaac to shew Christ was to be in the old Age of the World and Sarah was old that so the Divine Ens might have the preheminence over the Humane and she must have but one for so is Christ and all are Branches in the one Tree viz. Christ in all 2. But Abraham by Keturah had six Sons signifying the six Properties of the formed Nature the operation of the six days Isaac viz. Christ is the seventh the Sabbath Of these six sprang six Nations to them he gave gifts of his Goods tho' not the In eritance yet had the free Gift of Grace So every Man hath Christ as the free Gift of Grace in him none predestinated to destruction for by those six are signified all Adam's Children 3. In the right Adamical Man out of which the Earth had its Original is the Covenant of the Free gift but the own-self-made-gross-earthy Adam who by Lust made himself a Beast is not capable of the Gift in the Covenant but the right Man as a Tincture in gross Lead mortifieth the Saturnine will and changeth it into Gold swalloweth up the gross Man viz. the dark Worlds Property 4. The Jews Christians and Heathens have all this Gift and Christ is the only available obedience all Men therefore who give up themselves in obedience to God are received in Christs obedience for Names are not accepted 5. My believing that Christ was Born Died and Rose for me makes me not a Christian but I must put on Christ enter into his Obedience and Sacrifice arise in him and Live in him 6. When Abraham had brought his Lifes Forms into right order he resigned up himself into Mortification tired with the Life of self reâ—â—ed in God CHAP. LII The History of Isaac Birth of Esau and Jacob. 1. AFter Abraham's Death God blessed Isaac and he lived by the Well Labairoi viz. the Well of Living and Seeing his Soul dwelt by the Fountain of Divine Love The desire of the Soul is the Fiat which takes the holy Love Tincture into it self and makes it Essential as the Metalline Ens gives its deâ—ire into the Suns Tincture that out of them both the fair and precious Gold is generated So doth the Deity inhabit in the Soul and co worketh but is not comprehended 2. The Souls Magical Fire by the Divine Love desire is inkindled into a shining Lustre so doth the Souls Magical Fire become the Bridegroom to the precious Sophia but the Mortal Soul from the Stars or four Elements attains it not in this Life but that Soul that cometh from the Centre of the Eternal Nature out of the Divine Lubet through the Word whereby the Divine longing formeth the Wisdom into Substance This Soul is that which is betrothed to Sophia 3. Ishmael had twelve Sons six of the Inward
Wonders of the great World he lusted the potence whereof remains in the Lust of a Woman by which is impressed a mark on the Child in her Womb. 4. His so Lusting enfeebled him that he slept and became impotent as to generating Magically with the chast Virgin of Gods Wisdom Then God built a Woman out of him whom when he awaked he took as the Beasts do he drew Breath of the four Elements and kindled his Astral Spirit therewith 5. But the fierceness did not yet stick in them tho' the longing did which Eve by her little regarding the Commandment soon shewed And thus entred Sin Shame and the Evil from the divided Properties from the Elements to which disobedience had subjected them 6. For the Devil is this Worlds Executioner the Stars are the Councel and God is the King of the Land Such therefore as depart from God fall under the Councel who send some to the Rope Water Killing Stealing c. in all which the Devil is very active And at best the Councel helps to vain turmoil discontent and vexation The farther Extracts of this profound Chapter is here forborn being copiously treated in the 20 21 22 23 24 and 25th Chapter of the Mysterium Magnum CHAP. XVIII Of the Promised Seed Adam's Exile and Gods Curse 1. WHen fallen Man stood in great shame and horror fast bound by the Devil God the Father appear'd to him with his angry Mind of the Abyss into which he was now fallen And his most Gracious and Merciful Heart oppos'd it self to the Wrath placing it self highly in the Gate of Mans Life re-inlightning the Soul which yet stood trembling to hear Gods Sentence Because thou hast eaten of the Tree c. 2. Thenceforth the Holy Element withdrew from the Root of the Fruit and left it to the inkindled fierceness of the four Elements producing Thorns c. and the Fruit issuing in the Out-birth made for the Beasts became Mans Food who was become Earthy and now God would not cast his Heavenly Food which belonged to Angels to the Bestial Man 3. Now rose the Enmity of the Beasts to Man he was a Wolf to them and they as Lions to him 4. Before the Curse the tame Creatures were very near akin to the one Element with whom Man should have delight and others the wild ones to the four divided Elements 5. Now also the turmoiling Life of digging c. was necessary for death frailty c. in the four Elements succeeded the continual living Vertue of the Holy Element which was departed 6. God laid the burthen of managing the Creatures on Man when he was become like them but had God willed to have Bestial Men he had Created them such and given them no Commandment as neither have the Beasts any Law 7. God could well have Created Creatures to have the charge and labour of managing the Beasts as already there are Creatures in all the four Elements without a Soul yet somewhat adapted to such a conduct while Man might in Paradise have retained his Angelical Form 8. Eve's Sentence Thou shalt bear Children in pain c. establisht her perfectly to be a Woman of this World It should have been without a Woman and impregnation therefore was the Lord Jesus without the Seed of Man the Son of the Virgin 9. Of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ out of the Heart Word and Promise of God the Father through the chast Virgin of Gods Wisdom is proceeded the Treader upon the Serpent who imaged it self in Adam's mind and Espousing therewith openeth Heaven for the Soul giving the Virgin for a Companion to instruct him in the way of God But because Mans Soul was too hard inkindled from the first Principle did not so instantly imprint it self therein but stood opposite to the Hellish Darts and in the Minds of those Men that yielded to Gods Wisdom did break the Serpents Head 10. But after long Tryal whether Men could by this way wholly yield themselves to God there came to be Murtherers unchast and domineering Spirited Men and but few clave to God then came the Deluge 11. The dread of Gods Judgments not prevailing God chose the Children of Sem to erect the Office of Preaching but Mans self-will ruled by the Stars prompted their blindness so that they would secure themselves by a Tower which God stopt by making their Language as confused as their Thoughts That by their scattering the holy Seed might be preserved but that not reclaiming them God out of the fierceness of the first Principle burnt Sodom and the five Kingdoms yet Sin sprouted as a Green Branch 12. Then God promis'd the chosen Generation to multiply them if they would obey him and prospered them in a strange Land to see if they would depend on him rais'd them up a Prophet wrought Wonders fed them from Heaven gave them a Law in the Zeal and Fire of the Spirit of the great World into which they were fallen gave them Circumcision and Sacrifice for that Man was Earthy their Prayers with a Token of Acceptance were heard through the Consumption of the Earthiness of their Sacrifices and Incense forbad theâ— Meats especially Swines Flesh which in the Fire giveth a stink as also it doth in the Souls first Principle and fuming darkeneth the Gates of the breaking of the Light 13. But nothing could ransom the Soul nor attain the Resurrection of the Body and bring the new Body out of the Holy Element till regenerated in the Son of the Virgin Therefore in the 3970. year the Angel Gabriel saluted Mary with that precious Message to her Astonishment and the Angels Admiration 4. Think not that the Word descended from the highest Heaven above the Stars and became Man No but the Word which God spake in Paradise which imaged it self in the Door of the Light of Life waiting perceptibly in the minds of the holy Men that same Word is become Man the same is entred again into the Divine Wisdom And the same Wisdom of God in the Word of God gave it self into Mary's Virgin Matrix uniting it self as aâ— Eternal propriety into tâ—e Essences and into the Tincture of the Element whic 〈…〉 ure before God And it was a going forth with the whole fulness of the De 〈…〉 hence also the Holy Ghost goeth forth making it greater than Adam or ever any Angel was being the blessing and might of all things in the Father Eternally 15. Not then nor ever separate from the Father every where present and is become a new Creature in Man and called God which new Creature is not generated of the Flesh and Blood of the Virgin but of the total fulness and union of the Holy Trinity and filleth all the Gates of the Holiness whose Depth Number and Name is Infinite 16. Yet the Corporeity of the Element of this Creature is inferior to the Deity for the Element is generated out of the Word Eternally And that the Lord should go into the Servant is
against Nature and the greatest Wonder done from Eternity and rightly called LOVE 17. This Divine Creature in the Holy Ghost was in a moment made a perfect self-subsisting Creature in the same moment the four Elements Sun and Stars in the Tincture of the Blood and with the Blood and all the Humane Essences of the Virgin Mary in her Matrix received the Creature wholly as one and not two Creatures The Holy Element was the Limbus or Masculine Seed 18 Every form hath its own source yet the Divine hath not so mixed as to be the less but what it was that it is and that which it was not that it is without severing from the Divine substance and the Word abode in the Father and the Natural Humanity in this World in the Bosom of the Virgin Mary 19. Of the three Regions of the Incarnation First There is the Word which hath its forming from Eternity in the Father and in the Incarnation so continued 20. The second forming is done naturally when the Virgin said to the Angel Let it be done to me as thou hast said in the inward Element like the first Adam before the Fall who should have generated such an Angelical Creature which was done perfectly at once in a moment 21. The third forming was done also at once out of the pure Element and this new Creature in perfection of the Element was the Masculine Seed of the Earthy Man which was conceived in the Earthy Matrix of the Virgin 22. But the Word of the Deity so separated them that the Masculine Limbus of the new Creature was not defiled by the Earthy Matrix of the Virgin 23. Yet this Angelical Image as to the Limbus of it came by commixture of the Earthy Essences of the Virgin which clave to it to be Flesh and Blood and at the end of three Months attained his Natural Soul As all other of Adam's Children and hath resumed the Princely Throne again out of which it departed by Sin in Adam 24. Thus Christ was the Natural Eternal Son of the Father the Soul in the Word was a Self-subsisting Natural Person in the Trinity Christ the true breaker through continued in the second Principle and the new Body in the third Principle and at Nine Months was Born of the Virgin Here the Light shone in the Darkness of the outward Body 25. Thus came he to or into his own and they knew him not nor received him but to as many as receiv'd him gave he power by him to be begotten to the Kingdom of Heaven for his is the Kingdom and Glory for ever Amen 26. Of the distinction between the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ. Tho' God in former times permitted Miracles of seeing the Saints departed for vindication of them and their Doctrine of another Life after this for converting the Heathen Yet Invocation of them hath no ground in the Nature of the first Principle Is vain in it self for they having attained the still rest load not themselves with the Miseries and Sins of the Living It is also a disrespect to the Omniscient Mercy of God which without their Intercession and without ceasing with stretched out Arms inviteth by his Gracious Call all Men to come to him freely 27. The Virgin Mary is fabled to be taken up to Heaven Body and Soul but such take this World to be Heaven for the Earthy Body belongs to the Earth She is in Glory in the new Body of the Holy Element and her Lustre is above the clarity of the Heavens as one of the Princely Angelical Thrones for out of her Essences went forth the Body which was the Saviour of all the World and that attracteth all the Members to it and who now standeth in the Holy Trinity and she as a Virgin of Chastity is highly blessed by her Son Jesus Christ. But Invocation belongs not to her for the ability to help cometh only out of the Father through the Son CHAP. XIX Of Souls entring to God and to Perdition and of the Bodies Breaking 1. THE Soul hath the Eternal Essences of the first Principle Regeneration opens the second Principle The third Principle is the Region of the Stars and four Elements When Man 's first Principle hath been wholly taken up about the third viz. This World and that the Brimstone-Spirit which kindleth the Tincture of the Heart is choaked and the four Elements break off from the one Element then doth the Soul keep the starry Region still as its dearest Jewel in the Power whereof they appear and think to find rest in settling things relating to their Wills and worldly Businesses But when the Stars have compleated their Seculum or Course and that the Treader upon the Serpent hath not hold of the Soul by guiding it through the Sufferings Death and Resurrection of Christ it remains naked without the third Principle which it hath lost for ever 2. Of the going forth of the Soul When the Body breaketh the right Soul which was breathed into Adam is in its Principle and is so subtil as cannot be comprehended by Matter as Flesh Bones Stones c. only by an earnest Promise not recalled in the time of the Body it may be comprehended 3. Those that by true Repentance ingraft themselves into the Heart of God do instantly at breaking of the Body lay off all that is Earthy and comprehend the Mercy of the Father and love of Jesus Christ and enter into the Element before God where â—aradise shall flourish waiting without irksomness for the Restoration 4. But if Souls have beeâ— defiled with gross Sins and not rightly passed into earnest Regeneration yet do hang as by a thread of Faith and will not let go but when the Bridegroom calls answer I cannot trim my Lamp yet Theâ—e Souls may after a long time be ransom'd out of the Putrefaction by the Passion of Christ but the Glorification of such shall not be in Eternity like that of the true born Saints but Antichrist's juggling Masses for Money avail not for these 5. But the earnest strong Prayers of such as are entred into the New Birth especially of Parents Children Brethren Sisters or Kindred of the Blood who have one Tincture with him who have all one Tincture enter the Combat more freely than Strangers and help to wrestle off the Devils Chains especially before departing of the Soul from the Body 6. The true Door of the Entrance into Heaven and Hell The Soul departed from the Body need not go far for in the place where the four Elements break the Root standeth which is the Holy Element the Soul entreth through the Door in the Centre into the Kingdom of Joy and is in the Arms of Christ in Paradise So the Damned needs no flying far away it remaiâ—eth in that which was outermost without the four Elements in the Anguish of Darkness in the strong might of the grimness CHAP. XX. Of Adam's going out of Paradise also of the true Christian and Antichristian
John Page 132 Why he was Tempted 40 Days Page 133 How he was in Heaven and also on Earth Page 134 Why he Taught in Parables Page 134 Why he did not describe his Gostel in Writing Page 135 Why the High Priest and Scripture-Learned persecuted him Page 135. 139 His Process through his Suffering and why it was so Page 136. 142. 283. 330. 332. Why must he Die on a wooden Cross. Page 140 Of the two Murtherers Crucified with Christ what they figure Page 140. 283 Why must his Side be opened with a Spear Page 141 Why did the Earth tremble when he hung on the Cross. Page 142 What did the darkness signifie that came over all Nature Page 143 Of Christs Dying Descending c. from Page 143. to 158. and 283 Of the true Christian. Page 170 176. 297 Of the Titulary Christian. Page 171. 176 297. 310. Of the True Christian Church Page 279 Circumcision what it signifies Page 116. 376. 398 Conversion what it is Page 324 Contrariety whence it sprung Page 340 What use it is of Page 349 357 Of the Covenant with Noah Page 391 Of the Covenant with Abraham Page 116. 397 Of the Line of the Covenant Page 391 Of the Mortal Creatures from whence they sprung and Exist Page 64. 72. 233. 242 Of their Differences Page 73. 235 The End why they were Created Page 74. 235 Of the Creation Page 19. 234. 252. 303. 371. 381. What was before the Creation Page 43 Of the inward and outward Cure Page 363 Of Gods Curse what it is Page 275 The Cause thereof Page 388 D. OF the two Principles of Darkness and Light Page 1 Of the Temporal Darkness whence it is Page 65. 227 How the Devil came to be and what he is Page 45 Of Death and Dying Page 191. 192. 277. 313. 321. 358. Of the Divine Nature Page 260 Of the Divine Being in Nature Page 241. 380 The Divine Being and Nature distinguished Page 337. 341 Dinah deflowered what it figureth Page 412 E. WHat the Earth was before the Curse Page 87. 106 What the Earth is since the Curse Page 106 Of the Constitution and Form of the Earth Page 253 Egypt The bringing the Children of Israel out thence what figure it bears Page 121 Of Election and Reprobation what they are Page 345 What the four Elements are and whence proceeded Page 62. 224. 263. Of Enoch's Wonderful Line Page 391 Of the Enochian Life what it is and where hath Enoch remained Page 113. 326 The History of Esau what it figureth Page 405 to 413 Of the Eternal Nature or Originality Page 286 Of the infinite Productions thereof Page 261 Of the Knowledge of the Eternal through the Corruptible Page 272 Of Evil fierceness and anger whence they proceeded Page 2. 223. 247. 334. 380. F. TRue Faith what it is Page 332 Of the Fathers Property Page 243 Of the Firmament in the midst of the Waters Page 66. 228 254 Of the Flesh and Blood of Christ how the Disciples did Eat and Drink it Page 377 Of the Flesh and Spirit the contrariety betwixt them Page 321 Of the forbidden Fruit what it was Page 99 Of the Forms of Nature Page 292 How God Forgiveth Sins Page 336 G. IN what Grace the old World was Saved without Law Page 110 Of God distinct from Nature and Creature Page 42. 369. 379 Of Gods Love and Anger Page 42 Of Gods being All in All. Page 201 Of Gods working in Hell Page 54. 55. 220 Of the Word or Heart of God Page 379 Of Gods Voice when the day grew cool Page 104 Of Good and Evil whence they proceeded Page 334. 366. 380. H. OF the Human Tree Page 390. 393 Of the Hand of God what it is that Christ commended his Soul into Page 144. Of Heaven what it is where it is and how Page 56. 158. 213. 221. 252 Of Hell its beginning continuance and place Page 47. 51. 55. 213. 219. 220. 263. Of the Heathenish Gods whence they sprung Page 396 Of Hagar and Ishmael what their History figureth Page 397 to 400 Of the shedding forth the Holy Ghost after Christs Ascension what it benefits us Page 163 J. THE History of Jacob and Esau what it figureth Page 405 The Vision of Jacob's Ladder Page 407 The rest of the History of Jacob to Page 423 Of Jehovah Page 19 The Image of God in Man what it is Page 78. 238. 245. 273. 316 The History of Joseph what it figureth from Page 413 to 423. Concerning John Baptist what he was Page 125 Of Isaac's Birth and casting out Ishmael what it figureth Page 400 405 Of Judah and Thamar Page 414 Of the last Judgment what it is and how effected Page 195. 285 K. THE Kingdom of Christ how it is assumed or taken by him Page 183 How Christ will deliver the Kingdom to the Father Page 346 L. COncerning Lamech Cain's Successor Page 112 Of the Language of Nature Page 295. 395 Of the Language spoke by the Apostles at Pentecost Page 162 What the Law is Page 122 How the Divine Life may be manifested in this Life Page 350 Of the Life of Darkness what it is Page 343 Of the Principles of Light and Darkness Page 1 Of the true and false Light Page 354 Of the Temporal Light and Darkness Page 65. 227 Lot's Wife becoming a Pillar of Salt what it figureth Page 118 Of his departure out of Sodom Page 399 Of his Daughters Lying with him Page 118 What each signifies Lust what it can do Page 335 Lucifer what moved him to depart from God Page 44 45 Of his doleful Fall Page 250. 359 Of his Office in Hell Page 47. 219 Of his place at present Page 257 M. OF Mans Estate before the Fall Page 21. 82 84. 85. 86. 274 By what Degrees Man fell Page 26. 274. 359. 372. 385 What Mans Estate is by the Fall Page 28. 83. 274. 290. 335. 342. 373. 388 Of Mans Recovery Page 30. 38. 39. 40. 170 Mans mistaken way towards a supposed Happiness Page 37 Of Mans Immortal Life Page 77. 81. 237 Of Mans Mortal Life Page 77. 81. 237. 255. The Difference of the Heavenly and Earthy Man Page 382 Mans Body whence derived Page 75. 237. 255. 264. Of Mans Birth and Propagation Page 271 Why but one Man Created in the Beginning Page 81 Of the Government of Man over the Creatures Page 92 Why the first Man born of a Woman was a Murtherer Page 106 How Man may find himself and all Mysteries Page 303. 342 Of Mans deep Ground and Knowledge Page 46. 299. 304. 343. 358. 372. Of Mans Threefold Life Page 288. 301 Of the Male and Female kind whence proceeded Page 67. 229. Magia what it is and doth Page 346 Of Natural Magick what it is Page 417 Concerning the Metals Page 358 Of the Mind Page 273 Of the strife between Michael and the Dragon what it is Page 45 Moses what doth his being drawn out of the River signifie Page 119 Why the Lord appeared to him in
a Flaming Bush. Page 119 From what power he did his Works of Wonder Page 120 Why must he remain forty days on the Mount Page 122 The Great Mystery what it is Page 346. 357. N. HOW the outward Nature representeth the Divine Page 351 Why must there be a strife in Nature Page 223. 357 What doth Noah's Flood figure Page 115 What doth his being Drunk figure Page 115 O. THE Office of a Shepherd or Pastor in the Spirit of Christ what it is Page 165 The Office of the Keys Page 167 Of a Teacher of the Letter without the Spirit of Christ. Page 166 P. PAradise what it is and where Page 79. 264. 295. 327. 328. 383. 384. Of Pentecost or the shedding forth of the Holy Ghost Page 159. 160. 161. 284. Pharaoh's Dream what it figured Page 416 Of true Prayer what it is Page 311 Of Predestination Page 369. 397 Of the Three Principles of the Divine Essence Page 11. to 18. 260. 262. 338. Why the High-Priest c. persecuted Christ. Page 135. 139. 145. Of the Prophets and Prophesying Page 123 Of a Virgin Propagation Page 24. 88 Q. OF the Qualities Good and Bad what they are Page 241 R. REason what it is and whence proceeded Page 349 Regeneration what it is and how effected Page 186. 277. 286 Of true Repentance Page 282 Reprobation what it is Page 345 Resurrection of the Dead how effected Page 198. 325 S. OF the Sabbath Page 234 Of the Saviour Page 387 Of Cain and Abel's Sacrifices Page 108. 389 Why did Cain Murther his Brother for the Sacrifice sake Page 109 Of the Sacrifices under the Law Page 123 Of the Seed of the Woman and of its treading upon the Serpent Page 104. 275 Of Seed or Sperm what it is its various kinds growth and increase Page 69. 70. 71. 230. 231 The Serpent on the Tree of Knowledge c. what it was Page 98 The beginning of Sickness and Mortality Page 386 Sin what it is and whence proceeded Page 99. 100. 101. 102. 320. 345. 386. What was the Sin of the Old World Page 113 Signature what it is Page 356 Of the Eternal Signature Page 367 How the Internal doth impress the External Page 361 Of Sodom and Gomorrah their destruction and what it figures Page 117. 399 The Soul of Man whence existed Page 315 Its Essence Page 316 It s Imbreathing Page 76. 264. 310 Its Form and power Page 317. 318 Its Union with the Body Page 318. 320 Its Inlightning and Food Page 320 Its Life and Actions till the last Judgment Page 194. 322. 323. 324 Of the Eternal State of the Good and Bad. Page 210. 214. 277. 325. 326. 334 Of the Soul and Spirit of Christ. Page 326 A description of the seven Fountain Spirits Page 3. to 11. 247. 249. 370 Of the Spirit of this World its Principles and Office Page 68. 230. 286. 352. 357. 360. Of the Stars from whence proceeded Page 257. 358 Their Use and Benefit Page 63. 225. 257. 298. Their various Properties Page 258 Of the Noble Spiritual Stone of the Philosophers Page 298. 303. 321 Of the Lords Supper Page 376 T. OF Adam's Temptation what it was Page 266. 267 The Testaments of Christs what they are Page 168. 281. 307 How enjoyed Page 170. 281 Of the outward Institution Page 172 Of the Disputes about them Page 378 What the wicked partake of by unworthy Receiving Page 377 Of the Tincture what it is and its manifold degrees Page 72. 232 268. 273. 341. 345. 352. Of the Tree of Life Page 90 Of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Page 90. 91. 99. Why forbidden to Man Page 92 What the Trees in Paradise were Page 89. The Turba what it is Page 348 V. HOW Vegetation is caused Page 255. 359 Of the Divine Virgin the Wisdom of God Page 88. 89. 294 Of the Virgin Mary Page 126. 130 Why she must be Espoused to Joseph Page 127 Of the Understanding Page 273 W. WArs whence they arise Page 348. 396. Of the Water above the Firmament Page 66 And of the Water beneath the Firmament Page 228 Of the Will of God flowing out Page 353. 369 The Whore in the Apocalypse what she is Page 180 Of the Will of Man Page 353. 367 Of the Creating of the Woman Page 269. 384 Of the Literal and Living Word Page 164. Out of what this visible World is Created and what it is Page 60. 222. 296. To what end it was Created Page 336 Whence proceeded the Evil or Contrariety in the Essence of this World Page 61 How must it pass away and what shall remain thereof Page 199 Of the Wrath of God what it is why poured forth and its duration Page 52. 53. 220. FINIS Heb. 12. 29. Heb. 6. 18. Gen. 12. 3. Isa. ch 29. 13 14. Mat. ch 15. v. 29. 1 Cor. ch 3. v. 9. Deut. 30. 14. Rom. 10. 8. 1 Cor. 10. 4. Wisdom ch 7. Rev. 3. 12. Form 1. Form 2. Form 3. Form 4. Form 5. Form 6. Form 7. Form 8. Form 9. Form 10. * Which is the holy Earth or holy Flesh. Signified by Abram Principle 1. Principle 2. Principle 3. What the tâ—â— Principles unsevered arâ— An infinite perfect good Root of evil 1 Joh. 1. 5. 2 Cor. 6. 14. What the eternal darkness is not What is meant by eternal or original darkness a Isa. 27. 4. b Ch. 66. 15. c Ezek. 5. 15. d Micah 1. 3. 1. Astringent 2. Attraction 3. Anguish 4. Heat producing light 5. Light producing love 6. Sound or noise 7. What the three are in Trinity 2. 3. 4. John 3. 19. Jam. 4. 1. Psal. 49. 12. Rom. 2. 8. 5. Livit. 19. 23 24. Exod. 30. 35. Dan. 7. v. 4. v. 5. v. 6. v. 7. v. 13. v. 14. Chap. 2. 47. ch 7. 2. 6. Job 11. 17. Zech. 6. 2 3. v. 5. 2 Kings 13. 19. v. 17. Amos 1. 3 6 9 11 13. ch 2. 1 4 6. Exod. 30. 23 24 25. v. 34. Gen. 41. 34. 6. 7. 2. 3. 4. Deut. 27. 12. Prov. 9. 1. 1 King 10. 18 19. Rev. 5. ch 8. ch 15. Rev. 1. 13 16 20. ch 4. 1. Inanimate Creatures shew the first Principle 2. The Elements 3. The Astral World 2. 4. Evil Sensitive Creatures 5. Good Sensitive Creatures 3. 6. Angels 4. Deut. 32. 29. The Ubiquity and Abyss of the second Principle 1. 2. 3. 4. 1. 1. 2. 3. 2. What the Heavenly Humanity is and doth And how he doth it 3. 4. 1. Levit. 2. 14. Lev. 2. 1. 1. 2. 2. 3. Rom. 1. 20. Transforming Knowledge of God A Glance of the Contemplative and distinct knowledge of God Whence the two Active Elements sprung Some stop begun to the breach by Fall of the Angels by the Creation The Creation Man created Gods Image and what that was 1. Angels 2. Man's Body 3. Astral and Visible Heavens 4. 5 1. 2. 3. 4. Obj. Answ. Argument 1. Argum. 2. Argum. 3. Argum. 4. Argum. 5. * Viz. The Woman Argum. 6. Argum. 7.