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

31. They have spoken from the sense of their own bestial selfhood, through the prophetical and Apostolical word, and have brought and used Christ’s words to their own selfish Babylonical harlotry, and committed whoredom; and likewise have adorned and trimmed up their bastard, under Christ’s purple mantle, with silver, gold, and precious stones, and also with worldly dignities, honours, favour and riches. 32. After these, men have run, and have even adored and esteemed them as gods, falling deeply in love with their bastard; although their hearts have never agreed, or stood upon the only true ground, [but have been at variance with each other]. And this is that of which the prophet Daniel speaketh, saying, they shall honour a god, whom their fathers knew not, with gold, silver and precious stones (Daniel xi. 38, 39); and unto those that help them to strengthen their [strange god] Maiisim,2 they will divide the land for inheritance. This whole chapter doth belong hereunto. 33. Now, when we consider aright what this Babylonical tower is at present, in Christ’s kingdom upon the earth, and what it was under Moses, and among the Gentiles, then we find very clearly, that among all three it is of one property ; and so also among the T urks and present Jews: every nation builds it, out of its own materials, for in the right

1 Clergical and ecclesiastical. 2 God of forces. universal sensual tongue (if it be manifest in one) we are altogether but one only people and nation, even from Adam. 34. But the very cause that we are divided, and brought into opinions, is by reason of our master-builders and founders, viz. of the high schools, priests, popes, bishops, doctors, also the rabbis and masters of all nations, who are set as workmen to the building of the tower. All these have judged from their own language and natural understanding, viz. from their conceived and formed sensual tongue, from the outward letter; and have indeed neither known God nor the light of nature; but have been blind and dumb as to both; both the Jews and Gentiles; and also the self-made teachers of the Christians. 35. Whosoever have run, devoid of God’s spirit, without divine understanding, either among Jews and Gentiles, Christians and Turks, they have built only this tower in their own essence; and the same is even a tower of the great wonders of God, of divine contemplation both according to light and darkness, life and death, joy and sorrow. 36. Not that we are to understand that this tower is not at all profitable before God; it is even the great mystery of God’s manifesta¬ tion according to love and anger. As God hath created out of the great mystery all manner, kinds and sorts of beasts, birds, worms, trees and herbs, evil and good;

and that, all to the manifestation of the great wonders; thus likewise the human tree hath brought forth such wonders out of its sensual tongue, out of the multiplicity of the properties, and introduced them into a substance for its growth [and glory], viz. to the great harvest of God; where each property of love and anger, light and darkness, shall reap in its own fruit, and every thing shall possess its heaven in itself, in its own formed and conceived ens, out of the only Word of God, which hath given forth itself to every life (even unto every life and being, according to its own proper quality and virtue, according to, and out of, its Principle) as a universal Word, to the glorious manifestation of eternity.

37. Now, when we further consider of this beast, with the whore, what it is in itself, within and without, then we find that it is the formed compacted word of the spirits of the letters ; for men are all of one only property as to their life; all are begotten out of one flesh and soul; and have all but one only kind of life; as a tree in many boughs and branches, where the boughs and twigs do not perfectly and wholly seem alike, or the same in form, but all have one only sap and virtue: so likewise the creature of mankind, among Jews, Christians, Turks and Heathen. 38. And the only difference is this: the spirits of the letters in the formed word do sever us in the understanding; else we live all alike in the four elements, and eat of the fruits of one mother, and remain in her, when we die to this outward life. 39. The compacted sensual tongue, which is divided in the spirits of the letters, doth [confound us and] make us to err; so that we do suppose we are strange one to another; and yet we are all but one only tree, which the devil hath poisoned with his desire in Adam, so that the equal temperature or accord was brought into distemper and discord; whereupon the spirits of the letters were [variously] made manifest, so that we speak from many speeches; that is, we have introduced the powerful word of God into the multiplicity of the divided properties; and have made, in each tongue’s property, a self¬ hood, or a selfish desire to arrogation, self-apprehension and assump¬ tion.

40. Hence arise the contrarieties, differences, and opinions,1 in that we have introduced the unformed word into [the form of our own selfmade] image. Now we contend and strive about these images [and conceits] ; and every one supposeth his own to be best; and when we bring all these images [and several semblances] again into one lan¬ guage and speech, and mortify them, then the only quickening Word of God, which giveth power and life to all things, is again manifest; and strife ceaseth, and God is all in all. 41. Therefore we say, as we have found it in the grace of the One, that all men’s imaginations, opinions and knowings of God, his being, and will, without the divine light [or illumination of the spirit],2 are this same whore’s beast, which is flown forth and arisen from the compacted spirits of the letters; whereby men contend about the spirits of the letters. 42. We have lost the five vowels in the Alphabet; which do intro¬ duce all the spirits of the letters into one pure harmony; and the five vowels are as ’twere senseless or dumb, in reference to the other letters; and yet they are the life of the rest, for there cannot any word be formed but there must be a vowel.

43 . Now there is no better way or remedy to bring us into union, that so we may become ONE again with one another, one people, one tree, one man in soul and body, than to destroy and kill all the images or forms of the letters in us ; and suffer none of them at all to have its own self-life; not desiring to know or will any more of God, save only 1 Text, images. 2 The undoubted Unction of the Holy Ghost. and alone what God willeth to know in us and through us; and also that we do immerse or resign the soul’s hunger and desire merely, only, and nakedly, without any other knowing or willing, into the five vowels; and therein the great holy name ofJEOVA or JESUS (viz. the living Word) is manifest; which giveth life unto all things, and [that we should] not, according to the property of nature, desire and will the different variety of many things, but give up ourselves into the one only love-sun : therein is he manifest. 44. As the outward sun giveth life and power to the whole world, so likewise this only name, in its power, giveth life and understanding to all the letters; and understand us aright what we mean by the whoredoms of the letters.

45. The letters, viz. the properties of the sensual tongue, have introduced themselves into an external form, or self-full will and understanding, and brought themselves with the vowels into a com¬ paction [self-comprehension or particular formation]. And when this was done, then JESUS, viz. the holy name JEOVA, died [or dis¬ appeared] in the sensual tongue in the letters with the five vowels of the one only holy mental tongue; that is, the spiritual man, which was resigned in [and to] God, died to the divine understanding and will. 46. Now there is a self-willed beast of selfishness and ownhood brought forth out of the spirit of the other letters, which doth only kill, and bring forth dead fruit. For Paul saith, the letter killeth, but the spirit maketh alive (2 Cor. iii. 6). Understand this thus : 47. The divided sensual tongue killeth us, sets us at odds and variance, and leads us into Babel. But the spirit of the vowels, viz. the holy name of God, doth again revive and quicken us in him. Therefore the holy word of the five vowels did again (when as the spirits of the letters were divided and brought into the selfhood of the wonders of God) espouse and incorporate itself forthwith in Paradise with the precious Covenant, into the letter, viz. into the natural man; for to manifest itself again with a motion in the compacted tongue, and to introduce the holy sense again into the sensual tongue.

48. Thus understand us aright: The literal form in the sensual tongue is now the evil beast, which will domineer in its own power. Now into this evil beast the spirit of the five vowels, viz. the name JEHOVAH (which with the H, hath breathed the J E S U S thereinto) hath given in itself, and killed the evil beast, viz. the self-will, and hath again tinctured the spirits of the letter, viz. the right natural man, with the tincture of the holy name of the vowels, or JEHSUS; and with the love hath slain the death or deaths in the letters, and destroyed their self-will ; so that the spirits of the letters cannot any more introduce themselves into a self-full compaction of the sensual tongue ; for they are dead in their own will ; and the spirit J E H O V A H in JESUS is become their life; so that they live no longer to their self¬ hood, viz. to the nature of the wrath ; but in that they live, they live to God (Rom. vi. n). 49. Thus now the beast of the whore is in us outwardly, viz. in the mortal man; and inwardly is Christ in the immortal man, who is passed through the death of the letters and hath turned the death into life (John v. 24).

50. Now it behoveth man, and his main happiness depends thereon, that he also die unto the images of the letters in him ; and disclaim or depart from all reasons, scholarship, or knowledge of nature, and all Babylonical master-builders, however they be called; and enter into the one only life, J E H S U S ; and not at all dispute about the way, where it is; but only think1 that it is in him; that he must forsake all, whatever he hath, either art, wit or skill, etc., and become one barely and nakedly in himself, bring himself into the ONE, viz. into God’s will, and be freely willing with whatsoever it will work or do with him. He must give up himself will-less; and leave himself wholly in God’s mercy; and bring all his learnings into this one only thing; that he, in his teachings and learnings, will not do or speak anything but what God willeth through him. And thus all images [opinions and conceits] do die in him; and the soul’s life falleth into the only living Word, which hath manifested itself again in the humanity. 51. For this is the great beast of the Babylonical whore in us: that we bring ourselves into the images and forms of the letters; and make opinions to ourselves : that opinion is a beast.

52. Also we must not desire to know and will, ourselves; but die continually with our own self-will; and in all things give God the honour; and give him again that which he giveth us, viz. whatsoever understanding, wisdom and skill we have; and acknowledge that it is not our own, but that the divine sun shineth out of and through us, and worketh in us as it pleaseth. 53. Thus likewise we must diffuse and give out again, universally to all, our power and virtue, which the divine sun worketh in us, without any gain, advantage or hire from any; whosoever shall help to maintain and nourish our life, unto him we must be thankful, and not flatter any for his authority’s sake; or receive his false glance, show or lustre into this sunlight; but all must be in general or common, as the sunshine doth give itself universally, and gives no strong, great or potent thing any more, but its purity and brightness; it tinctureth the earth and its children with one only power and virtue, and giveth life and strength to all things. 54. Herein now we shall know whether one be a teacher sent of God, or whether he hath his rise and original only out of the spirit of the letter. If he be born universally out of the love, then he hath the light of divine knowledge, viz. the sensual divine understanding, a tongue, tinctured from the divine ens of the five vowels, and speaketh from the spirit of God, rebuketh and teacheth powerfully without respect of any man’s person, and hath no image [or mental idol] in him ; for he teacheth from the spirit of God, even what the same [spirit] teacheth in him.

55. But if he be a master-builder of the tower of Babel, born of the spirit of the letters, viz. of the disharmony [or diversities], then he is a hypocrite and flatterer, a glozing fawner that will say anything to please those that are gainful and advantageous to him; a soother of those that do help to honour his Maiisim, and adorn his letter-god in the divided tongues; a scorner, evil speaker, and bold censurer of those that do not honour him in his form [and sect of religion] ; a selfapplauder, ambitious, proud, and under a glistering show of religion and seeming holiness, a covetous, malicious, envious one; putting forth himself with ostentation, that so he may be known and honoured; he will be applauded and set by, of man; attributes to himself understanding and wisdom; and boasteth of wisdom and a rectified judgment and understanding, and yet hath none of them; but he is only a builder on the tower of Babel, viz. of an external figure and form; a painted Christian; he will undertake to teach others, and yet he himself was never taught of God. He teacheth only from the form of the compacted spirits of the letter, which have compacted them¬ selves in evil and good; he taketh these into his own power and ability, and compacts and sets the words together into an opinion.

56. And that opinion is the tower of Babel, and they which run after him, and associate, gather and bind themselves with him in the opinion, are the city, Babel, viz. the children of Nimrod; who will climb and ascend up to heaven upon this tower, and are continually a climbing up, their whole life, yet come not to heaven in the opinion; but when the time of the outward literal constellation is out, then this built tower falleth down, viz. the outward man, together with his opinion, and all shatters and breaks to pieces, even to the only soul, which then standeth naked and bare before God. 57. Here is now no remedy, unless that it hath the one only spirit of the sounding letter, viz. the enformed Word of God in it, so that it is able in its desire to attract and draw the same to itself, and clothe itself therewith, that the same doth cleave and break in pieces all the formed, contrived, compacted tongues and images of the letters, and introduce them into one only tongue and will, which is God, all in all. All things must enter again into the ONE, viz. into the universal; in the multiplicity there is nothing but strife and disquietness, but in the Oneness there is an eternal rest, and no enmity or contrary will.

58. Now when we do truly consider again what the tower and the city, Babel is, in its formed image upon the earth, and what and where it is, then we find it clearly portrayed before our eyes, that it is the great houses of the churches, cloisters, fortresses, and also the strong walls and towers of the cities upon the earth, wherein men hide themselves from force and power, and in the opinions play the hypo¬ crites before God in the churches, cloisters and strongholds ; and cry unto him that he should receive and accept of them in their contrived, framed and received opinion of the letter. 59. What is all this? An idolatry and hypocrisy, an Antichrist, with show and glistering glory. What do men bring into this glozing, hypocritical Babylon? Nothing but images [mental idols], and selfcontrived opinions, forged out of the form of the letter. What do men carry home with them from this hypocritical, specious house? Only the images of the letters. Into these images [and conceits] the poor captive soul doth wrap itself, which notwithstanding is full of fear, doubting, and trembling, by reason of the conceived and received image [or opinions]; and is continually in fear lest another people might break in upon its received, framed images, and destroy and overthrow these its received images. Therefore men have made fortresses, bulwarks and towers and strong walls about their cities and churches; that so they might defend themselves, lest the tower upon which they would ascend up into heaven should be destroyed.

60. Now saith reason: these are indeed houses of meeting, where men do teach and instruct the simple and ignorant, where men sing and pray. Lo ! externally, in and among the literal men, they are only the tower and city, Babel; but internally, among the children of God, in whom the Temple of God is, where the images [and mental idols] are destroyed, there, is Christ: that is, in those who have pulled down and broken all images and opinions in them, and are entered through the conversion from images and conceits only and alone into the only mere naked grace, mercy and free compassion of God, and esteem themselves as wholly unworthy, empty nothings, and become as ’twere dead in themselves, willing or desiring nothing else save only the mere purity of God in his love- will, and account them¬ selves too unworthy of attributing or taking anything to themselves; and freely fall, in deepest humility, into God’s tender mercy, as if they were not: and wholly cast their desires and wills into God’s compassion; so that, what he wills and doth in them, that they also will, and nothing else. In these, I say, it is a house of teaching and a house of hearing, a Temple of God, where the spirit of God teacheth, heareth, singeth and praiseth in the soul; for they are dead to all selfhood, and self-willing and weening, and do melodise with unity and oneness of spirit in the praise of God, in the knowledge of the Holy Ghost: these are the Church of Christ.

61. But the rest have only the tower at Babel in the opinion, in their [conceits and] images; these idols they carry with them into the houses of stone, and glory in them, worship them, and carry them again home with them; and fight for them, as if they had the living God in them; and wage great wars for these images; laying country and people waste and desolate; and yet they are more foolish than the birds in the air, which do all praise and honour God in one tongue and understanding; for they are all without any images; whatsoever the great God doth with them, therewith they are content. 62. The human tree is one only tree; if they continued in the one only God who hath created them, and did not make unto themselves images, who would set them at odds and variance about God? They indeed are and live in the one only God (Acts xvii. 28), and yet they contend and jangle about God. 63 . Wherefore do they contend ? For the idols of their heart, for the stone-houses of the churches, and for the pride of the images [and forged opinions]. Every one will honour his image, and set it up aloft as a high tower, that so he might have great respect in the city, Babel. And therefore they build themselves strongholds, and make great bulwarks and walls to defend and keep the image; and flatter themselves in hypocrisy, and understand and mean, by the contrived

and painted image, the god Maiisim, viz. the fat belly [god], and pleasure of the beast, viz. of this whore’s image. They set the image upon the tower for the show of their holiness, and therewith they are very devout in glistering appearances before God, as with a peculiar self-born god. But they immure the beast within their stone-houses, that it may be secure, and there fat itself. 64. What is now this beast with the whore? It is half devil, which hath its kingdom upon the earth, and it is half beast; this evil beast hath devoured man, viz. the image of God. 65. And for this cause God became man: that he might destroy, slay, and nullify the works of the devil. And we must put on this divine humanity, and destroy the devil’s kingdom in us, and mortify all images; otherwise we cannot see God: the living Word must mortify the literal image. 66. The living Word is therefore become man, that the literal image might die, and the first man, which was formed out of the living Word, in God’s image, might be regenerated anew in Christ’s spirit, viz. in the living Word; and if now he be born, then all the image-teachers are more prejudicial than beneficial to him; for they introduce only their images into the Temple of Christ, and destroy the image of God.

67. And here let this be declared concerning the children of Nimrod, and the tower of Babel; as the spirit hath so given us to know. And we do admonish the Reader, in love, to prove and examine himself: he shall find where he is. This is not written to reproach any. But thus the spirit speaketh with open mouth, and sheweth what all things are, from whence they come, and into what end they shall go. 68. But the reason why so much is written of the beast and the whore of Babel, is because it is at its end, and shall soon be broken in pieces; therefore it must be revealed, that men may see and know it. For Babel falleth not : unless that all whatsoever hath made the images doth likewise fall. All images [opinions and sects of religion] together with the beast and whore must fall; else there is no cure or remedy. 69. Men have for a long time been a patching and piecing of it, and have verily thought to have made a virgin of the whore. But her whoredom hath thereby been only adorned, trimmed up, and made the greater. If this whore shall fall, then all sects, which are only the images of the whore, must fall down and come to naught, together with the beast upon whom she rideth. Every man must break down

and destroy the images and idols in himself: and where they will not do it, there the seal of the Lord doth it. 70. How very finely doth the whore at present perk up its head, and seeing it heareth that the spirit doth intimate [great and glorious things] of Zion, viz. of the adorned holy bride of Christ; then it thinks that it is the fair child which God will bring into a golden temple, wherein there shall be a brave golden time, and mere joy, pleasure and delight; and it looketh about to see from whence this fair temple of God should come, into which it should enter, and become a virgin; it hearkeneth continually from whence these holy people should come, who, as it supposeth, should make a golden world. 71. But it thinks not to leave off from its covetous voluptuous whoredom, and be converted. No! it groweth worse and worse; and more unchaste and abominable, full of blasphemies; so that there is scarce any good at all in it; and it standeth before God, as an arraigned condemned whore. 72. Hearken, thou adorned and crowned Babylon, full of evil and wickedness in the sight of God and his angels; we have heard a watchman say: Away! the city, together with the tower of the whore and the beast, is fallen, and judged of the Most High. Thou shalt not see the city of God for ever, unless that thy children do put off and cast away the defiled garment, full of shame; and fall down wholly naked and bare, without any image, at the feet of the Most High; and turn unto him. Such as these may indeed see it; but as for others, who hope for golden mountains, and seek for temporal honour, money, and pleasure of the flesh; not any of them. Amen.

73. Reason will here, (in the above-mentioned text, where it is mentioned that a true Christian must die to all images [opinions] and self-knowledge, and be wholly annihilated in himself), begin to speculate, cavil, and say, that we do forbid man the natural knowledge and external rational wisdom, whereby men do govern the life and all things of this world, and if this were so all understanding would be abolished. 74. Unto him we declare, that nothing is hereby taken away or abolished in man; neither understanding, skill nor art, for all these arise out of the divine wisdom. We do not nullify the expressed Word of the formed wisdom, but only the beast, which will rule in divine contemplation, viz. the beast-like will of self and selfish ownhood and propriety, which is departed from God, which honoureth itself as a false selfly god, and cannot believe or trust in God (this is even the Antichrist, which hath set himself up in God’s place, 2 Thess. ii. 4). And we withal do teach, that man must wholly die to the Anti¬ christian image, that he may be born again in Christ, with a new life and will; which new will hath might and ability in the formed word of nature to see and behold with divine eyes, all the wonders of God both in nature and creature, in the formed wisdom.

75. For if the Antichrist dieth in the soul, then Christ ariseth from death; for he resteth in the five vowels in his grave, viz. in the mental tongue, which died in Adam, and lieth captive in Antichrist. When this same ariseth from death in the mental tongue, and is made alive, then he openeth all the treasures of the heavenly wisdom in the sensual tongue; so that man doth far more clearly understand the spirits of the letters, viz. the formed word of nature, in all the three Principles, than he did before in the Antichristian whore’s child. 76. For the new birth is indeed effected and brought to pass in the mental tongue, viz. in the disappeared image of the heavenly humanity; but it tingeth and casteth away the false Antichristian image of the natural humanity, viz. of the spirits of the dumb sense¬ less letters, and doth make them all senseless and dead in their self¬ hood, and gives them their own life; so that they do behold themselves in the new humanity, and make all their assumptions and formations in the new humanity. 77. These new assumptions and formings are effected and wrought forth in the divine will, in resignation; and they are the heavenly images and formings, which are formed and shaped in the Holy Ghost to the honour of God.

78. For if the holy name of God be not in its power, in the forming of the words, viz. in the spirits of the letters, which are the formed word, and helps to form the word in the sensual tongue, then the false Antichrist speaketh only from his own self-assumption of the literal form. 79. For the spirit of God doth form and imprint into the word of the mouth (when as the sensual tongue takes it) righteousness, truth, faith, love and patience, viz. divine power and virtue; but the Anti¬ christian child doth coform in the conception of the word out of the Serpent’s ens, lies, falsehood, tales, unfaithfulness; pride, covetous¬ ness, bitter stinging envy, anger, backbitings, revilings, and all whatsoever is against God, and maketh the formed word of the letter to a beast and wicked bastard, which is rejected from the face of God, upon which the judgment passeth. 80. The like is also to be understood concerning the external wisdom and art. If the divine wisdom worketh therein, then the understanding and the art is very good, and grounded in the divine wisdom; but if it be otherwise, it standeth in mere Antichristian false image [and fancy], to the judgment of God.

81. Therefore let a man prove and try himself what falls in and suggests itself into the sensual tongue in the formation of his words; if it be truth, righteousness, faith in hope, love in patience, an earnest, full, unfeigned desire to speak and do the truth, and that for God s sake, in hope of eternal life, then it is well with him; let him continue steadfast in such exercise, and work more and more effectually and powerfully therein; and his precious pearl-tree stands in its growth and increase. 82. But if the contrary be found in him, that when he will speak, that then lying, a proud look, great words for pomp and ostentation, also envious bitterness, false speaking against his neighbour, false¬ hood, anger, a revenging desire, false and evil interpretings, and wrong harsh censurings do fall in and imprint themselves into the formings and fancy of his words; then he may certainly and really know, that he hath the Antichristian Babylonical whore, together with the false wicked dragon-beast, sitting in his heart; which doth introduce and insinuate and imprint such will and desire in his words, for the forming and building up of the hellish images ; for these false insinuations and suggestions are all brought to substance in the formation of the sensual tongue.

83. Therefore know, O man! (and prove thyself) that thou art the image of God according to the divine Word and understanding: if thou speakest, wiliest and dost righteously, then thou art that same image of God, wherein God dwelleth, speaketh, willeth and worketh; but if otherwise, and the contrary is found in thee, then thou art the apostate rebellious Lucifer, in his generation and train; and dost, wiliest and desirest even that which he willeth and doth. 84. And though thou desirest not hell-fire; Lucifer also did not desire it; but there is no other reward for the false image, seeing it forms itself out of the abyss, it must verily enter into its father’s country. 85. For the speech and understanding of man doth not befall him from the stars and elements; for then other creatures could also speak and understand: Man hath the same, originally, from the incorpor¬ ated formed Word of God; it is the name of God, which he must not abuse, upon pain of eternal punishment. This incorporated Word man hath, out of all the three Principles, in himself; and hath a free-ownpeculiar- will to form a substance out of which Principle he will; and thereupon also follows the separation, and reaping in, of every thing into its receptable [or appointed place].

Of Abraham , and his Seed, and of the Line of the Covenant in its Propagation; and also of the Heathenish Gods i. tf we look upon the history of the acts of the ancient holy Lpatriarchs, with right eyes of understanding, then we see therein mere wonders ; for the lines [or races] of the children of God are like unto a tree, which groweth into boughs and branches, until it bears fruit. Thus also the line of Christ grew in the stem of the promised Word in the Covenant, from branch to branch, even into the height of the twigs, unto its right age; until the power of the tree, that is, the Word in the Covenant, put forth itself with the glorious sovereign fair blossom. 2. Out of which blossom the holy image of God is again grown in flesh and blood, viz. in a holy body. We see its boughs and branches so fair and excellent, that the soul doth most exceedingly rejoice [at this contemplation], and truly desires to bud and grow forth along with these boughs and branches, to the great praise of God in our angelical tree of the hierarchies of Christ, in1 the holy Paradise.

3. God made a Covenant with Adam after his fall, when he died to the heavenly ens in him, that God would quicken him again, and regenerate him anew. And this Covenant was the root in the dis¬ appeared ens which grew in this line of Adam from Seth and his children and posterity, even unto Noah, in one stem of the tree;2 and with Noah God renewed the Covenant. 4. For the undivided sensual tongue, wherein the spirits of the letters did rule in one harmony, continued until the flood, so that all men spake in one tongue, in which tongue the divine spirit of the five vowels, viz. the divine understanding, moved. 5. But seeing they had introduced the image and beast of vanity into the sensual tongue, and fell wantonly in love with the Babylonical whore of selfhood, therefore God complained against them, that they would not suffer his spirit any more to rule them, and said, that it repented him that he had made man. 6. For as the sorrow to destruction did manifest and open itself, 2 In the stock or body of the tree. even so also the sorrow of repentance to the new regeneration out of the Covenant. Thus the sorrow of the formed Word in the only sen¬ sual tongue destroyed every life and being which lived in the air, that is, in the manifested spirit of God, viz. in the third Principle; and the word of the sensual tongue did, after the flood, put itself forth in a compaction of the spirits of the letters.

7. For God said to Noah, the men are flesh, and moreover vain and wicked, even from their youth. Thus the holy Spirit would not any more manifest himself in the evil contrived sensual tongue, but left them to follow their own fancy; seeing they refused to follow him: he suffered the power and force of nature to manifest its wonders out of evil and good, viz. in images of the dark and outward world, where their images were trimmed up and set forth in the [glory and] light of the outward nature, wherein evil and good are mixed together, to the contemplation of the wonders of God, according to love and anger; from which ground the heathen’s understanding, with their idols, did arise and spring forth. 8. For the understanding of the spirits of the letters did bring itself into the formings of many speeches, and in those formings of self the images were brought forth in the understanding, wherein the outward nature did behold itself; and also the devil did, from God’s wrath, introduce his imagination and desire into men, thereby to lead them from the true understanding into images; so that they did not know the true God.

9. For all the oracles of the heathenish gods do take their original out of the outward and inward nature of the dark world, as a figure or understanding of the soul of the outward and inward dark world, like a peculiar selfly god, understand, a nature-god; for as the sensual tongue was become such a nature-god, and understanding, which did play the hypocrite with itself, and formed the images in itself, so God suffered it to be that nature did likewise represent itself to them as a god in the oracles, and spake through the images. 10. For the heathen worshipped the stars and four elements; seeing they knew that the stars and four elements governed the out¬ ward life of all things. Their understanding of the compacted sensual tongue, viz. the comprehended word of the understanding, did also enter into the formed compacted and amassed word of nature in them, and one understanding moved the other, namely the human understanding, in their desire, moved the understanding in the soul of the outward world of the expressed and formed word out of the inward dark and fire world, and out of the outward astral and four elemental world, in which soul the meaning of the sphere of time is in the understanding.

11. Through which understanding of the soul of the outward world the prophetical spirit hath signified, from the spirit of God, how the formed and expressed word of nature and time should after¬ wards bring itself into forms of pulling down and setting up among the nations, viz. into the building and rearing up of kingdoms, and of their destruction and ruin; in which soul of the outward world all things stand in time, limit, measusre and weight, like to a clock or horologe, of which the Scripture speaketh much. 12. From this soul, viz. from the horologe of the understanding of nature, the heathen were answered by their images and idols, viz. through the sense of the astrum, which their faith (that they power¬ fully brought thereinto) did move and stir up. 13. And not wholly by the devil, as the calves’ eyes judge, who know nothing of the mystery, and say, only devil, devil, and know not what God or devil is : they are themselves idols and men-devils, and serve their image-god Maiisim [and Mammon] in selfhood, and are as much conterfeit images and idols, as the heathen were. 14. And they have at present made the turba in them a false god, which will even bring the deluge of fire upon their necks; of which they have no understanding or faith; and say continually, there is no danger [a brave time of Reformation], whereas they have brought the horologe of nature to its set limit to destruction: for the withheld spirit of the wonders is at the end and limit of its imprisonment, and manifests itself out of the great horologue of the inward and outward nature, with the mental tongue, through the sensual compacted tongue; and this is a wonder, which none can hinder.

15. Now as we are to understand and consider thus, of the sensual compacted tongue of the formed understanding of the Gentiles, who were of Ham’s and Japheth’s generation, the like also we are to under¬ stand of the mental (yet compacted) tongue in the Covenant, which in the manifestation of it from Shem’s children and generation fell upon Abraham, where, after the flood, the first spiritual holy oracle did open itself out of the mental tongue of the five vowels, out of the holy name of God in the Covenant, viz. out of the holy fire of the love of God; through which fire the divine voice was made manifest. 16. And we see very excellently and fully how the spirit in Moses doth intimate and declare it in the genealogy, even in the names, how all the ten forms of fire,1 viz. the ten properties of the holy tongue to2 the fire-life (understand to the fiery tongue), are set forth, in the names of the children of Noah, even unto Abraham. 17. For in Abraham the spirit of the fiery tongue [viz.] of the holy understanding of the mental tongue did open itself out of the Cove¬ nant, and set forth also its figure out of its compacted formed mental tongue, viz. the circumcision and the offerings [or sacrifices], which figures did all point at Christ, who should open and unloose the band of the mental tongue to the divine understanding, and again enkindle the light of grace in love, even in the formed word in the letters of the sensual tongue, and destroy the beast of the formed tongue, in which the devil sported, and set himself therein as God.

18. This guest the holy flaming tongue, viz. the spirit of Christ, did drive forth in the opening and manifestation of the Covenant ; and took possession of the throne of prince Lucifer in the human property in God’s children. 19. Moses setteth down ten names from Noah to Abraham in the line of the Covenant, viz. Shem, Arphaxad, Salah, Eber, Peleg, Reu, Serug, Nahor, Terah, Abram: and he sets down very wonderfully that Terah begat three sons, viz. Nahor, Haran, and Abram. This is even a type of the three Principles, intimating how all three should be opened in this holy flaming line of the Covenant, through the holy fire, and be severed from vanity; and how the whole man should be born anew and formed to the image of God, through the holy fire in the Covenant. As indeed the names of the three brothers do represent and hold forth so much in the tongue of sense. If a man doth but introduce the true mental understanding thereinto, then he seeth it in the form of the composed spirits of the letters; which although we could well give a hint of, yet the unilluminated reader would not understand it; but to our school-fellows we need not decipher it, they have it already in the understanding.

20. By the ten forms of fire I understand first the formed word in the seven forms of nature, and the eighth, ninth and tenth forms are the inward world, which is unformed. The eighth number is the fire of the eternal nature of the divine manifestation, also the strength and omnipotence, which at the end of days shall purge the floor. The ninth number is the heavenly tincture of the fire and light; and the tenth number is the love-fire, viz. the triangle of the holy Trinity 1 Read the 1 st Question of the 40 Questions of the Soul. 2 Of, or producing the fire-life. in the majesty: signified enough to those that are our school-fellows. It is explained at large in the Forty Questions of the Soul ; even the philosophic discourse at the beginning and entrance of the same [Questions]. 21. Out of these ten properties of the names in the line of the Covenant the oracle, viz. the divine voice, was made manifest in Abraham; and therefore the spirit of the Lord commanded him to go from his own country, and from his kindred; for the voice of the divine manifestation with the Messiah, or Christ, should not come forth out of his kindred, viz. out of his own blood, but out of God. But yet in him lay the vessel, viz. the ens, in which the divine voice would manifest itself; and therefore, because another seed should be intro¬ duced into his own seed, viz. a heavenly ens (John iii.), he commanded him to go from his kindred and father’s house.

22. For the possibility and ability to the divine manifestation did not stand in man’s ens, but in God’s; but man’s ens must come thereunto, that so Adam’s heavenly disappeared ens might be quick¬ ened in Christ’s living ens, and in Christ arise from death. Therefore God said to Abraham, Get thee into a land, that I will shew thee. Here the spirit signifieth that he should not see God in his father’s country, that is, in the earthly man, but in the land which the Lord would shew him, in his seed, which was another seed, out of the divine ens. In this strange seed he would bless his own seed, that is, tincture it with the divine tincture of the ninth number in the sacred Ternary, even with the tincture of the holy spiritual world. 23. For thus said the Lord to Abraham: Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, into a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great-, and thou shalt be a blessing: I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee (Gen. xii. 1, 2). The great name which he would make him in his seed, that was not to be understood only as to the kingdom of this world, for Abraham was only a stranger upon the earth, and must wander [up and down] from one place to another, and possessed no princedom or kingdom, as the great names of the Gentiles out of the sensual compacted tongues; for he was to be a stranger and pilgrim upon the earth in the promised seed and blessing, for Christ said also, his kingdom was not of this world.

24. But the great name which should be a blessing, wherein God would bless all nations, was the hierarchy of Christ in the Covenant, which would open itself in Abraham’s seed. This was an eternal great name of a royal hierarchy of an enthroned Prince in divine power and omnipotence, which should rule over the curse; for God said, he would curse them that cursed him , viz. the apostate revolted devils, and all wicked men, who would curse this holy seed and blessing; upon their head this seed should tread. 25. And here, under Abraham’s great name and blessing, the person of Christ is wholly to be understood; for he said, In thee all nations shall be blessed, and thou shalt be a blessing. Now all the families of the earth could not be blessed in the outward mortal man of Abraham; for Abraham died, and his children and grand-children were a long time strangers, servants and bond-men in strange coun¬ tries; as in Egypt for three hundred years and upwards, and had no sceptre till under Moses; who also was no king, but a prince of God [which princedom] continued unto King Saul; where they would indeed have a king against God’s command and will; whom notwith¬ standing God did afterwards reject, and set up David to be king (out of the prophetical spirit in the compacted mental tongue) under Christ’s person, who should bring forth and manifest the great name, and eternal blessing.

26. But here now we are rightly to understand what the person of Christ should be, under this name and blessing; not wholly a stranger [or another person] which should not be out of Abraham’s, and Adam’s seed, as some do err concerning it, and install or set Christ only in the promised seed, viz. in Abraham’s promised seed; where¬ with the poor captive soul would be little benefited; also hereby the resurrection of the dead out of these our present bodies would be wholly nullified. 27. For if Christ were wholly another, then also another [or wholly a strange person] must be born in us out of Christ’s seed and flesh, which would not be I [or my self], but wholly another man, as some do err; that we are so born of Christ, as the dew is out of the morning, which indeed is true, but my I-hood [or personality] which was created in Adam out of the divine ens, (viz. out of the good part of the ens of the earth, which came forth also out of the heavenly world’s being, as to the good ens into a coagulation) must also be therewith joined, as the like is also to be understood in Abraham.

28. For God said, in thee all nations shall be blessed. He said not, alone in me, but he said, I will bless thee, and make of thee a great nation, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing, thou thyself shalt be it; that is, Christ should become Abraham, and Abraham Christ. 29. For the seed which disappeared in Adam and died to the mental life, into which God engrafted or incorporated the limit or aim of his Covenant, with the quickening Word, the same is that into which God would introduce his blessing, viz. the living divine heavenly ens, and would bless Abraham and Adam and their children in this re¬ quickened ens or disappeared seed, and make them truly alive. The living ens of the Word in the Covenant, and the Adamical dis¬ appeared ens in Abraham, should become one person and body; for the same are one kind of ens. 30. But the poisonful malignant sensual desire, which the devil had made monstrous, had shut up this holy ens in Adam in death, and covered it with the gross earthly property ; like unto a fair piece of gold which was changed into lead, so that one would say, the gold is dead and gone. And ’twere truly so indeed, if the artist did not again redeem it.

31. Thus likewise the heavenly artist would not reject Adam s disappeared gold, and make clean another new thing, but he took his own tincture, and of his own gold, out of which he had made Adam s gold, and tinctured Adam’s gold with his own gold, [even] with his tincture, that is, with the Word, viz. with the power of God, and with the essence of the Word, viz. with the heavenly corporality. 32. So that Christ became a God-man, and Adam and Abraham in Christ a man-God; God and man one person undivided, according to and out of all the three Principles of eternity and time, according to and out of body and soul; with every property of man, and every divine property: except the Serpent’s property which Adam lusted after, took in, and imprinted on himself; the same he did not assume; but the ens, understand the human ens, whereinto the devil had sown his seed, that he must assume, and therein bruise the head of the devil, and of the insown Serpent’s ens, and destroy the prison of death, which held the heavenly ens shut up; and spring forth afresh; as the dry rod of Aaron, which budded and bare green almonds, was a lively representation of this: and this is the true understanding of the seed of Abraham and his Blessing, as he meaneth.

33. Abraham in the spirit of Christ should be a blessing, for Abraham’s ens, and Christ’s ens, hath blessed all nations. Under¬ stand, the line of the Covenant, in which the promised Word stood in the aim or limit of the Covenant, viz. the spirit of the five vowels, the great name JEOVA, which God, by the motion of the Covenant in Abraham’s seed, made to [be] JEHOVA, or JEHOVAH, as an inspired or inbreathed God, who should bless the whole Alphabet of the sense-all tongue,1 understand, the formed compacted word, viz. all nations, tongues and speeches: a blessing of the Jews and Gentiles. 34. For he said, all nations shall be blessed in thee, no nation or people excepted, but all, even all; not only the line of the Covenant, but Adam in his children; the line of the Covenant should bless the line ofjaphet and Ham; for Japheth should dwell in Shem’s tent, that is, in Christ, viz. Japheth should be received into Shem’s line. 35. But the gross earthly Ham (understand the gross flesh) is accursed in Ham and Cain, and shall not inherit God’s kingdom (John vi. 63). Not Ham in soul and body [is cursed], but the Serpent’s man, whose figure according to the outward, Cain and Ham must represent, so that all properties might be manifest in an external figure.

36. Therefore we admonish the Jews, that they learn to know their Messiah. For the time of their visitation is at hand, wherein they shall be redeemed from the captivity of their misery, and be made free again. 37. Also we admonish those that are ours, that they grant Mary to be the daughter of Abraham, and Adam, and Christ’s mother as to the soul, and Adam’s created image, and not according to the Deity, or according to the ens in the Word of life which came from heaven. For that was not her propriety. Indeed it stood in her, but [it was] in the Word of the promise in the eye-mark of the Covenant (which was accomplished, or) at the limit, [in her]. 38. But she is not the mother, which hath brought forth or born God, as the Jews and Turks do say that we so teach; but God hath brought forth and blessed the same in her seed; she in her seed re¬ ceived the power of the Holy Ghost in the Word, and brought forth the creature which was God and man. 39. And not the property of the Deity, which hath neither beginning nor end, also doth not possess either time or place, but is through all, and in all, from eternity to eternity, and hath only mani¬ fested itself in the humanity as the fire doth through-heat and iron, and changeth it wholly into fire; and yet the iron remaineth iron still. So also the man or the humanity which Mary brought forth out of her

1 Or tongue that expresseth the sense of all languages in one. essence, and out of God’s essence, in one only essence, is to be under¬ stood. 40. She brought forth the humanity, and God the Father hath from eternity brought forth the Word which did manifest itself in the humanity, and filled the humanity, as the fire doth through-heat an iron, and the sun doth illustrate or through-shine the water or glass. 41. She indeed hath brought forth the heavenly body, but not from the power of her ens or seed, but from the power and ability of that ens which did manifest itself in her seed; as the essence or being of eternity manifested itself through time, and yet the time was not able or capable to receive the essence of eternity into its own might; but the essence of eternity assumed or took on it the essence of time; as the inward heaven and world hath brought forth and assumed the outward heaven and world: so likewise the eternity assumed the essence, that it breathed into Adam, which died or disappeared in the seed of Mary, understand in her own human seed. 42. And this is the great name of Abraham in Christ, and the blessing of Abraham, wherewith God blessed Abraham and his children, and not a strange person, as some erroneously conceive, who understand not the three Principles.

43. The person was strange, but it is become an indweller in us. The heaven took on it the world, and made the world in it to heaven, and yet each remained dwelling in itself, viz. the formed word of the body, a creature, in itself; and the unformed Word in itself, God over all, and in all, and through all. Thus also we are to understand and consider of the heavenly living essence, which gave itself into Adam’s and Abraham’s ens, as filling all, in the person formatively, and without the person at once through all, and with the Word of power as a habitation or mansion of the power also through all, or everywhere, but not to be comprehended of anything; as the sun s power and influence, and the air, do penetrate through all things, and give life to every being: the like is here to be understood. 44. We must by no means abolish the creature in Christ’s person, for that which he assumed, both from the soul and body of man, the same is creature; but that which he introduced out of the Deity into the humanity, that is neither nature nor creature, yet in our humanity formatively, but immense, uncircumscribed, not particular: like as the air and sunshine is whole or entire, so likewise it is here. And we are in like manner to understand it, as if the sunshine did introduce itself in something, into a form, and yet were wholly one thing with the

shine or light without the form : thus likewise Christ’s heavenly divine ens, which he introduced into our humanity, is to be understood. 45. God did often appear to Abraham, and spake with him as one man speaks with another. Therefore reason saith, How was it done? did God assume the form of a body? God appeared to Abraham in the ens and essence, wherewith he would manifest himself, in his seed, viz. in Christ’s person, and spake from the Word of the Covenant in the limit, in Abraham’s seed, even unto the mental tongue of Abraham, which moved itself in the Covenant, and this the sensual spirit in Abraham did understand. 46. For otherwise Abraham was not able to see God; but in the formed ens of the heavenly essence Abraham was able to see in the spirit of the Covenant, viz. in the same spirit which would manifest the represented type and essence in the human essence. 47. For it it written in Gen. xviii. that God appeared to Abraham in the form of three men, and told him of a son which should proceed forth out of his loins, whom Sarah should bear unto him, upon whom the Covenant passed. Now what did the appearance of these three men typify? Nothing else but the Trinity of the Deity, and the mani¬ festation of the divine formed word through the three Principles. Therefore the divine image was represented in three men, for it is a threefold ens, but one only essence, viz. three worlds, and yet in one another as one; but differenced in three Principles, viz. with the dark wrathful fire-world, and with the holy light-and-love-fire-world, and with the outward visible world.

48. Out of these three worlds man was created, even into an image of the divine manifestation; therefore God shewed himself to Abraham in the same ens and essence, as in the form of the angelical message, and yet spake of himself. 49. For the represented ens, through which God spake, was angelical and human: it would become human, for Christ, as to the person of the creature, should be a prince or an angelical hierarchy; so likewise God appeared to Abraham in this ens, essence and pro¬ perty with his own indwelling voice. 50. Very exceeding wonderful is the history concerning Abraham, for the kingdom of Christ is therein wholly represented. Not only the kingdom upon the earth in the time of the four elements, which also is portrayed and set forth under it, but yet only as a pilgrimage, which should not be the right kingdom, for Abraham must continually wander up and down, and also his posterity. And yet God promised him the country wherein he was a pilgrim for his propriety, that he and his children should eternally possess the same. 51. For so God said to Abraham, Lift up thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever (Gen. xiii. 14). But now they obtained possession of this land a long time after; and were first brought in by Joshua; and Abraham and his grand-children lived not to obtain it, and they were very often driven out from thence; and yet God said he would give it to Abraham and his children for an eternal possession.

52. But we see at present that they have it not in possession; for the Turks have now possession of it; and Abraham s seed, viz. the Jews, have at present neither land nor princedom, but are almost in all places only as captives. But now the purpose of God must stand, his word must be true: Abraham in his seed shall eternally possess it, for eternal is not temporal only. 53. Therefore also God spake of the place, and sheweth the same to Abraham, that he might see it with his eyes. And even here lieth the Great Mystery; for Paradise was in the world, and Adam lost Para¬ dise; but in Abraham’s seed, viz. in Christ, Paradise was again restored, not according to the mortal man, but according to the heavenly. 54. Now we see at present that Christendom hath not these lands or countries in possession; and so likewise the Jews have them not; and now seeing that Abraham shall eternally possess them in his seed, viz. in the holy seed, thereupon we are to consider of the place of the holy Paradise aright; as the prophetical spirit in Ezekiel, and Daniel, and others of them do signify and declare; but especially St John, in the Revelation , concerning the holy Jerusalem, which cometh down from God out of heaven, as a bride prepared and adorned to her bridegrom ; and in all, thus much is signified : that Christ in Abraham s seed shall take in his kingdom.

55. For with the dissolution of the four elements, when the four elements shall be in equal weight [or brought into the true tempera¬ ture], and the earth crystallised like a glassy sea, as may be seen in the Revelation (Rev. iv. 6); even then that which was promised to Abraham concerning the eternal possession shall be performed; for Christ said, My kingdom is not of this world. But now the kingdom of this world was shewn and promised to Abraham; therefore we must thereby understand the heavenly kingdom, and even that very place which was shewn unto Abraham, when Paradise shall be again made manifest, and Abraham in Christ shall appear to the eternal possession. 56. For although at present, according to the four elements, the Turk hath it in possession, yet Abraham in Christ hath it with his seed in possession according to Paradise, viz. in the Paradisical world. Abraham is arisen in Christ, and possesseth his promised land in his Principle: He is in Paradise, and the Turk is in the outward world. 57. Paradise is in the world, yet not in the third Principle, but in the second; the one doth not confound the other. When Abraham’s children in Christ do part from the earthly body, then they take possession of this promised land, according to the spiritual man, and possess the same eternally.

58. And this is that which God so often said to Abraham: That he would give him the land to an eternal possession; for when he promised it him, then he commanded him to go away from that place, to signify that he did not mean the external kingdom, but the eternal; and set him forth a figure in the stars of heaven, [saying] that even so his seed should be multiplied and increased; and as the stars have a pure clear body in comparison to the earthly bodies, so like¬ wise the seed of Abraham should be a heavenly eternal one. 59. But that Abraham’s children, viz. the Jews, are at present cast out from thence, and dispersed into the whole world, the reason of it is, their blindness and obstinacy, until the time of the Gentiles be accomplished. They have not known the Lord of glory, but have rejected him; but when they shall know themselves, they shall be planted again into the root. 60. Not that they are cast out of the root, but they must be blind, that their light might shine to the Gentiles; until the Gentiles also become blind in this light of Abraham (as indeed they are at present really blind); and even then the light of Abraham shall again arise out of its own root and stem, and shine unto all nations. Even then Japheth shall dwell in Shem’s tent, and Israel shall be brought to¬ gether unto the open grace-fountain of all nations: concerning which all people are as yet blind.

61. But the time is near, and the morning star is appeared; if any be able to see : But the Babylonical whore hath blindfolded all ; so that all nations walk in the night. Her abominable whoredom is come before the Most High, who will blot out her shame, which hath defiled the heaven. This thou shalt soon find by experience, in thy drunkenness, saith the spirit of wonders, from its own root. A clear Manifestation of The Beginning of the Heathenish War: Wow Abraham delivered Lot , his brother s Son; And of the Royal Priest Melchizedek of Salem, To whom Abraham gave Tithes I, -|- i~ere1 we see very clearly what the imaginations, purposes, ilintentions, and undertakings of men have been, even from their youth upward; how they have brought themselves out of the image of God, into half bestial and half devilish properties, viz. into pride, covetousness, and self-full domination, in like manner as the devil desired the same, and therefore was cast out from his kingdom. 2. For here the Gentiles, and the children of Ham at Sodom and Gomorrah; and in the whole region thereabouts, did now begin to exercise their domineering power; among whom Abraham was only a stranger, and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, as in a wilderness, where he kept cattle. But the Gentiles did tear and rend for the kingdom of this world, and for the external might and power, striving how one people might rule over another, whose will and dominion hath con¬ tinued even to this day, and hath received its beginning from the heathen, and the children of Ham, viz. from Babel, from the divided tongues.

3. When the powers of the formed word, viz. the properties of nature, did divide themselves, and each introduced itself into a sel¬ fishness, then strife and enmity did arise among them. For the centre of the nature of the dark world hath obtained his dominion in the fallen property of man; for men were as dead to the kingdom of God, viz. in the love and humility, and lived at present to the outward stars and the four elements. 4. Also the devil had built his stronghold in the Serpent’s ens in man; therefore they sought only after that which made them great and potent in the world. And yet we may see how the devil did only fool and ape them, in the wrath of God, so that they slew one another, and esteemed temporal pleasure higher than their life, which is the greatest folly under the sun, that man should bring his life into death’s danger, for a poor silly pride’s sake, whereas yet he knows not whether he shall hold and possess that for which he murdereth, killeth, and slays. 5. And we see how soon the devil, in his envy and pride, ruled in them; for though they had the whole earth before them to possess, and many countries and islands were uninhabited, yet they undertake war, that so they might but domineer over one another, and rob and plunder one another. Thus the devil, as man’s enemy, brought them into his pride, that they might serve him.

6. ’Tis not in vain that Christ calls him a prince of this world: he is a prince according to the property of the wrath of the dark world therein; in and according to the same property he ruleth man in body and soul, in will, and mind. 7. For all war and contention doth arise out of the nature and property of the dark world, viz. from the four elements of the anger of God, which produceth in the creature, pride, covetousness, envy, and anger. These are the four elements of the dark world, wherein the devils, and all evil creatures live; and from these four elements ariseth war. 8. For although God bade the people of Israel to drive out the heathen, and wage war, yet the command was wholly from the angry zealous God, viz. from the fire’s property, for the heathen had stirred up the wrath and indignation which would devour them. But God, so far as he is called God, desireth no war; yea, he cannot desire anything that is evil or destructive, for he is, according to the second Principle, viz. according to the light, alone good and giving, and giveth himself to all things.

9. But according to the dark world’s nature he is an angry zealous God, and a consuming fire, if his wrath be awakened. According to this property he desireth to consume all that moveth and enkindleth itself therein; and from this property God bade Israel fight, and smite the heathen. For his anger was set on fire in them; and they were as wood cast into the fire, which the fire desireth to consume. 10. Therefore the wrath of God bade one nation slay another, that it might even out of his wrath be taken away. Otherwise the fire of his anger would have enkindled itself, as happened to the five king¬ doms of Sodom and Gomorrah. Thus the wrath of God did satiate itself in the life of the wicked, which it devoured into itself, in that they slew one another. 11. As it yet nowadays so comes to pass, that oftentimes men cry unto God for to give them success and victory against their enemies, that they might murder them; but God giveth them not victory therein, but the sword of his anger, which they awaken with their prayers [fierce desires] and will. Were they true men, and children of God, they would need no war, for the holy Spirit doth not wage war, but he only loveth and giveth. But according to the property of the anger he consumeth all ungodliness and wicked doings, and is there¬ by more blown and stirred up [in indignation].

12. For the more a man addeth wood to the fire, and stirs it, the more it doth elevate and inflame itself, until it devoureth whatsoever it can reach. The like also is to be understood concerning the zeal of God: this enkindled anger-zeal of God was set on fire in Adam; and it did devour his image of the holy world, and passed from Adam upon all men. 13. For they which were in the line of the Covenant had the enkindled zeal, according to the first Principle, viz. according to the soul and body, also in them; the one not better than the other; the Serpent’s ens lay as well in Abraham and his children, according to the enkindled soul, and according to the gross bestial property of the mortal, as in the Gentiles; except the line of Christ in them, which was not the sinful man’s selfhood, but it stood in God’s power; as the heaven standeth in the world, and yet the one is not the other; and as the heaven stands in hell, and hell in heaven, and yet the one doth neither confound or comprehend the other; or as the night is in the day, and the day in the night; or as the light of nature dwelleth and shineth in the darkness.

14. Thus we are to understand how the children of the saints have waged war against the crew of wicked men, and drove them out, viz. in the anger’s property, which managed its sword by them, to destroy the heathen, and the generation of Ham; for Abraham went out with his whole house and people, against the heathen, who had carried away Lot, his brother’s son, captive, and he smote the heathen, and delivered his brother (Gen. xiv. 14-16). This was done in the zeal of God, which thus delivered his children through the might of his anger; for what conduceth to the wicked for destruction, the same conduceth to the holy men for life and deliverance. 15. But that those who will be called Christians (who ought in and with Christ to be dead to the anger and wrath of God in Christ’s death) do wage war, they do it not as Christians, but as heathen. No Christian warreth; for if he be a Christian, then he is dead in and with Christ’s death to the four elements of God’s anger in self; and born a new man in Christ’s spirit of love; who liveth in righteousness, in love, and patience, and liveth not to himself, but to God in Christ.

1 6. For a true Christian leadeth his conversation and will in heaven, in the life and spirit of Christ; as St Paul saith, our conversation is in heaven. But when the Christians do wage war, they do it from the heathenish property, and not from Christ’s property. For a Christian is not of this world; his kingdom is in heaven; and he is dead in Christ to the world, according to the new spiritual man in him. The heathen-man, viz. the half-devilish man (who hath his kingdom in this world, who never hath room enough upon the earth, but liveth in the four elements of God’s anger, viz. in pride, covetousness, envy and wrath), the same desireth in the Christians to war, fight and slay. 17. St Paul saith, Give your members to be weapons of righteousness (Rom. vi. 13). For why do men fight (James iv. 1)? For the kingdom of this world; and yet as Christ said, his kingdom was not of this world (John xviii. 36). So also his children’s kingdom in him is not of this world. Now then if we give up our body and soul for weapons of God’s anger, and seek only thereby self [interests, liberties and privileges of Mammon], and slay one another for the kingdom of this world, I think we are herein Christians indeed in the mouth, but the heart and soul is a heathen, and not born out of Christ’s spirit.

18. When Abraham had smitten the heathen, he desired nothing of the goods which he took, but restored to the king of Sodom what the heathen had taken from him, and was only zealous in the Lord. He did not fight for country and kingdom, but to deliver his brother [Lot] ; this was a true zeal, which the Lord drove in him; he did not stand up and fight for country or city, and albeit he obtained it, he desired it not, but went again unto his own place. 19. And here the spirit in Moses speaketh very wonderfully and saith, that when Abraham returned from the slaughter, that the king of Sodom met him; and Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine; who was a priest of the most high God, possessor of heaven and of earth, and blessed Abraham, and Abraham gave him tithes: And though we find almost nothing elsewhere in the holy Scripture of this priesthood, yet the same was really in the figure of Christ; for the spirit saith, in another place, of Christ, that he was a High Priest in the order of Melchizedek. 20. Thus the spirit of God doth very secretly and mystically

represent the figure of Christ by Abraham; and calleth him a king of Salem, and a priest of the most high God, viz. a priest of salvation and the holy unction, as it intimates in the sense-all tongue; that is, Christ hath blessed Abraham, and brought him forth bread and wine, viz. his flesh and blood; and is the high priest before God, that makes atonement for Abraham and his children. 21. For Abraham had managed the sword of God’s anger against the heathen. Now came Melchizedek, and blessed Abraham again (lest the sword of the turba should lay hold on him), and he gave him forth bread and wine, that is, the heavenly ens, which he would intro¬ duce into Abraham’s seed, and change it into flesh and blood; and here he appeased the Father’s anger in the Covenant, as in the type. 22. For this priest with Abraham is really to be understood in a spiritual manner; for although Abraham might have externally a priest after the same manner with him, under the figure of Christ; yet Moses saith, he was a priest of God; and said to Abraham, Blessed art thou Abraham unto the Most High, who possesseth heaven and earth ; who hath shut up thine enemies into thy hands. Flere is none other to be understood but Christ, who very often appeared to Abraham in the figure, and blessed him always; for the spirit in Moses calleth him also a king of Salem; which is nothing else but a king of salvation.

23. And Abraham gave him tithes: indeed he might have such a priestly order with him, to whom he gave tithes; but this king and priest was he of whom he preached; to whom Abraham gave tithes, viz. the tenth property of the human properties of the fiery tongue of the soul; and the priest gave his bread and wine, and his blessing thereinto, viz. the love-fire, the tincture of the light, together with the heavenly substantiality; that so Abraham, in this bread and wine, might receive the light’s tincture into the soul’s fiery tincture, and become again a complete image of God; which was separated in Adam with the woman. Therefore Christ, viz. the woman’s tincture, gave him again the light’s ens, that so the male and female property might become one image or person. This the spirit doth here signify in Moses, under the royal priest of Salem. 24. For Esdra, when he dictated the lost Bible,1 in the knowledge of the spirit of God, to his scribes, saw this very well ; and therefore the Floly Spirit doth so set it down: and we see very exactly, how Esdra wrote the histories of Abraham in the vision of the spirit; for

1 Note. — Esdra dictated the Bible that was lost. 2 Esdra xiv. the whole history of Abraham is delineated under Christ’s person, and is an image or type of Christ. 25. Abraham saw in the spirit this priest of Salem; and when Abraham offered sacrifice, then this priest was in the offering, and offered to God; for he was to make reconciliation for the world with an offering; therefore he was a priest of God. 26. He brought Abraham’s will-offering, viz. his prayer and desire in faith, into the holy ens of God, and in the same ens, viz. in the divine essentiality, heavenly bread and wine was brought to Abra¬ ham s soul, that it might eat at God’s table, till this priest became Abraham; that is, did manifest himself in Abraham with the heavenly corporiety, viz. with the soul’s food in the right bread and wine. How God appeared to Abraham in a Vision, and established the Covenant with him in his Seed; and how Abraham’s faith laid hold of the Covenant, which God accounted unto him for Righteousness; and how God com¬ manded him to offer Sacrifice: and what is thereby to be understood -» >j"osES saith, After these things it came to pass, that the word of Lord came to Abraham in a vision, and said, Fear not, Abram,

I am thy shield, and exceeding great reward. But Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing l go childless; and the steward of my house hath a son, this Eliezer of Damascus ? And Abraham said further: To me thou hast given no seed; and, lo! this son of my servant will be mine heir. And, behold, the Lord said unto him, He shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir . And he commanded him to go forth, and said, Look towards the heaven, and number the stars, canst thou number them? And he said unto him, Even so shall thy seed be. Abraham believed God, and that was counted to him for righteousness (Gen. xv. 1-6). 2. In this portion of Scripture lieth the root of the Christian faith, for God said to Abraham, that he was his shield and reward, that he would give him the seed out of his loins : God would be Abraham s reward; and give him a son of his own, whose seed should be as the stars in heaven, which are innumerable; and his steward’s son should not be heir, viz. the animal human-seed, full of the Serpent’s ens, shall not inherit, but God’s reward, God’s ens. He would give in his reward into his seed, viz. into the power of his loins, which should be a seed, like unto the stars of heaven. He looked upon the seed in the Covenant, viz. upon the eternal kingdom, which should be as the stars in heaven, so pure, bright, clear and innumerable; and this Abraham believed, and it was imputed to him for righteousness.

3. Believing here is this much, viz. he received and laid hold of the Word; he took it into his desire, viz. into the human ens. The aim in the Covenant in the formed compounded word, viz. in Abraham’s nature and property, received the speaking Word of God, viz. the promise; and both these were formed into one, and in this one Abraham’s faith was right; for God counted the Word, which Abraham received into his faith’s desire, unto him for righteousness, for propriety, and for justification. 4. For this received or intaken Word justified the creatural word, viz. the expressed, created word. Understand, that word which had formed itself in the human property, and brought itself into a creature, and put itself forth out of the three Principles into an image, in which image the self-will had, through desire and lust, elevated itself with the dark world’s property, viz. in the fire of God’s anger, and intro¬ duced itself into an earthly grossness; into which gross image the devil also had introduced, by the Serpent, his ens, will and desire. 5. Now the living eternal-speaking holy Word came forth out of the light’s and divine love’s property to help this ens, this compacted word and created image, and became its reward. This same, Abra¬ ham’s natural word and power received into itself; and this same Word of God, intaken and fixed in the desire, justified Abraham’s corrupted word. It was his righteousness: the same destroyed the anger, and ruinated the devil’s desire and will; understand, in man’s ens, viz. in the formed word, this was effected.

6. For there is no faith without God’s Word and power; therefore Abraham did now take God’s power and promise into his ens in him, and formed or conceived the same into a substance of his spirit: this was the faith of justification; that God’s Word, and the human will and desire, came into one spiritual substance. Thus God accounted the received or inspoken apprehended Word unto Abraham for righteousness, viz. for propriety. And this is the ground and root of faith; that he took in or imprinted God’s promise into his desire, as his very own; and let not the same pass from him in doubt. As Jacob [also] did, who took the Word of promise into him, and said, I will not let thee go until thou dost bless me, and wrestled the whole night with the Word of power, until he obtained victory; so that the promised Word gave in itself to him, for propriety, viz. to a blessing, or a great reward, as here in Abraham. 7. Thus understand us very accurately: The incorporated Word of the Covenant in Paradise, which God promised to Adam concern¬ ing the Bruiser of the Serpent’s head, did here at present wrestle, through Jacob’s formed word of the human property, with the new

promised word, viz. with the living Word [which did at present move itself in him], and would that the corrupt human ens might be blessed with God’s love, that the wound might be healed. And it did long and pant after the fulfilling of the Covenant, that God would be pleased forthwith to introduce the holy ens of his heavenly essentiality into man’s essence, that Christ might be born out of God s and man s essence. Therefore let Christendom know, that faith is not only a history or knowledge [but a real substance]. 8. Faith is nothing else but the uniting of one’s will to God, and the receiving of God’s Word and power into the will, that so both these, viz. God’s will and man’s will, become both one substance and essence; that the human will be even God’s will. And even then Christ, in his suffering, death, and resurrection, is accounted unto his own humanity for righteousness; so that man becomes Christus1 [or the Anointed] : understand, according to the spiritual man. And thus we put on Christ in Abraham’s faith, and are twigs, shoots and branches in his vine, and the temple of God. He that teacheth and believeth otherwise is yet in the compacted, uncontrite or uncloven tongue of unbelief, in the whoredom of Babel.

9. This is the true, real ground of our Christian faith; that as Abraham put on Christ in the faith, so we also at present do receive, and, in our heavenly part of the humanity, put on Christ in his humanity, according to the heavenly world’s essence; in the same flesh and blood which Melchizedek represented and brought to Abraham in the heavenly bread and wine, viz. in the type thereof; yea, wholly receive it into our ens of the heavenly world’s essence, which died in Adam, and [we] become alive therein, and arise from death in Christ, and dwell very essentially with our spiritual man, in him. And even then he is our own righteousness, we in him, and he in us, only one Christ, one God, one faith, one tree in the Paradise of God, in the stem which is God, and in the power and virtue thereof, which is Christ, and in the branches of the tree, which are we Christians, wholly one tree, not two: We understand not herein the gross bestial man, full of the Serpent’s ens, which shall not inherit the kingdom of God (John vi.), but the true man, which God created in his image.

10. Let Master Sophister or wiseling of Babel look us right in the face, and see what spirit’s child we are. We understand not the beast, but the man Christ, which died in Adam, which was again regenerated out of Abraham’s seed, and deprived death of its might, and destroyed hell in man, and slew the death in us, and arose again from death, and liveth for ever. The same we mean by a right Christian, and not calves and oxen, dogs, adders, serpents, toads, and the like, who would with their beasts of vanity be outwardly adopted, and re¬ generate children of God. No such beasts cometh into heaven; only and alone [and none else but a Christ, viz.] a child of Christ, which is born of Christ’s flesh and blood: without are dogs (Rev. xxii. 15). 11. Therefore let it be told thee, O Babel, thou ridest upon the dragon of thy own contrived half devilish, and half bestial tongue in thy own words and will, and hast not Abraham’s faith, viz. in the received and formed Word, which became man; but thou howlest with the dogs; and wilt, with thy [snarling, jeering, contentious] dog’s will, in a strange child, be Abraham’s heir.

12. But God said to Abraham, Thy servant’s child shall not be thy heir, but he that is begotten out of thy loins, who is born of the faith of righteousness, he shall be God’s heir, and not the son of the bondwoman, viz. the strange introduced gross bestial Serpent’s ens. 13. And God said to Abraham, I am the Lord that hath brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. But Abraham said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall possess the same? And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon. And he took all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds he divided not. And when the fowls fell upon the carcases, Abraham drove them away. And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abraham; and lo! an horror of great darkness fell upon him. And he said to Abraham, By this thou shalt surely know, that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and they shall be compelled to serve, and be afflicted four hundred years, but I will judge the nation whom they must serve; and afterwards I will bring them out with great substance.

And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace, and be buried in a good old age. But they shall come hither again after four generations : for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. Now when the sun was gone down, and it was dark, lo! a smoking furnace, and a fire-flame passed between the pieces (Gen. xv. 7-17). Here the right figure of Christ’s offering for the humanity is represented; and also his suffering and death, his persecution, and also his victory [is deciphered herein] ; and likewise the man of sin and vanity, intimating, how he must fill up his measure, and whereunto each is appointed.

14. God gave Abraham the sign how it should go with his seed, in that Abraham said, Lord God! whereby shall I know that I shall possess the same? Then God set the figure of the seed before him (for he had comprehended it in his faith, which was made his righteousness), and shewed it him in a figure: for the offering signi¬ fies the offering of Christ. The three sorts of beasts, viz. the heifer, she goat, and ram, each three years old, betoken the part of the out¬ ward humanity of the time, viz. out of the limus of the earth. 15. But that they must be three years old, betokens the whole outward threefold man, of the Sulphur, Mercury and Salt, viz. the three properties of the three Principles, which lie in the earth in one essence or substance. 16. And that Abraham divided these three beasts, and laid one right over against the other, signifieth the twofold limus of the earth, viz. the gross property out of the dark world’s property; and then secondly, the limus out of the heavenly world’s property, which lieth in one compaction in the earth, whence man was created as to the body.

17. But that Abraham divided them, signifies that the grossness which Adam’s desire introduced must by death be separated from the pureness of the humanity; and one must lie right opposite to the other, and be divided from one another, each into its property; as light and darkness are divided, and yet are near one another. 18. The turtle-dove betokens the poor soul captivated in this bestial property; and the young pigeon signifies the inward dis¬ appeared humanity of the poor soul, which shall become young again in the offering, viz. a new birth. 19. But that the two doves were not divided, but offered whole, signifieth that nothing shall be taken from the soul, and from the inward man of the heavenly limus; they shall remain whole and entire in their substance, and be offered whole to the angry fire of God in Christ, and be brought quite through the fire of anger, through death, viz. through the great darkness and horror of death and hell, as this was the figure thereof. 20. When Abraham had set forth his offering he fell into a deep sleep, and horror and great darkness did encompass him. The sleep signifieth the death of Christ, and the horror, the wrath of God, viz. the abyss of hell, and the darkness, the dark world; into this the Word, which had given in itself into Abraham’s faith to be a seed of the children of God, should enter with the offering in the whole

humanity (both with soul and body), and reisgn itself up wholly to the anger of the Father to be devoured. 21. And the enkindling of the fire, which passed between the pieces, was now the holy fire of God which came forth out of the holy burning, viz. out of the love-flaming Word, which gave in itself to Abraham’s faith in the humanity of Christ in soul and body, when he stood in the Father’s anger, in the death and darkness in hell, and cast the humanity in soul and body unto the anger, and changed the anger into love-fire; for the wrath of the Father, according to the eternal nature of the dark world which was enkindled in the humanity, must in the humanity receive such a holy ens wherein the anger might, in its fire, be changed into a light- or love-fire. 22. This holy ens in the Word of faith must enter into the great horror of God’s anger; for in its property the soul stood therein essentially. It is out of the Father’s fire-property, out of his strength and omnipotence, viz. out of the first Principle. And here the second Principle, viz. the love-fire, came to help it; therefore it must enter again into its own root from whence it came to be a creature; and be tinctured in the power of the love-fire in the divine light, and be changed into an excellent pure divine gold: of which this offering was a type.

23. And that the fowls fell upon the carcasses, which Abraham drove away, signifieth the hungry essence of the wrathful property of the anger of God in man, which hungered after the humanity, and would devour the same into itself. But the Word in Abraham’s faith drove away the devourer from thence; it should not be devoured, but be offered; that so one essence might enter into another, and over¬ power the other. 24. The offering of Christ (viz. the humanity of Christ), did indeed give itself wholly as an offering or sacrifice into the Father’s anger, into his fire’s essence; but the love-spirit of God hindered the wrathful essence of the fire, so that the fire could not devour the humanity of Christ. It took only the self-will of the humanity, and brought it again into the first universal entire will; out of which man’s will was given him, which had corrupted him, and brought him to selfhood. Here it was again introduced into the Father’s will, viz. into the first root; for so also Christ said (when he in this condition or trial on the Mount of Olives sweat blood), Father, not my will, but thine, be done (Luke xxii. 42).

25. The divided word of man’s property, which had turned itself away from the universal perfection, viz. from the ONE, into a self¬ hood, must enter again into the ALL, and be tried, purged and puri¬ fied through the fire of God; and live and move in the One, viz. in the Father’s only will. 26. The figure of the servitude in Egypt signifieth that Christ in his members should be only a pilgrim and stranger in this world, and that the outward man (which is of this world’s essence) should be subject to the dominion and power of this world’s essence; and be plagued, and always accounted only as a carpenter’s axe, whereby men do build the house. 27. For a Christian man is even as God’s hatchet, wherewith God builds his house for a habitation; both as to the holy children, and also to the wicked. They must build both. Inwardly from God s spirit they build God’s temple, and outwardly with their hands they must be in servitude; for the outward kingdom (wherein they dwell) is not theirs, but the heathen’s, which have their heaven therein, and work therein in God’s anger. 28. As it was very fully and mystically told to Abraham that he should be subject to servitude in his children, until the iniquity of the Amorites was full. So that herein we see very clearly how God’s children must serve the Amorites, viz. the Gentiles, until they also obtain their inheritance in the wrath of God, and also wholly accom¬ plish their works in the anger of God for a building of the dark world; for God said they should serve the Egyptians, and have only plagues for their reward, until they had accomplished and filled up their measure. Thus the wicked must wholly finish their works; and the children of God must be embroiled also in servitude with them.

29. Therefore, dear children of God, albeit you oftentimes must serve wicked lords and people, and be accounted as bond-slaves, as it yet at present so falls out; yet think that ye also serve God therein; for as ye in your hearts and mouths do build God’s kingdom to your possession, so you must likewise with your hands help your masters to build their hellish seat; for ye are God’s instruments, fit enough for all kinds of structure. You must not do it from your choice and well-liking, but from the command of God you must do it. 30. For in that the potent do compel the poor, and force them into servitude and slavery, that he doth from his god, viz. from the king¬ dom of nature, from the stars, and from selfhood, wherein he buildeth up the house of his wonders to the kingdom of nature. This is his office, whereunto his god useth him; and it is also a great wonder before the eternity; but it ariseth from the divided tongue, where the properties entered into selfhood, each in itself; over which the stron¬ gest domineer. Unto all these, viz. to the kingdom of nature, the earthly man must be subject, understand the outward man, else he resisteth the kingdom of nature, viz. the formed word.

31. Now it doth not belong to the children of God to resist or oppose, but to do all for God’s sake, whereto alone God will use them ; they must think that they in this world, and in the eternity, are God’s servants, and will serve him in his order [or ordinance]. 32. We do not hereby judge or condemn the worldly magistracy and order; but we shew the ground of all mysteries. Dominion and rule ariseth out of the kingdom of nature, and may indeed enter into God’s kingdom, if it manageth its authority and power as a servant of God in the kingdom of nature, and not as a self-willed god, who will do what he please. If rulers acknowledge and behave themselves as God’s stewards and officers in his kingdom of nature, and transgress not the order of nature, and do not advance themselves higher than the office of nature sets them, and so make themselves petty gods [to command and impose what their will and lust leads them to, then well and good; but if it be otherwise], they shall find it as God said to Abraham, This people, whom they must serve, I will judge.

Of the History, and exceeding wonderful Typification of God’s Spirit concerning Hagar , Sarah’s Maid, and her Son Ishmael , and his Rejection from the Heirship and Inheritance of Isaac i. yr thosoever will read the acts of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,1 W and rightly understand what the spirit of God doth signify and mean by the same, he must not look upon them only as a history, as if nothing else were couched therein than an outward achievement or relation of an act or thing done: The whole kingdom of Christ, together with the kingdom of nature, is therein set forth exactly; not only the work of man’s redemption, but also what men, how or what in man, shall possess and inherit God’s kingdom; not as the Jews boast, that they alone are God’s people: No, it is far otherwise, God looketh not upon one sort or generation of mankind, but upon the stem or root of the tree. 2. In the two brethren, viz. in Isaac and Ishmael, both kingdoms are typified, viz. in Ishmael the kingdom of nature, and in Isaac the kingdom of grace. And thus also in Esau and Jacob; for at present two lines went forth out of Abraham, viz. Japheth’s and Shem’s. Ishmael was the first, as Japheth among Noah’s children. And so likewise Cain among Adam’s children; these point at the kingdom of nature, which hath its original out of the Father’s property, and must always be the first, if a creature shall be brought forth [or to the producing of a creature].

3. Afterwards comes the kingdom of grace, which taketh in the nature; as first there must be a fire ere there be a light; the fire begetteth the light, and the light maketh the fire manifest in itself; it taketh the fire, viz. the nature into itself, and dwelleth in the fire. 4. The like also we are to understand concerning the two pro¬ perties of the humanity, viz. in the two Principles, according to fire and light ; viz. according to the Father’s, and Son’s property, according to the anger, and according to the love, both which are in one essence. 5. But seeing man’s will had subjected itself to the kingdom of nature, the kingdom of nature did now also represent its property in man’s image, to the highest God, especially in this wonderful man Abraham, in whom the Spirit and Word of God moved itself. Now the figures of the eternal Principles, viz. of both wills, were represented out of one man to the Word of God, which had brought forth and formed all essences, viz. the revolted disobedient [will] in Ishmael, and the holy obedience, which sprang forth from the power of the received Word of faith, in Isaac.

6. Two types were here set forth, viz. in Ishmael the poor, sick, distempered, evil, corrupted Adam, fallen from the will of God; and in Isaac the image of Christ [was represented], which was come to help the poor corrupt Adam, and to introduce his apostate will into death and mortification, and purify the same again in the fire of God; and regenerate it anew in the love-fire, and in the first only eternal will of God, where the Father and the Son are one only will and essence in the wrathful anger-fire and in the love-light-fire. 7. For with the motion of the divine property, when God moved the nature and created the creatures, the two properties, viz. of the love and the anger in nature, did sever themselves; so that the mystery of God, viz. the invisible spiritual world, might be manifest, and come into a wrestling [love-striving] sport, in the strife and counter-will. 8. For if there were but one only will, then all essences would do but one thing; but in the counter- will each exalteth itself in itself to its victory and exaltation. And all life and vegetation stands in this contest, and thereby the divine wisdom is made manifest, and comes into form to contemplation, and to the kingdom of joy; for in the conquest is joy. But one only will is not manifest to itself, for there is neither evil nor good in it, neither joy nor sorrow; and if there were, yet the one, viz. the only will, must first in itself bring itself into a contrary, that it might manifest itself.

9. The like also is here to be understood concerning Isaac and Ishmael: for Christ must be born of Abraham’s seed; and the corrupt man must also be born out of this Abraham’s seed, whom Christ should help and save. 10. For Christ, viz. God’s Word and Will, took unto him, on his holy heavenly ens, man’s revolted ens and will, and brought the same in him into the mortification of selfhood, even into the root, whence man’s revolted apostate will did arise in the beginning of his creation, viz. into the wrath of the eternal nature, into the Father’s property, as to that nature; and regenerated the revolted human will in the same fire through the love-fire, and united or atoned God’s love and anger, viz. the divided nature, in the human will; which nature, in the creation of the world, had introduced itself into a contrary, to the manifestation of the wonders. 11. Now understand us here aright, according to the very acute depth; Christ must be the king and hierarch, viz. the human prince in the eternal kingdom; and the kingdom was his own peculiar. Now his subjects, viz. his servants, must be other persons than he, all which must introduce their will into him, as into one stock. He must be the tree, which should give to his branches, viz. to the rest of mankind, sap, power, and will, that so they might bring him forth fruit. But seeing the branches on his tree, which was himself, were become evil, he gave himself into their evil essence, and put forth his power and virtue in them, that so they might become good again, and flourish in him.

12. And that this might be effected, the tree, and the branches of the tree, must be distinguished or severised, that so the wonders of the formed wisdom of nature in this tree might not cease and come to naught; for which [wonder’s] sake God had moved himself to the creation, and severed the will of nature, viz. his formed word, into a contrary. 13. Isaac was conceived in the ens of Christ, viz. in the appre¬ hended or formed word of faith, of Abraham’s ens in the faith, and stood in the figure of Christ; he was not wholly and only out of the heavenly ens, but out of both together; out of Abraham’s Adamical ens, and out of the conceived or apprehended word of faith; and Ishmael was out of Adam’s ens, of Abraham’s own nature, according to the corrupt property ; he was wholly out of the essence of Abraham’s soul and spirit, but not out of the apprehended word of faith which passed upon Isaac. 14. Now Ishmael was even as his father Abraham, before the con¬ ceived word of faith; and should also take or receive that same word of faith in the desire out of Isaac’s heavenly divine innate or inbred Word, and bring it to a substance of faith in him. For God anointed the humanity of Christ, and the humanity of Christ anointed his boughs and branches, viz. those who also bring their desire into him; and so they also come even to the same unction, wherewith God anointed Abraham’s seed in his faith’s desire.

15. Thus the figure of Christ was represented in Isaac, and Adam’s figure in Ishmael; and in Abram God and Adam did stand as ’twere opposite. God received Adam again in Abram into his Covenant, word, and will, and out of this same Covenant, word, and will, which Abraham received of God, in which Abram was justified, Christ was born; who received Ishmael, and all the poor corrupt children of Adam (who do but introduce their desire into him) into his word and heavenly ens, and delivered them to his Father, viz. to the bosom of Abraham, into which his Father had imbosomed or immersed the eternal holy Word of divine love, wherein standeth the compassion over us the children of poor Eve. 16. Thus understand us now aright in this, concerning Abraham’s bondwoman, and concerning the free, what that doth mean which was said to Abraham, The son of the bondwoman shall not inherit with the free (Gen. xxi. 10; Gal. iv. 30). It was not spoken concerning the outward inheritance only, but concerning the eternal inheritance of the adop¬ tion or filiation of God. 17. The rebellious self-will of nature was in Ishmael, which he inherited from his mother Hagar, and from Abraham’s natural Adamical will, which was a mocker of the new birth.

18. For the devil had introduced his will into the human will, inclined to selfhood in the Serpent’s ens, which will did only mock and scorn the new birth; just as the devil is only a scorner and con¬ temner. When he is told how that the anger, viz. the wrath of the eternal nature, of which he is a prince and possessor, shall be changed in man again into love, the same seems ridiculous to him. This false spirit was a reviler and mocker, in Ishmael; of whom God said, Cast out the son of the bondwoman , viz. this scoffer; for the scoffer’s spirit and will shall not inherit with the free, viz. with the only will of God. 19. But now we are not to understand this concerning the whole person of Ishmael; as if God had rejected him out of his purpose from the divine adoption. No, no; the contrary plainly demonstrates itself; for when Hagar waxed proud, seeing that she had conceived, and not her mistress; and lightly set by Sarah her mistress; and Sarah reprov¬ ing her sharply for it, she fled from her. Then the angel of the Lord met her, and said unto her, Hagar, Sarah’s maid, whither wilt thou go? Return again to thy mistress, and humbly submit thyself unto her, I will so multiply thy seed that it shall not be numbered for multitude.

20. And the angel of the Lord said further unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and his name shall be called Ishmael ; because the Lord hath heard thy affliction. He shall be a wild man ; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. And she called the name of the Lord who spake with her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Here I have seen him, who hath looked after me. Therefore she called the well where this was done, the well of the living who hath looked upon me (Gen. xvi. 8-14)- 21. Understand this figure thus: Hagar fled in the will of self, viz. in disobedience, that is, in the will of nature, in which the devil, according to the wrath’s property, desires to be a prince. This will would not humble itself under the Covenant, and obey the free one, viz. God’s only free will : In the figure, Hagar fled away ; for the will of selfhood must fly away, and wholly die, and not inherit the Covenant, and the adoption. But the angel of the Lord met Hagar, and said, Whither wilt thou go, Hagar, Sarah’s maid? Return again to thy mistress, and humble thyself under her hand. Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son , whose name thou shalt call Ishmael; because the Lord hath heard thy affliction. The meaning of it is this:

22. Thou poor miserable man, captivated by the kingdom of nature; nature hath indeed brought thee forth in its contrariety, in its wonders; and the devil hath poisoned thee, so that thou must be a wild man upon the earth, to the opposition of God s children, so that they must be tried and exercised by thee, and be brought into tribulation, that so they also might powerfully put forth out of the holy ens the sap of their root of salvation, and in the pressure, move, act, and penetrate with the ardent desire, through the love ens, which is wholly meek, soft, and still; so that in this contrariety and contest fruit might also grow upon the divine One. Thy wild will must indeed be cast out and mortified, but return again to the free, viz. to the only will of God, and humble thyself before the free one; for I have looked upon thy misery and affliction, and have not cast thee from my presence, but [have cast forth] only the wild property, viz. the will of the natural selfhood. 23. But I must have it also in the time of this world, for it shall dwell in the presence of all its brethren, and exercise them in the fear of God with its opposition. But return thou only in repentance unto the free. I will so multiply thee that thy seed shall not be numbered.

24. Why must even the mocker be thus done unto? Because in him lay the kingdom of the wonders of God’s manifestation out of nature, viz. out of the fire-world, out of God’s strength and omnipotence; which he will again introduce in Christ into the love, viz. into the only free One. But Hagar, viz. the will of the fire-soul’s nature, must be converted and enter into repentance, humble itself before the free, viz. the only merciful love-will, viz. before the Covenant and seed in Isaac, and cast away the rebellious will from itself. 25. And therefore the Lord sent his angel to meet her, and manifested himself unto her with his voice, and she called the name of the Lord Thou God seest me: Here I have seen him who hath looked after me. That is, the contrary or rebellious will ran away from the free, viz. from God. But God looked again upon the poor miserable and captive soul, and called it again. And then said the soul, Certainly, here I have seen him who hath looked after me, after that my will of self, viz. of nature, was run forth from him ; which is thus much.

26. When as the mocker, viz. selfwill is gone forth in its nature, and hath brought itself into an opposition against its brethren1 (who sometimes will not work in their heavenly allotted ens), and set itself against them with contempt and scorn; and performed its office of nature given unto it for the exercise of the children of God; then God looketh also upon the mocker, as his instrument to the exercising of the soul, and wills not that the soul should perish. He looketh on it again, instructeth it, and calleth it, and draweth it also in man’s conscience unto himself; this now is the meaning: he hath looked after me, even when I had almost accomplished the work of nature in the will of self. 27. Hagar being thus seen of God, when she became disobedient to her mistress, and ran away from her, and without doubt in an opposite will against her mistress, the same did much trouble, move and affect the woman. Thereby her mistress, viz. Sarah, was also exercised, so that she was earnestly moved in herself, and called and prayed to God, that he would take away her reproach; in that she was barren, and bless her, and make her fruitful; that she also did purify the house or vessel wherein she should receive the holy seed of Abraham in his blessed seed, and not introduce any human wantonness of nature into Abraham’s blessed seed; but desired she might have a right divine desire in her, wherein she might take the seed of Abraham.

28. And even therefore God made her barren, even to her old age, lest the bestial lust should be predominant in her, and mix itself in Abraham’s blessed seed; for she should give all her human power (viz. the woman’s seed in the Covenant, which did move itself in her, as to the kingdom of nature) into the seed of Abraham; not out of the wantonness of bestial lust, but out of the desire of the nature of the formed word. Therefore the bestial lust, introduced by Adam (in which lust the devil had made his murdering den), must be first even as quite mortified in her, that so the inward nature might yet stand only in the desire, viz. the formed word s ens as to the creature. 29. For the promised Word in the Covenant with Abraham should give itself out of Abraham’s seed into Sarah’s seed, viz. into the woman’s matrix in Venus’s tincture, and take unto it the female ens out of the love-tincture, which had parted itself from Adam into a woman. Indeed, not according to the manifest life of the holy heavenly ens shut up in her, which disappeared in Adam and Eve, which was first made manifest in Christ, but according to the kingdom of the formed word of nature, in which the heavenly ens lay shut up, until the motion of the Covenant in the ens of Mary, where the limit or eye-mark stood at the end of the Covenant.

30. Thus Hagar and her son Ishmael (who as to the will of self, viz. as to the devil’s introduced desire and his outward constellation, was a mocker of his brethren, and did exercise them) must be an instru¬ ment of nature, whereby God manifested his wonders. 31. But as God will not eternally cast away the nature from him, but thus useth it in time in a contrary, to the opening of his wonders of wisdom out of love, and anger, as a generatress of his wonders [in good and evil], the like also we are to understand concerning the evil innate property in man, which cannot judge the soul. 32. But the free will which it hath if it therewith continueth in the iniquity in selfhood, that condemneth it. For it will not enter again into the One, viz. into the quiet Rest. Its condemnation1 is in itself, and not without it; it maketh its hell in itself, that is, it awakeneth, out of the centre of the eternal spiritual nature, God’s wrath in itself, viz. the property of the dark fire- world. In which it is not the child of God’s love, but of his anger, of which substance and essence itselfis.

33. For if the soul dieth to self-will, then it is dead unto hell, viz. to the kingdom of the wrathful nature. Now it cannot do this in its own self-ability, unless God look upon it again, as here happened to Hagar, when she said, Thou God seest me. And therefore she called this place or fountain, the fountain of the living and seeing. For the fountain of life did even there manifest itself in her, and brought her again to conversion. 34. For she should not be cast out with her son from the purpose or election of God, but God did only set forth the figure of both kingdoms in their seed, viz. in Ishmael’s, and Isaac’s : For thus said God afterwards to Abraham, Moreover , concerning Ishmael I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and multiply him exceedingly • twelve princes shall he beget ; and I will make him a great nation (Gen. xvii. 20). 35. Now what God hath blessed, that the Bishop with his reason shall not unhallow or make execrable. He1 hath set him2 up to be a ruler in the kingdom of nature, that he might manifest the wonders of nature, and not predestinated him to condemnation, as Babel judgeth; in whose hand a shepherd’s crook were more comely and fitting, than to expound the mysteries of the Scripture with earthly eyes [or apprehensions], and make conclusions therein ; which indeed serve the devil, and make men lewd and profane.

36. For though Ishmael was afterwards cast out with his mother Hagar, so that he attained not to the inheritance of Abraham’s goods; the same hath far another figure than reason seeth in it. God set Ishmael to be a prince in the kingdom of nature; and Isaac to be a prince in the kingdom of grace. Ishmael must possess strange [or another sort of] goods, because he was not sprung forth out of the line of the Covenant; and Isaac was of the line of the Covenant; and therefore God gave Isaac Abraham’s goods, viz. the blessed inheri¬ tance, because he was born of the blessing, and out of him the Lord of the goods should come. Therefore he in the meanwhile should be a possessor of the same dominion, until the Lord should come; and Ishmael must be a servant and minister of the same Lord [who was to come after] . 37. For the children of nature are servants in the kingdom of grace, not lords in self-will; they must not with the own self will enter upon the inheritance of the kingdom of Christ; for it lieth not in any man’s own willing, weening, running or going, to will and take the same in their own self-will’s ability; but it lieth in God’s mercy (Rom. ix. 16). It is a kingdom of grace, not a kingdom hereditary to one generation of men only. But God gave it of grace to Abram in his seed.

38. The mocker Ishmael must be cast from the blessed inheritance, for he was not born of the line of inheritance, viz. out of God’s special gift, as Isaac was, who represented the person of Christ. For Christ 1 God. 2 Ishmael. alone should be the heir of God’s blessing, who had the same out of the right of nature; all the rest, one with another, must be as his sojourners: for Japheth must dwell in Shem’s tent, not as a lord and master of the tent, but as a servant. 39. For the person of Isaac also, according to his innate Adamical nature, was no otherwise therein than as a servant; but that he was chosen to be heir, the same was from God, who bestowed it on him as a vicar or deputy of his Lord, who should spring forth out of him; whose property, given of God, he did carry in himself, as in the place or mansion of the Covenant. Understand, he bare Christ in himself in the Covenant of God, and to him alone the goods did belong, out of the right of nature, for he was God’s child by divine nature, and an heir of all whatsoever God had created.

40. But unto all others the heavenly goods did not belong out of a natural right, for they had lost the right of nature in Adam, and attained thereunto only by the free gift and gracious donation of the giver, even by the mercy of God; therefore Ishmael was cast out from the inheritance of Abraham’s peculiar goods; for the figure of Christ’s kingdom to come was here represented. 41. And we may yet see this clearly, sufficiently and fully set forth, in that Abraham lay with an Egyptian strange maid, and begat a son of her out of his seed, viz. out of the essence of his body and soul, and yet afterwards rejected this son from the inheritance; so that we plainly see here the figure of the right children’s inheritance, that none can come to the adoption [or true childship of God], unless he be born out of this Covenant, out of Christ’s flesh and spirit. 42. The old Adamical man, as to its own self-will out of the Serpent’s ens, is wholly rejected and cast away; he is nothing profitable [or wholly unfit] for the kingdom of God, he is only an instrument, whereby God proveth and exerciseth his children, as a besom where¬ with the house is swept.

43. The soul must forsake its own will unto all eternity, and must have a new body born or generated in it out of the heavenly ens, which heavenly ens did disappear in Adam as to God, and was intro¬ duced again thereinto out of Christ’s spirit. 44. The gross introduced bestial property is also alike rejected from the kingdom of God in all men who are born of Adam’s sinful seed, as well in Isaac and Abraham as in Ishmael; but the ens in the Covenant shall live for ever, and at the Last Day it shall again put on the true man created in Adam out of the limus of the earth, which is of the kingdom of this world’s essence; yet not the grossness of the earth, but the ens of the formed word, which hath given forth itself into a creation. 45. The inward ens of Christ (which the soul putteth on it for a heavenly body out of Christ’s spirit, and out of his flesh and blood) is spiritual. It is a spiritual body, which dieth not at the death of the outward man; yea, it is not buried; neither doth it arise again; but in Christ it is dead and buried, and risen again, for all, and in all, and liveth eternally, for he is passed from death to life.

46. And therefore Ishmael came not to the inheritance of his father s goods, for he had not yet put on Christ in the flesh and spirit. But Isaac had put him on in the Covenant, viz. in the incorporated Word, and had Christ now in the Covenant from God’s gift, as a natural right in himself; not from his own power and ability, but from the power of the Giver, even from the power of the Covenant. 47. But now Ishmael must put on the Covenant from Christ, and not from the inherited adoption or childship, as Christ, who had it from God in a childlike [or filial] right. And now Ishmael must do this for the obtaining of it, viz. he must behold himself in the fountain of the seeing and living, as his mother Hagar did, and return again with the lost son to the Father; and fall down before Abraham’s feet, that is, his heir, Isaac, in Christ; and pray that he would receive him into his house (which is Christ’s humanity, viz. the spiritual world), as a servant and day-labourer; for he hath had no more any right to his inheritance; he hath been begotten and born only as a step-brother [or son in law] of a strange mother, viz. of the kingdom of nature.

48. And for their sake Christ came, that he might have mercy on them, for he himself also said, when he was in the flesh, He came not to seek the righteous, but the poor sinner , his brother in Ishmael and Adam, not his line in Isaac; for the whole hath no need of the Physician, but the sick , wounded, poor sinner (Luke v. 3 1, 32). 49. And we will not herein conclude so blindly concerning Pre¬ destination, and Election of Grace, as Babel doth, which teacheth that God hath ordained a certain number and company to damnation, and the rest to salvation. 50. If this were so, then nature must needs be limited, confined, and determined, when it should beget and bring forth a child of God, and nothing would be in the free condition or liberty; yea, God must then confine and shut up his unchangeable [one, infinite] will into a beginning and limit, and nothing at all could be free in the human property, but whatsoever any one did, that must unavoidably so come to pass, let him rob, steal, murder, or blaspheme God, and live as he pleased, it must so be. If this were true, then the Ten Command¬ ments, and all doctrines, teachings and laws were to no purpose, and none need repent, unless God compelled him thereunto.

51. I say, whosoever teacheth so, he useth and taketh the name of God in vain, and horribly profaneth the holy name of God, which is free, from eternity, and offereth itself to all poor sinners, and bids them all come unto him (Matt. xi. 28). 52. The Covenant was indeed established1 in Isaac, viz. the divine might and dominion; but it was given to no man in the line of the Covenant, but only and alone to the Man, Christ, so that none came, out of a peculiar right, to God, but all in the grace of the One; and God did declare his mercy and compassion in Christ unto all, and without him there was no door of grace to the Jews, viz. Abraham s seed, and also to the Gentiles; all are only children received out of grace, and new born in him; and none, either of the Jews or Gentiles, without the life of Christ [are received to mercy] ; all men who have pressed [or earnestly come] into God, viz. to his grace, those he hath all received in the grace which he offereth in Christ. 53. Therefore Christ also prayed for his enemies, which knew him not, but crucified him, that God would forgive them in him, and receive them to favour; in which access all nations who knew not Christ in the flesh, but fly to God’s grace, have an open gate, and are taken into God’s mercy.

54. For, besides2 Christ no man cometh to the childlike inheri¬ tance; to him alone the goods do belong, viz. the hierarchy of men; as he himself also said, Father, the men were thine, but thou hast given them me, and I give unto them the life eternal (John xvii. 6). And therefore it belongs unto him, because he is God’s Son, born of his essence, from eternity. 55. Adam was also God’s natural son, which he created out of his essence. But he lost the childship and the inheritance, and was cast out, and with him all his children; as Ishmael was cast out from the childlike or filial inheritance. 56. For in Abraham the inheritance of the true sonship was again manifested; but Ishmael was not born of the inheritance of the sonship, but of the rejected seed. But now God offered again, out of free grace, his holy inheritance in Abraham, that he would generate the 1 Set forth. 2 Without. rejected seed in this new mother, which gave in itself into Abraham’s seed, again in himself to a childlike seed. 57. Not that the rebellious runagate Adamical will in the selfhood in Ishmael should be received into this mother; no, the same is wholly cast out with Ishmael in all respects from the filial inheritance. He cannot be born anew, unless he die to his self, and [to his] own willing, and come, in a converted will, to God in Christ, as the lost son, who neither wills nor desires anything from a natural proper right, but only that the Lord of the goods would have mercy on him, and receive him again to be a day-labourer. This converted will God doth take in,1 to his gracious, free-given inheritance, viz. into the goods of Abraham in Christ, and maketh it to be heir in Isaac’s goods, viz. in Isaac’s freely given inheritance in Christ.

58. Ishmael was cast out from Abraham’s, viz. from God’s, goods, that he might come unto his son, to whom he gave the whole inheri¬ tance, and entreat him for the filial inheritance; for the natural Adamical man had lost it; and that which was lost was again freely given to the Covenant of Abraham, viz. to the blessed seed, that is, to the man, Christ; and he now doth freely give it unto them who come unto him. 59. All men who come unto God the Father, and pray unto him for the eternal adoption,2 unto all them he giveth the adoption in his son, Christ, unto whom he hath freely granted the whole inheritance, viz. the hierarchy of mankind, viz. the possession of the throne of the angelical world, [even] in the place of this world; and given unto him all the power of rule and dominion ; as he said : All power in heaven and in earth is given to me of my Father (Matt, xxviii. 1 8). 60. For God the Father ruleth the place of this world in his Son, Christ; and all men who now come unto God, they come to him in Christ, who is the Lord, viz. the mouth of his Father.

61. Christ is the staff, wherewith God [guides and] feeds his sheep : in Christ’s voice all poor sinners who turn to God are born to a new will and life; and in the filial birth in Christ’s voice they die wholly unto the own will of selfhood in Christ’s death. 62. For Christ is dead to the human selfhood in the Father’s anger, and buried with the will of self in the eternal death; and is risen again in his Father’s will, and liveth and ruleth to all eternity in his Father’s will. 63. God the Father introduced his voice and word, viz. his 1 Text, engraft, or in-linage. 2 Or sonship. manifestation, into the seed of Abraham, viz. into man s will of self; and brought that will of the human selfhood, with his own introduced voice, into the death and into hell, which death and hell were manifest in the selfhood of man’s own will ; and in the power of his manifested voice, he did destroy the death and hell in the voice and word of man s selfhood; so that man should not any more will to himself, but what he now willeth, the same he must will in the manifested voice of God.

64. So long as Ishmael willed1 in the voice of his scorning con¬ temning self, he could not be heir of these introduced, free-given goods: but when he hath turned to God, and forsaken the will of self, then God also sendeth the angel to him, even while he is in his mother’s womb; and saith, Return again to the free ; and humble thyself under her hand, and thou shalt live (Gen. xvi. 9). 65. For Ishmael was run away from God in the womb; which signifies the fugitive runagate nature of man in selfhood; and in the mother’s womb God sent him an angel to recall him. Noting, that all wicked men are called inwardly by the voice of God while they are yet in the womb, and also the time of their whole life, in their own essence and being; only, the natural will of selfhood stoppeth its hearing, so that the voice of God is not manifest therein. 66. That is, like as the sun shineth all the day long, and giveth itself unto every essence which will but receive its power; so likewise the voice of God soundeth through all men, to recall [and reclaim] them, the whole time of their life: so soon as the seed is sown in the womb, the voice of God is sounding [or working] therein to a good fruit. But on the contrary, also the voice of God’s anger soundeth in the essence of man’s selfhood; there is a continual combat betwixt them; as with heat and cold; that which gets victory, of that is the fruit; this strife continueth as long as man liveth in this world.

67. Therefore we declare with good ground, that men ought not to make conclusions concerning the children of God’s saints; as if God had so, out of his purpose, begotten one to condemnation, and hardened him that he could not come to the adoption; and chosen in himself another, that he could not be lost; it is a mere groundless fiction. [There is no footing or foundation at all for it, either in the book of nature or in the holy Scripture, it proceeds from the abyss and bottomless smoky pit of darkness and hypocrisy.] 68. By the tribes2 of the saints (in whom the divine Covenant hath opened itself, viz. by the patriarchs, as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, 1 Or, would take the inheritance. 2 Or, the steins. and Jacob) there are always two figures represented, viz. Christ, and Adam, a good, and an evil man. 69. Cain, Ham, Ishmael and Esau, were types of the corrupt man, and Abel, Shem, Isaac and Jacob, were types of Christ, who opened himself in this line, and set himself forth before the corrupt children of Adam as a light and preacher, to convert them. 70. For God hath not sent his Son to condemn the world (John iii. 17), viz. the poor corrupt man, but he hath therefore sent him into the world among the Godless crew of evil men, to teach and call them; and those who have a willing desire to hear he will save. Even those that have but a sparkle of the divine ens in them, which is capable of hearing, the quickening and renewing voice of Christ doth cry and call in that little spark which is in all these; that is, it bloweth up that little spark, that it may become a divine fire.

71. And that we may open wide the eyes of the blind, self-named Christendom, and also of the Jews in their boasting, that they may not so brag, and stand upon their knowledge, as if they alone were the children of God, because they know the name of God, and flatter themselves with the knowing it, and condemn other people, who are deprived of knowing as they know, and have introduced another knowledge, as they, alas ! do most blindly; in so much, that one nation and people doth exercise [or evilly entreat] another : Know, that Cain, Ham, Ishmael and Esau, are the types of the Turks and heathen, whom God blessed in Ishmael; and gave them to possess the princely dominions in his kingdom of this world, and cast them out in their own contrived knowledge from the knowledge of the adoption1 of Christ; as he cast out Ishmael; but recalls them in the womb, by the angel of the great counsel, unto the free, viz. to God’s goods, that they should return to him. 72. For they lie shut up under the veil of Christ, as Christ did under the Levitical priesthood under Moses; and as the Children of Israel under the Law were not justified through the Law, but through him who was hidden under the Law, and thus they are now hidden under the true knowledge, and lie as it were shut up in the mother’s womb.

73. But the angel of the great counsel calls them by their mother, Hagar, viz. by the kingdom of nature; that she (the mother and her child) should return home to Sarah, viz. to the free, that is, to the one only God, who hath born his Son of the free. Thus they come as it were under the veil in the mother’s womb to the free, viz. to the one only God; who hath born unto them, of the free [woman], the true Lord, (unto whose goods they, being strangers, are received in grace), as sojourners. 74. For as Ishmael did not go to Isaac for the inheritance, which did of right belong to Isaac (because the Lord was in him, who freely bestowed it upon him, and set him as a steward), but would have it of the Father; even so the Turks have turned themselves from Isaac, viz. from the Son, to the Father, and will have the inheritance of God from the Father. 75. Now the Father is manifested [to us] in the Son; and when they now do call upon the Father, he heareth them only in his Son, viz. in his voice manifest in the human property, and they yet serve the Son in the Father.