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

76. For we men have no other God at all without Christ the Son; for the Father hath manifested himself towards us with his voice in the Son, and heareth us only through his voice manifested in the Son. 77. Now when the Turks worship the Father, he heareth them in the Son, and receiveth them to adoption only in the Son, in whom God hath only alone once more manifested himself in the human property, and in no other property besides. 78. Now saith reason, how can they attain to the adoption of Christ, when as they will not have the Son to be the Son of God, and say, that God hath no Son. Hear, O man, Christ said, Whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, to him it shall he forgiven ; but he that blasphemeth the Holy Ghost, to him it shall never be forgiven (Matt. xii. 32): that is, as much as if he should say : 79. Whosoever reproacheth the humanity of Christ in ignorance, [considering of it] as his own flesh, to him it may be forgiven; for he knoweth not what the humanity of Christ is. But he that blasphemeth the Holy Ghost, viz. the only God, who hath manifested himself in the humanity, wherein Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are one only God, he hath no forgiveness for evermore. That is, he that rejecteth the only God, he hath quite broken himself off from him, into an ownhood of self.

80. Now the Turks do not blaspheme the Holy Spirit, who manifested himself in the humanity, but they reproach the humanity, and say a creature cannot be God. 81. But that God hath wrought, and done wonders1 in Christ, that they confess, and blaspheme not the Spirit which hath wrought in Christ, viz. in the humanity. Blindness is happened unto them, so that they walk under a veil. 82. Now saith reason, God hath taken away the candlestick from them, and rejected them. Hear, O man, what was the cause that God (as he threatened by St John) did take away the candlestick from them, and shut them up under the veil. Thinkest thou that it was done without his foreknowledge, without his will? No, it was done with his will. 83 . He permitted the kingdom of nature to give them a doctrine of reason ; seeing Christendom became blind in their reason, in respect of Christ’s person, and did wrangle and jangle about Christ’s humanity, and put all manner of scorn, reproach and disgrace upon his person; as it fell out among the Arians, when they denied his deity, and the bishops in their covetousness did apply his merits in his humanity for the belly’s sake to their belly orders, and did practice all manner of lewdness and profaneness, even with swearing, cursing, and juggling and sorcery by his suffering and holy wounds; so that there the holy name of God, which had manifested itself in the humanity, was abused; thereupon God did hide himself from them in their understanding, so that first they became blind with the Arians in respect of the deity of Christ.

84. But afterwards, when as they would be only blind beasts, he hid himself also from them in respect of the humanity by the Turkish religion,1 so that they were wholly deprived of the candlestick of the world, and it went with them, as the prophet said to Israel under their king : Ah ! I must give thee judges, as informer times (Isa. i. 26). 85. Thus the king of light in the humanity was withdrawn from them, and the judicature of nature was given them again for a guide and governor; so that they returned again into the mother’s womb, viz. into the root, out of which man was created, that is, to the only God; so that the name and knowledge of the holy humanity of Christ is yet put out with them. 86. And that they might not use the same so vainly, and uneffectually for swearing, and false defence [or covering], they must again enter into Hagar, as into the mother’s womb; and have now verily been a long time a people run away in their mother Hagar from Abraham’s house, viz. from the humanity of Christ. 87. But know and declare this as a word of the Most High, known

1 The doctrine of Mahomet, or the Alcoran. in the sound of his trumpet, which he hath prepared to awaken all nations, and to visit the face of the whole earth: That the angel of the great counsel, viz. the holy voice of Christ, is not departed from them, eternally to forget them, so little as a mother can forget her child, that she should not have pity upon the son of her womb, albeit he were disobedient to her. 88. For as the angel came to Ishmael [being yet in the womb] when his mother fled from Sarah, and did enrich him with a blessing and worldly dominions, and bade the mother with the child return to Sarah; thus likewise when the Eastern Countries entered again into the mother’s womb, with their knowledge of religion, God gave unto them, in the kingdom of nature, power and authority over the princely dominions of the world, for to possess and rule them under the light of nature, till its time; and then they shall come in again with great joy, and with great humility, to Abraham, viz. to Christ. 89. And not in the form of the Babylonical, formal, literal Christen¬ dom, in their invented and contrived orders, which are only letter1 Christians (so that a testimony [or some outward footsteps] of Christ and his kingdom have still continued upon the earth), but they shall be born in spirit, and in power; for they are the lost son, which is wandered away from the Father, and is become the swineherd.

90. But when the angel shall bid them return, they come in the humility of the lost son returning to the Father. And then there will be great joy celebrated by Christ and his angels, that the dead is made alive, and the lost is again found, and the true golden jubilee-year of the marriage of the Lamb ariseth up among them. 91. And albeit the elder brother (who hath continued in the letter) doth grumble at it, in respect of the different form which he hath made to himself (for the most part for his belly and honour), yet they are not moved at it; they are merry with the Father. 92. Now then, if we truly compare counterfeit2 Christendom and the Turks together, and look upon them aright, then we see that they (since the Turks departed from them) have been but one people, before God in righteousness and holiness, with different names. 93. And they are the two sons, to one whereof the Father said, Go and do this ; and he said, Tea, but did it not-, and to the other also, Do this, and he said, No, but did it (Matt. xxi. 28-3 1). Which doth so highly advance or set forth the Turks in the kingdom of nature, which the blind Christian world doth not understand.

1 Verbal, outside. 2 Painted. 94. Not that we justify the Turks, and say that they should remain in their blindness. No, but to the counterfeit1 [verbal] Christians we declare, that they are alike [with the Turks] before God, in that they are as blind as to Christ’s kingdom as the Turks. As it plainly shews itself, in that Christendom is full of strife and contention about Christ’s deity, and humanity; and abominably profaneth the holy name in his humanity; and uses it only for a form and custom to swear [and covenant by] also to idolatry [and hypocrisy], and is gone from the sword of the Holy Spirit, unto a bloodthirsty confounding sword, wherein is nothing but contending, and contemning one another; and the whole titular Christendom is turned into mere sects and orders, where one sect doth despise and brand another for unrighteous. And thus they have made of Christen¬ dom a mere murdering den, full of blasphemies about Christ’s person; and have bound the spirit of Christ, (in which a Christian should live in deepest humility), to the forms and orders of disputation; and have set foolish reason to be a master of the understanding2 above Christ’s kingdom.

95. But ought we to speak so of Christendom and the Turks as if they were alike? Thus we say, The Turk is openly an Ishmaelite, and a mocker of Christ’s humanity, and holdeth him not for the Son of God and for the son of man, jointly; for he understands not the heavenly ens in the person. 96. But the sects of Christendom do indeed cover themselves with Christ’s mantle, but do attack him in his humanity and deity, and revile him in his whole person ; tear and rend one another [with words, and swords] about his person ; the one will have it this way, another that way, every one will be master over his words and spirit; and deride Christ in his members, and are as revolting rebellious and fugitive Ishmaelites as the Turks, and live in their selfish will; and serve the kingdom of nature in their selfhood, and worldly interests and pleasure. 97. A Christian should be dead with Christ to self; and be risen again in Christ; and be born anew of Christ, and put on Christ; that so he might be a Christian in Christ, in the spirit and heavenly flesh of Christ, according to the internal spiritual man.

98. But instead hereof men have put on Babel and the Antichrist; and do boast themselves of their ordinances [and of the divine orders 2 Or, to judge what the meaning of the Holy Spirit is in the Scripture. in the performances of devout duties in lip-labour and much prating], and in the stone houses of the churches, cathedrals and cloisters of Christendom; where indeed they do counterfeit somewhat of Christ, seeing that they there read the writings which the Apostles left behind them; but afterwards in their preaching, for the most part they foist in the kingdom and government of nature, with brawling, and disputing; and spend the time with disputing, confuting, and contending about sects [and their different mental idols and opinions], in so much that one party is brought wholly to condemn another, and the ears [and hearts] of the hearers are so infected with gall and bitter¬ ness that one sect wilfully opposeth another, and cries it down for devilish; whence nothing but wars, and disdainful provocations do arise, to the desolating of countries and cities. 99. Thus they are alike before God, and lie as it were shut up in Hagar, in the dead reason; except the true children of God, which verily are here and there to be found among all nations and sects, but wholly simple, and despised; also covered under Christ’s cross, to the reasonwise world.

100. For as the four elements receive the powerful influence of the sun, and we see in the substance the body, but not the sun, although it worketh therein ; so likewise the spirit of Christ is hid in the children of God. But as a herb springing from the earth doth by the virtue of the sun put forth a fair blossom and fruit, so also God’s children out of their disregarded form [or homeliness, to the lewd world’s or prating hypocrite’s eye, do bring forth the fair fruits of humility and piety]. Of the Seal of the Covenant of Circumcision, i. xx then God had made a Covenant with Abram,1 and blessed VV him, and made him a father of many nations, which should be blessed through him, viz. by Abram’s blessing in the Covenant, then he gave him the seal of the Covenant, viz. the sign and the figure upon what ens the blessing passed 5 and shewed him in this figure, what in man should inherit and possess the eternal blessing; that is to say, not the gross earthly bestial man, which is conceived and born in the lust of the flesh, out of the bestial lust of man and woman; which did involve or insinuate itself into Adam, according to the brutish and bestial property of the divided life’s essence. Upon this the Covenant and blessing doth not pass; but upon the ens of the Word formed out of the heavenly world’s property, out of the limus of the earth; not upon the introduced Serpent’s ens out of the dark world’s ens and property; but upon the soul, and its right body, which was created to it in Adam.

2. And we here see by the circumcision the types that the bestial copulation of man and woman is an abomination before the holiness of God, which yet is borne withal, by divine patience and permission, seeing now it cannot be otherwise with man, he having lost the magical birth of Paradise. For here God set forth the figure in the circumcision, that every male must be circumcised on this member of the propagation of the masculine seed, in that man soweth his own will out of the property of nature in his seed; therefore God set forth the figure with the circumcision, both of the earthly seed, and also of the member and will. For the spirit in the Covenant must cut off, through Christ’s death, this figure in the inward spiritual man, together with this bestial will and desire. 3 . For the bestial gross earthly seed of the man or woman shall not put on the Covenant and blessing, as Christ also said; but he who is not born of the will of man, nor of the flesh, but of God (John i. 13). The bestial birth, with its members, must be cut off through the temporal death; and die in the spiritual birth through Christ’s death, and be buried in the eternal death, viz. in the nothing.

4. But seeing the Covenant of God had incorporated itself in Abraham’s seed to a propagation, God did here set before him by the circumcision the person of Christ, in whose death this beast and monster should die, and out of his death a new angelical form should come forth. For the circumcision was not the atonement, but the apprehended [or conceived] ens of faith was the atonement; out of which ens of faith Christ should be born; but the circumcision was the sign that the ens of faith in the Word of God, should cut off the earthly seed. 5. For the living Word of God looked into the Covenant; and in the Covenant the human seed of the heavenly part lay disappeared; and in the disappeared ens stood the aim or limit of the new regenera¬ tion in Christ’s motion, where the Word of the divine tincture and power would again move itself in the true humanity created in Adam; and also it did move itself in the spirit of the children of faith, so that they were received and accepted of God in the spirit (upon the promise of the motion or manifestation of the shut-up ens) as dear innate children.

6. Not that they had put on Christ in the flesh before his manifesta¬ tion, but indeed the same ens in their faith; and this same received or intaken ens of faith was the circumcision, which circumcised the heart and mind, and rent in twain the sinful veil; and pointed at the cutting off of the earthly introduced Serpent’s ens in Adam, viz. of the earthly seed, and the earthly members to the bestial propagation; it shewed that Christ (when the incorporated ens of faith should manifest itself in the humanity) should and would cut off this beast, and destroy the life of death and hell therein. 7. We must not look upon the circumcision only and barely as a sign or figure, for it is the seal of the Covenant, which stood as a seal imprinted on the ens of faith, for the spirit of the promised word to the new birth was in the seal, as among the Christians it is in the seal ofBaptism. 8. And therefore God said, that soul that shall contemn this Covenant shall be rooted out from among his people, and commanded the natives and strangers to be circumcised, although they were not of the seed of Abraham, to signify that the Covenant passed upon all people who would but receive the ens of faith; even there the circum¬ cision should be done.

9. For that was not the right circumcision which was done out¬ wardly on the flesh, but it was the sign only of the circumcision; the true circumcision was effected in the ens of faith, in the Covenant, in the power of the Word and Holy Spirit, where the Word, in the spirit of Christ, doth cut off the Serpent’s ens from the right human ens of the heavenly part; viz. it cuts off the ens of the dark world, introduced and insinuated through Adam’s evil desire, and the devil’s in-flying poisonful desire. 10. The baptism of the Christians, and the circumcision of the Jews hold wholly one and the same right. Among the Jews the circumcision was effected or performed in the Word of power, the Holy Spirit baptised them with the holy fire’s baptism, understand, it baptised their true man, corrupt [and withered] in Adam, the same was tinctured with this baptism, viz. in the ens of faith; for the ens of faith was the baptism of the Jews, where the Holy Spirit did inwardly baptise them unto Christ’s humanity. 11. But now seeing this same word of faith (viz. the ens of faith) hath put on the humanity, and quickened it in itself to life; this same spirit doth now baptise with water, pointing at the humanity of Christ; for the water of eternal life, viz. the heavenly world’s sub¬ stance, was disappeared in Adam, and made alive again in Christ’s heavenly ens, (being also the water of the heavenly powers) intro¬ duced into our (in him assumed) humanity; therefore the humanity of Christ was the first-born from the dead.

12. And with this same heavenly water, which God’s word and power introduced into the humanity of Christ from heaven (under¬ stand from the holy spiritual world, viz. from the second Principle) the Holy Spirit of Christ doth baptise the Christians in their baptism of water; which externally is also but a sign of the internal seal, in which seal the Holy Ghost baptiseth. 13. And therefore Christ hath appointed the seal of the circum¬ cision into a baptism of water; seeing the fire-baptism in the Covenant is become manifest in the water of life in the humanity; so that this fire-baptism, viz. the flaming love-word, is made flesh. Therefore Christ said, We must now be born anew through the water and spirit, else we shall not see God (John iii. 5). 14. For in the water wherein the flaming love-Word in the ens of the Covenant hath manifested itself in our heavenly disappeared water (which is become incarnate) all the children of Christ must be new born, and take this water in their faith’s desire; in which water the eternal flaming love-Word of God hath incorporated itself. This same water baptiseth the inward man which disappeared in Adam to

the new regeneration; and the earthly bestial half-serpentine-anddevilish man to mortification and death;1 it circumciseth the poor captive soul, and putteth the Covenant and humanity of Christ upon it in the inward spiritual man, now disappeared or withered as to the kingdom of heaven. 15. Understand it aright, ye Jews and Christians; you have but one only baptism; the Jew is baptised inwardly on the soul in the ens of the Covenant, and circumcised on the disappeared ens of the right heavenly humanity, viz. the Serpent’s ens is cut off from the heavenly ens in the power of the Word, and the flaming love-spirit in the ens of the Word tinctureth the true humanity, and baptiseth it with the in-taken or conceived ens of faith; the faith, in the spirit of God, baptiseth it with its heavenly water. 16. And the Christian is baptised even with the same very word and water in the faith; it is wholly one and the same; only, this is the [external] difference: that God hath appointed and established the Covenant of circumcision in the baptism of water; seeing that this fire-baptism hath manifested itself in Christ’s humanity in the water oflife. 17. And that you may yet see, that they are both one, Christ was circumcised as a Jew, and was baptised as a Christian; thereby to declare that he, in his love, revealed in the humanity, had manifested the fire-baptism in the water, viz. in great meekness and longsufferance, and changed them into one.

18. The ens of faith was not yet become incarnate among the Jews, therefore God gave them the sign of the inward circumcision by the cutting off of the outward foreskin, that so they might have a sign that the Holy Spirit, in the ens of faith in the Covenant, would cut off their sinful birth ; whereby they were the children of grace in the ens of faith. 19. But this same ens of faith was first made flesh among the Christians in Christ’s humanity, and is also now incarnate in the children of faith in their true man. The Christians do now in their faith’s desire put on Christ (viz. this ens of faith, which the Jews did also put on in the flesh) in the heavenly flesh, viz. in the heavenly living water in the divine manifestation. 20. This water is the heaven, wherein the only holy element is the motion and essence; it is Christ’s, viz. God’s, holy corporeity, viz. the formed wisdom of the forth-breathed or formed word of the divine 1 Note how we are baptised into death. powers, God’s living, eternal-speaking Word, which is a spirit, and the divine understanding; which again attracteth to itself its own forth-breathed essence, viz. the forming of its wisdom.

21. The Father’s will draweth the soul, which is a fire-breath out of its fire-spirit, unto itself; and the Son’s will draweth the noble image created out of the wisdom, viz. out of the heavenly essence, to itself; and the Holy Spirit draweth the whole moving human under¬ standing to itself, so that it is a God-Man, and a Man-God, God made manifest in an image; and this is the image of God. And thus also the circumcision and the baptism is to be understood, which in both is the ground and chief cornerstone to the new birth, among the Jews, and Christians. 22. Now in that the males were to be circumcised,1 and not the females, and yet all are to be baptised among the Christians, is thus to be understood, as followeth. Mark it aright, ye Jews and Christians, and all other nations, we tell and declare it unto you all, for ye are hereby called; the time is come about that the Antichrist must die. 23. Adam was the image of God, he was man and woman, and yet neither of them before his Eve, but a masculine virgin in peculiar love, full of chastity and purity. The tinctures, viz. the power of the fire and light, according to the property of the Father and Son, were both in each other as one, in an incessant conjunction of desire, wherein stood the peculiar fiery love-desire.

24. But seeing the devil assailed the property of the fire’s tincture, and brought his false desire thereinto, so that the fire’s tincture was divided in the properties of the eternal nature, each property on the centre gave itself forth into its selfhood, whence the selfly revolted will and the false lust did arise; which lust desired to prove the dark world’s essence, viz. the earthly essence out of the dark world’s desire, and to taste in itself how the same would relish, if evil and good (each manifest in itself) were together, viz. in the dis-temperature without the divine One. Hereupon the false fiery desire shut up the property of the light’s tincture with the introduced vanity of the devil’s desire, and with the earthly hunger after the vanity (proceeding from the dark world’s essence) in the earth, and in the elements, so that the heavenly female or right virgin-like life was extinct in the ens of the light. 25. For the Holy Spirit departed from the introduced vanity; and so the holy matrix, viz. the heavenly generatress, disappeared, and the 1 Note. — Why males alone circumcised. Why males and females both baptised. mother of the outward nature, viz. the outward natural woman, (understand the property of the woman), got the upper dominion in the birth: so that Adam must now be divided and figured into a man and woman.

26. But seeing the fiery property of the tincture (which now hath the dominion in the man, and is called man by reason of the Father s property) was the cause of the poisonful infection ; so that the tincture of Venus, viz. of the woman, or the light, was mortified; and seeing he introduced in himself the abomination of lust into the woman’s property, (whereby afterwards the woman, viz. his Eve, did so eagerly lust after evil and good, and began the earthly eating). Thereupon we are here to consider, that this same fire’s soul, viz. the man’s tincture, must be baptised again with the divine love-fire, that so it might not introduce the ens of the devil and Serpent, insinuated into the mas¬ culine seed, so poisonful, into the woman’s matrix; it must be tinc¬ tured and baptised again with the divine love-tincture, viz. with the holy love-ens, which came to pass in the ens of faith, in the promised incorporated Word of the power of God. 27. But the woman, viz. Adam’s virginity, was now transformed or formed out of Adam’s nature and essence into a woman or manness, and in her the holy virginity disappeared as to God, viz. the tincture of the love and light did still remain, but as it were dead or dis¬ appeared; for the outward mother, viz. the elementary mother, lived now in its stead in her, and was the generatress of nature, which must receive Adam’s, viz. the man’s, seed into itself.

28. Into this disappeared heavenly tincture of the light, viz. into the true holy virginity, the eternal holy Word of the power of God, which had created Adam into an image of God, did promise in-hest, and incorporate itself, with a Covenant, to bruise the head of the devil and the Serpent’s ens. 29. Thus understand us here very accurately. Like as the Father generateth the Son; and as out of Adam (who betokens the Father’s property) the woman, viz. his love-tincture, was taken; and as before, while the woman was in the man, the fire’s tincture penetrated into the light’s tincture, and loved itself therein; and as man and woman are one body — so likewise the fire-baptism of the circumcision went forth out of the man’s fire tincture into his female tincture in the woman. God baptised the fire’s tincture in the man, and out of the man’s seed cometh both the male and the female sex. 30. Thus the man’s Covenant and baptism entered into the woman, viz. into the female property, for the woman’s tincture had in it already the holy ens in the Covenant, that God’s Word in the Covenant would become man, in her shut up [barren] ens, and quicken again therein the disappeared virginity.

31. Therefore the woman must not put on the seal of baptism in her own peculiar will or desire, but have it from the man, seeing she was taken from the man; that so she might become a right woman [or manness] in the man’s baptism, that so the image of God in her might obtain the fire’s baptism and tincture from the man. 32. For St Paul understood this very well, when he said, The woman shall be saved by bearing of children, if she continues in the Covenant, and in the love (1 Tim. ii. 15). For the woman hath her soul from the man’s soul; and when she is given to the man, then she is one body with him, and brings forth children to the man; she is his woman, his instrument, a half-man ; and the man a half- woman. 33. And that the man’s property might again obtain the perfect love, viz. the female ens, and the woman the masculine ens, the Floly Spirit baptized the man’s, viz. the fire’s tincture, with the heavenly holy virgin-like tincture; and the man baptised the woman’s essence in his seed with the fiery and also divine tincture. Therefore God commanded the males alone to be circumcised.

34. For in the Jews’ fire-baptism the Spirit alone baptised, without water, but among the Christians the Spirit baptiseth through water; the Jewish women could put on the Spirit indeed in the man’s fire-tincture. But now, seeing this same fire-wood1 is become flesh, they ought now of right also to put on Christ in the flesh, and be baptised ; for their heavenly disappeared virginity must also put on Christ’s introduced heavenly virginity, so that they might be true manlike virgins in the spirit and essence of Christ. 35. Now reason asketh further, Wherefore must the male children be circumcised just on the eighth day? Why must it not be either sooner, or later? Did it not lie in man’s choice and power to delay the same, if it were weak? Herein is contained the mystery and wonder. Dear brethren, cease from the contention of the letter, and learn to understand the hidden mysteries; we shall deal with you in a child¬ like manner; do but look us in the face, from whence we come, and whence it is that we know and understand all this. 36. God commanded the boys to be circumcised upon the eighth day, and wherefore? Six days are the man in nature, the seventh is

the day of rest in him, viz. the heavenly disappeared ens, wherein the six spirits of nature do work; as God made the creation in six days, viz. out of the six properties of nature, and brought them to rest into the seventh, viz. into the emanation or flowing forth of the heavenly ens, which God hath co-imprinted into the compaction of the creation, which is the rest, and right life, of the six properties. 37. Thus man hath gotten seven days for his own, the seventh is his day of rest. Understand, the seventh property is the heavenly nature, which died in him, whereby he came into disquietness; there¬ fore the eighth day came out of mere grace to help him, and gave itself again into his seven working days, viz. into the seven properties of his own essence; and this day is Christ, in the circumcision and in the baptism. 38. For God in this process holdeth the order with the regenera¬ tion of man, in manner and nature as he created him out of seven days. Understand, in six days his natural life was brought into an image out of the six properties of the inward and outward nature, and the seventh property was the Paradise, viz. the Saturday,1 in which the six spirits of nature (in their operation) were reconciled and atoned, for it was the spiritual world.

39. And hence arose that command unto the Jews, that they should sanctify and rest, even externally, on the Saturday, viz. the Sabbath, to signify the inward holy eternal Sabbath, in which the spirit oi God worketh in man and every creature, in each according to its property; for every created being resteth in him. 40. And therefore he commanded the male children to be circum¬ cised on the eighth day, viz. in himself, for he himself is this eighth day which circumciseth. For before Christ’s humanity the process went in the form of nature; but seeing now Christ hath fulfilled the nature of man, and given himself into the seven days of man’s property, children may now be baptised every [or any] day. 41. We see here a very excellent figure, by the beginning [or first institution] of the circumcision and Covenant of the fire-baptism, against the makers of the reason-conclusions upon the letter, who will needs have it, that some children are damned from the womb, and even therefore, because they are taken and born out of the corrupt ens of nature: For Ishmael, who was by nature a mocker, and capti¬ vated in the poisonful and corrupt Adamical ens, even he must be

bear it. See ch. 1 6 of this book, par. 1 6, 1 7 etc. the first man which Abraham circumciseth; who was baptised in the Covenant. 42. Ye reason-wise, I pray you set this looking-glass before your eyes, and think what you do with your conclusions concerning predestination! We shew it you in humility. If you will not see, it shall be shewn you with fire, which is certainly known. For Christ came for Ishmael’s sake, and for those that are like to him, to help, and save them, if they would themselves. But in Isaac shall the seed be called, viz. the eighth day, which is come to help the other six days, and introduce them again into the seventh, viz. into the day of rest. 43. Dear brethren, be instructed aright: The God of love, he will not the death of the poor corrupt man, but hath poured forth his best treasure (which he had in himself, and is himself) in grace over all men; like as the sun doth shine unto the good, and evil. But the wicked doth corrupt and spoil the treasure in himself,1 and will not receive it; but taketh in the ens of the Serpent, full of vanity, and is baptised with the fire of God’s anger in the will of self.

44. But if he went with his own will into the death of Christ, and desired from the bottom of his heart to die unto his selfhood and own will, in God’s mercy, and cast his whole trust and confidence in God, and thought that he had nothing of his own, in this earthly cottage, but that he was only a servant and steward of God and his neighbour in all that he hath and possesseth, and forsook the propriety [and selfish interest] thereof in his mind, he would soon be baptised with the Holy Spirit, and put on Christ in his will. 45. But these mischievous earthly temporal goods, temporal honour, and pleasure of the flesh, captivate him in the ens of the Serpent, so that he is not capable of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. 46. Also the self-elected, unfitted, and unprofitable teachers [trained up in the school of the disputing reason, and chosen by the favour of man] are wholly blind herein, and teach only of the husk or outward vessel of the regeneration. They will needs be outwardly adopted children [forsooth! by an external imputation of grace], albeit they live only in the will of self; they will preach the Holy Spirit into the beast of self will, which yet is no ways capable of the [Holy] Spirit. They understand nothing fundamentally, either of the baptism, or the Lord’s Supper; the new birth is strange unto them; they deny the divine essential in-dwelling in God’s children, viz. the Temple of God, and so stand before the Jews, when they should

1 His precious image. declare unto them, What Christ is IN US, and what baptism and the Lord’s Supper is, just as pictured Christians, or as idols. 47. For the Jews know that God hath spoken with their fathers, and given them the circumcision, and the Covenant: there they stick. But could the Christians fundamentally demonstrate to them what the Covenant and circumcision is, essentially and effectually, together with their offerings,1 they would forsake the sign, and enter into the substance. 48. But that it hath so fallen out, that both the Jews, and also the Christians, have walked in blindness, even till this last time, and so also the Turks, who, by reason of the blindness, contention, and un¬ godliness of the Christians, have turned themselves unto reason and nature. God hath therefore permitted it, because the Christians and Jews, both in the Old and New Testament, received and appropriated to themselves the Covenant, and the seal of the Covenant in the outward shell only, viz. in the vessel [or literal notion and apprehen¬ sion], and lived only to the outward earthly mortal man. They always minded and provided for the earthly kingdom and life, more than for the eternal.

49. They would understand in the husk, viz. in the outward letter, what God hath spoken; and chose to themselves reason- wise people, which were gifted in the outward, formal, logical and notional understanding of the letter, who had not the spirit and power of God’s Word and life in the new birth in them; but only the spirit of self, pride, and the earthly belly-god, contriving thereby how they might be rich, in Christ’s poverty, upon the earth. These men have blinded them, so that both among the Jews and Christians men have minded and loved only the earthly ens’ life. 50. Therefore God hath permitted that the wonders of nature in the power of his anger should be opened [and brought forth in them], and that they should thus stick in blindness, yet in controversy and contests (so that the name and memory of his Covenant might not quite be extinguished), and one nation hath by reason thereof exercised and evilly entreated another in the contention and con¬ trariety; whereby oftentimes a fair green twig hath sprung from the [right] understanding, which hath been strange unto them, by reason of their received opinion, and they have contemned and persecuted it; for the earthly man in self is not worthy of the holy Covenant and seal.

51. And seeing God knew very well that they would run of them¬ selves without being sent of him, and would abuse the holy ens in the Covenant; thereupon the veil of Moses hath beset the Jews, and the Tower of Babel, with the Antichrist (viz. the outward Christ instead of the holy ens in the Covenant, that is, God’s presence), the Chris¬ tians; so that they have been evermore seeking, in this Antichrist, what God is, in his Covenant, will, and essence. 52. Thus they have been exercised in contention and persecution, in that they have persecuted one another, yet so, as that God’s children have sprung forth in the cross, and Christ hath been in¬ wardly manifest to them; but outwardly Babel hath yet stood both among the Jews, Christians and Turks. The Antichrist is only the same among all, for he is the titular or letter god, wherein the self-will seeketh and worshippeth God in the husk. 53. Hear, therefore, ye Christians, Jews, Turks and Heathen, even all nations of the earth, what now (yet once more for a farewell in this world’s being) is freely tendered unto you, in the visitation of the merciful God in the voice of his trumpet, by his love- will and spirit. The sound of the trumpet concerns you all; let it enter into your ears, and do but open your ears and hearts a little from self, and then you shall hear the sound in you : it soundeth through all, even to the ends of the earth, but no self-will hears it.

54. The only divine way, wherein man may see God in his word, being, and will, is this: that man become wholly one in himself; and in his own will forsake all, whatsoever he himself is or hath, let it be authority, might, power, honour, beauty, riches, money, goods, father, mother, brother, sister, wife and child, body, and life, and become wholly a nothing to himself. He must freely resign up all, and be poorer than a bird in the air, which yet hath a nest, the true man must have none; for he must travel away from this world, that so he be no more to himself in this world. He must be a nothing to the world’s self [and interests] ; for the substance of this world which he possesseth for a propriety, is the Tower of Babel, and the Antichrist, wherein men will be their own god; and with this self-made god they will ascend upon the Tower to heaven, and place themselves for God.1 Understand it thus : 55. It is not meant that one should run from house and home, from wife, children, and kindred, and fly out of the world, or so to forsake his goods as not to regard them ; but the own self-will, which

1 Or, with God. possesseth all this for a propriety, that he must kill, and annihilate. 56. And think, that all that of which he is a master, is not at all his own; let him thrive or go behindhand, gain or lose, be rich or poor, wise or simple, high or low; let him have something or nothing. Let him esteem all these things alike; a fair garment as a coarse patched one; the prosperity of this world as the adversity; life as death; his authority as a servant’s place; a kingly crown as an old hat; and forsake it all in his mind, and not account it for his own. 57. But think, and wholly resign up his will thereinto, that he is but a servant of all whatsoever he hath; and is only a steward in that calling, profession, office and order wherein he is; that it is God’s and his brethren’s in common, that he only serveth God and his brethren therein. And let him look that whatsoever is conferred and put upon him, be so received of him and managed by him, as that it may con¬ duce to the general brotherly order and profession, that God may make such orders in this world, as a figure of the angelical world, that so he might serve him therein.

58. And not at all insinuate his mind into selfhood, as to think (let him be either king, counsellor, or judge of the people) that he is therefore better before God, or before man. He must continually look upon his naked bosom, and think, that one naked man doth always resemble and is like another; and also that his gown of state, and office over which he hath charge, is the brotherly society’s. 59. And all whatsoever is bestowed and conferred upon him, either for honour, power, wealth and goods, to return and give it back again to God his creator, and say [unfeignedly] in his mind: Lord, it is thine, I am unworthy to have command over it, but seeing thou hast placed me therein, I wholly and fully resign up my will unto thee; govern and work thou by me as thou pleasest, that it may be done in thy will, and conduce to the profit and service of my brethren, whom I serve in my calling, as thy command. Do thou, O Lord, all, through me, and say only in me, how and to what I ought to direct the works of my hands; to whom I should give and bestow money, goods, power and honour. And thus [he should] continually think how he, in his place, may please and pleasure, not himself, but his brethren.

60. But if he be a servant, then let him think that he serveth God in his will, and men in God’s, and the general brotherly function; and that, in that little which God hath given him in this cottage for food and raiment, [he] is as rich as a king. For if he looks upon himself naked, he seeth the truth. 61. And when man bringeth it so far, that all is one unto him [that he is able to esteem all things alike, and be content with any condition, as St Paul teacheth], then he is [as] the poor Christ, Who had not whereon to lay his head (Matt. viii. 20); and rightly followeth Christ, who said, He that forsaketh not house, court, monies, goods, brethren, sisters, wife and child, and denieth himself, he is not worthy of me (Matt. x. 37; xix. 29). 62. And for this self and unworthiness’ sake God hath turned away his holy countenance from the nations, so that they have known him only through a dark word and shadow. 63. But he that entereth into this total resignation, he cometh, in Christ, to divine contemplation, so that he seeth God in him, and speaketh with God, and God with him, and understands what God’s word, being and will is. This man is fit to teach, and none else; he teacheth God’s word from him; for God is made known and manifest to him in his Covenant, of which he is a servant and minister; for he willeth nothing save what God willeth through him.

64. He teacheth, when God commands him; let it be either to friends or foes, in their season, or out of their season; he thinks that God must do in him as he please, and albeit that he must therefore suffer scorn, yet ’tis all one unto him; if he be honoured and respected of men, he humbleth himself before God and his brethren, and giveth God and his brethren the honour, and takes it not at all unto himself; but if they curse him, and smite him on the face, he thinks thus : Now I stand in Christ’s estate of persecution, it shall turn unto the best for me, and for my brethren. 65. Lo! loving brethren, this is a Christian. And such a kingdom God now offers to you, by the wonderful sound of his spirit’s trumpet. And there must and shall be such a kingdom soon manifest and come into being, for a witness unto all the nations of the earth, of which all the prophets have prophesied. 66. On the contrary, he offers to all wicked, unwilling, stubborn men, his anger, wrath and hardening, to devour them, and to make an end with Babel. This say not I, but the spirit of the wonders of all nations.

67. Therefore truss up thyselfin armour and lay lustily about thee, thou Antichristian Babylon, and devour much blood, for thou thyself art even he that destroyeth, and quite ruins thyself. For thee, there is no remedy [thou wilt take no counsel, thy own Cain-like fury in hypocrisy doth harden thee], also there is no repentance in thy will. But for the children of God under thee we have written this, as we have known and seen it. 68. Now saith Babel, Whence shall this people come that shall know the Lord, and live in God? Hear, O Babel! among thy brethren in the time of thy affliction and tribulation, they are brought forth in their disrespect and misery; and thou callest them fools, and knowest them not. Let no man wait for another’s coming; the time is already come about; the voice of the caller and hearer is already present, the covering is put away from this voice. Thou art not at this time called under a veil, but with open mouth, very clearly. 69. This voice of the Crier openeth God’s clear countenance in his children, and in the ungodly the angry countenance, seeing they desire fully to purse up all in covetousness into self, viz. into the Antichristian bag, and to bring the whore of self even to the very top of the Babylonical tower.

70. The sign of this image, and its destruction, is the covetousness and envy; its sign stood before in silver and gold; that was the banner and standard of Antichrist. But now the banner hath changed itself into copper, seeing Mars is the soul in copper, viz. the man or husband; so that this Mars1 is given to Babel for a banner and ensign, which shall rule till Babel hath an end; and no wicked man shall know this, and though he carry the sign in his hands, yet he calls it only [his] loving companion. 71. But upon the kingdom that is, and is not, and yet is, shall the glorious ornament of gold be put, for the prince of the powers of the earth hath given it to them. Amen. Of the Three Men which Appeared to Abraham in the Plain of Mamre, who went towards Sodom, and set the Cities of the Children of Ham on fire from the Lord I. AT first, while Abraham was called only Abram,1 God appeared LA to him in the vision as One; and when he had sealed the Covenant with the circumcision, he called him Abraham, viz. a company or multitude of nations. A forth-breathed manifest people of God, in whom God had forth-breathed or manifested himself; and he appeared to him also afterwards in the manifestation of the holy Trinity, viz. in three men, which were only one, wherein the mani¬ festation of the holy Trinity in the Deity was set forth and repre¬ sented in man’s image, how the whole Trinity of the Deity would now manifest itself in this Covenant in the humanity, that the Trinity of the Deity should be seen in the flesh.

2. And hereby is declared the great humility in the Deity, viz. in Christ, how Christ would visit mankind, and take care of man, and [also] condescend to be entertained by man; as he came, in these three men, to Abraham, and suffered his feet to be washed, and did eat and drink. Which betokens, that men must cherish or lovingly enter¬ tain the poor Christ, who is poor in this world, in his members and children, who also would be poor, contemned and despised people. And what men do unto them, that they have done unto these three men, viz. to Christ, the holy Deity in the humanity. 3. The words of this figure run thus, And the Lord appeared unto him in the plain of Mamre: as he sat in the door of his tent in the heat of the day; and he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo! three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself towards the ground, and said, My Lord, if I have found grace in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant. Let a little water be fetched, I pray, to wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: And I will fetch a

1 Gen. xviii. 385 morsel of bread, that you may refresh your hearts ; after that you shall go on: for therefore are ye come to your servant. They said, Do as thou hast said. And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth. And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetcht a calf tender and good, and gave it to a young man ; and he hasted to dress it. And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them ; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat. 4. And they said unto him, Where is Sarah thy wife? And he said, Behold, in the tent. And he said, l will certainly return unto thee again, as I live f and, lo ! Sarah thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard it as she stood behind at the tent door. Now Abraham and Sarah were both old, and well stricken in age; and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. And therefore she laughed within herself, and said, Now I am old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also? And the Lord said unto Abraham, Where¬ fore did Sarah laugh, and say, Is it of a certain, that I shall bear a child, which am old? Is any thing too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will come unto thee again, as I live, and Sarah shall have a son. Then Sarah denied it, saying, I laughed not; for she was afraid. And he said, Nay, but thou didst laugh (vv. 1-15).

5. O thou great and wonderful God! how plainly and simply dost thou represent and portray the kingdom of thy Son in the humanity ; how lively and fully are the greatest Mysteries delineated herein; and indeed they are so plainly represented in such entire singleness and simplicity, as Christ, who, notwithstanding [he] was the King of Israel, did ride into Jerusalem upon an ass. Here the proud world may have a very true looking-glass, and see if they be the children of this simplicity. 6. The great love and humility of God in Christ’s person is fully represented in this figure, how God came in the deepest humility and simplicity into the humanity, when the humanity was inflamed with highest heat of the wrathful indignation of God’s anger, as the figure here denotes. 7. The three men came before Abraham’s tent in the very heat of all the day. This signifieth, that God did first incorporate [or betroth] himself with his Love-Covenant, and also with the fullness of time touching the Covenant, when the human day, understand the six properties of the days, were most of all inflamed and set on fire in the wrath of nature in man; that is, in the fall. And afterward, in the full-

1 Or, in that manner. As our translation, According to the time of Life. ness of time, when the humanity of these six days was in the very exceeding burning heat of vanity and the bestial property, he did manifest himself with his tender humanity out of the ens of the holy Covenant, and came in three persons of the Deity before the earthly man’s essence, or earthly cottage, viz. the soul’s tent, and appeared to Abraham, that is, to Adam in his children, viz. to the human essence. 8. And here is fully set forth the type and image of Christ: When Abraham espieth these men he goeth to meet them; and boweth himself towards the earth; and runneth away from the door of his tent unto them; and prayeth them to rest under the tree, until he should do that for which they came. 9. We must look upon this figure thus : When the divine voice had represented itself to Abraham, in the ens wherein it would become man in three persons, then Abraham’s apprehended ens of faith set itself forth also to this image, viz. to the triune humanity in the figure. For the ens in the Covenant in Abraham’s faith was surrounded with the great heat of God’s anger, when the human day was grown hottest in the human essence.

10. But when he looked up, and saw the type of the triune Deity standing before him, this faith’s ens, in deepest humility in Christ’s person (being that which was to become Christ), did bow itself before the Trinity of the Deity, which was come unto him; which would in the fullness of time give forth and manifest itself with the voice (which now spake in these three men with him) in this ens of faith (being the humanity of Christ before his Father), and said, Lord, if I have found grace in thy sight, pass not away from this ens of faith, viz. thy servant. 11. For Abraham was now in the spirit, and spake from his faith’s ens in Christ’s humanity, and before him stood the type and image of Christ’s Deity; and said, in the great humility of the humanity of Christ, Let a little water be fetched, and wash your feet. This is the great humility of Christ, who washed his disciples’, viz. his children’s, feet (as these three men here were washed), signifying and pointing out that Christ should wash with his blood the feet of God’s children, who should be born of these three men, viz. of the Trinity of the Deity; whereby they might come to God.

12. And he bade the three men rest under the tree. This now signifieth the Tree of Life, under which God’s children should sit down; and then he would bring them a morsel of bread to refresh and comfort their hearts; and afterwards they should go, that is, when Christ hath washed his children’s feet with his blood, whereby they are able to go to God, viz. the holy Trinity, then he giveth them a morsel of bread, that so they may recreate and strengthen their hearts ; that is, he giveth them the bread of life, viz. his heavenly flesh for food, so that they wax strong, and are able, in the divine power, to go from Abraham’s earthly tent through this world in God’s anger, to meet the Lord, and bow themselves before him, as this figure signifieth. 13. And he saith further: For ye are therefore come to your servant. Understand it thus: The Holy Trinity was here at this time represented in an image of our humanity, and Abraham stood in the type of the humanity of Christ, even as Christ and his children are in reference to each other; the holy Trinity leadeth the children of Christ in the divine drawing to the humanity of Christ; and now these three men stood there in our stead before Christ, viz. before the figure; for the Father draweth them to Christ, and through Christ to1 the Father; they are washed and atoned in Christ, therefore now said Christ to the three men, which God represented to him in his person : Even therefore are ye come to your servant.

14. For Christ must be our, viz. these three men’s, servant; and God bringeth his three men, viz. us, who approach unto him, in himself, viz. into the will of the holy Trinity, unto his servant the Man Christ; that so he may wash and feed them; and then they are able with boldness and confidence to come unto the holy triune Deity. 15. And the men said to Abraham, Do as thou hast said. That is, Christ offereth himself to his Father, viz. to the three-one God, for a Servant. Understand, the Word, which the three-one God did inspire into Adam concerning the Bruiser of the Serpent’s head, offereth itself for a servant unto the three-one God, viz. unto the children who should possess the kingdom of heaven. Now, the triune God saith, Do with these, thine and my children, as thou hast said. That is, with these children which are now set before thee, for they shall be angels, and thou shalt thereunto help them, for I am therefore come in them unto thee : now do as thou hast said. 16. Here God fully gave the Man Christ to accomplish the con¬ summation with them, as he had said. And the whole, entire, excel¬ lent and holy figure of the new birth is therein emphatically and lively

set forth. And it shews how the holy Trinity doth delight itself with figures concerning the Word incorporated and inspoken into Adam, and now opened in Abraham’s ens of faith; and sets it forth with types, and playeth in figures with this Christ, who was to come; where God representeth in Abraham the person of Christ, and the children of the new birth, whom Christ should beget anew, in the person of the three men, viz. in the three-one Deity, which bringeth them through Christ into itself, and placeth them in the angelical choir; as these three men did appear in the form of three angels, and also in the person of the holy Trinity; signifying that the holy Trinity would dwell in these angelical men, and that they should be the image, viz. the manifestation of God. 17. Abraham commanded to take three measures of fine meal, and to knead it, and bake cakes, that the men might eat; what doth this mean? These three men had no need of any such eating. It is the figure of man’s regeneration: The three measures betoken the three Principles, viz. the three worlds in man: the fine meal pointeth out the heavenly humanity, viz. the divine heavenly substantiality, that this heavenly and divine substantiality’s property should also be kneaded, and mixed with ours, [which had] disappeared in Adam; and a divine cake, viz. sweet bread for food of God’s children should be baked thereof, understand, in the fiery heat.

18. When Christ stood in the fire of his Father’s anger, viz. in hell, then these sweet cakes were baked for God’s children, which they should eat; and the three measures are now the three worlds (viz. the whole man, without the Serpent’s, and beast’s property) which shall be mixed with the divine ens into a lump,1 and cakes baked thereof. This is now Christ’s flesh, which he hath joined or mixed with our humanity; and giveth us now the sweet cakes thereof, to eat, viz. the heavenly flesh : Here the Holy Spirit did play therewith in the figure. 19. And Abraham ran to the herd, and made ready also a calf, tender and good; that is, he gave it to his young man to dress it. O thou wonderful God! how much doth simplicity please thee? how plainly and simply dost thou represent the great mysteries unto us? I thank thee, that thou shewest me, unworthy man, such things, wherein the whole world is blind. O God, open thou their eyes, I pray, that they may see, and turn unto thee, and enter into humility. 20. The tender calf, which was made ready for this meal, is the

limus of the earth, viz. the outward man, which, before God, is as a beast. Understand, it is a wonderbeast,1 like as the whole outward world, before the divine understanding, is only as a beast, wherein God formeth himself with the holy spiritual ens into an external body, to the manifestation of his deeds of wonder, both of love and anger. Which figure of the outward world, viz. the divine beast, shall not be wholly turned into nothing, but the vanity alone shall be separated from the good into the kingdom of darkness. 21. In like manner, God will not wholly cast away the divine beast on man, which indeed dieth here, but only the introduced Serpent’s ens, and the vanity of the dark world’s essence. The divine wonder-beast, which is the servant of the divine spiritual image, and shall be so in eternity, the same shall arise at the last day, and be proved through the fire of God ; where it shall be made very pure, as a crystal, in which the angel, viz. God’s right image, shall dwell; in which angelical image God is primely manifest, and thence shineth through the beast, as the sun through a crystal. This now is the signification of this tender and good calf, which was dressed for this meal, and shews that the outward man, according to his right image created in Adam out of the limus of the earth, shall be brought upon God’s table.

22. But that Abraham saith he gave it to the young man to dress, that is, [to] the servant, doth betoken that this heavenly beast-man is the instrument of the angelical man, who is prepared to be a servant of this angel’s image. 23. And Abraham took butter, and milk also, and set it all before these three men, and came before them under the tree, and they did eat. When Christ hath fed his people with his body and blood (and even while he feeds them) he cometh in his power in his children, before the holy Trinity, and waiteth in his children upon these three men, and giveth them from this prepared food, wherewith he feedeth his children, praise and spiritual food. 24. These three men, viz. the holy Trinity, do eat these holy spiritual meats, out of the power of Christ’s body; for man’s will giveth itself wholly, peculiarly and fully, to these three men, for a food of praise, with a holy voice and prayer of thanksgiving; and this voice of praise eateth the power of God into itself, in manner as a man willingly eateth the tune, harmony or pleasant air of a delightful music into his hearing, and is therein merry and pleasant. Even so

1 Marvellous or wonderful. God doth awaken or manifest himself in his power in his word of hearing, or divine sense, with man’s pure humble voice or melody of praise. 25. For thereunto God hath created angels and men, viz. to his own joy. And know, that we speak from the true ground, and not from conjecture or similitudes,1 but from the open seal of God, as we really see: do but understand it aright. 26. And now, when God had delighted and fed himself with Abraham in the heavenly ens, which he would, by the opening of the living Word in the seed of the woman (being also the heavenly ens), manifest and introduce into the ens of the Covenant; and had sported in the ens of Abraham’s faith, viz. in the power of the praise of Abraham, viz. in his humility; then God asked after Sarah, whom he well knew, but Sarah knew him not; that even the Lord should be in such a form; then he said to Abraham, Where is thy wife Sarah? That is, she was not yet in this play, until she had received Abraham’s ens of faith, and then this play would awaken itself in her; therefore she laughed at this; for she knew not the Mysteries; they did at present only manifest themselves in Abraham’s spirit, where the ens of faith lay ; and he said, She is in the tent ; that is :

27. She is in the human tent covered with the earthly tent, that she doth not see who now is with me. And the Lord said, I will come again to thee, as2 I live, and lo! Sarah thy wife shall have a son. That is, I will come again to thee with the motion of thy seed: and when Sarah shall conceive, then I will open and unloose her in her shut-up seed, and come into thy seed, that is, move; for, to come, signifieth to move: when God cometh, then he moveth man, and cometh or goeth in and with man. 28. But that he saith, As I live, this is spoken after an essential manner; for God told him how he would come; not before him, as at this time he did; but as,3 that is, as the lightful influence and power of the sun giveth itself into a fruit, which when it cometh doth not step near to the fruit, but as-,3 that is, it penetrates essentially with the as into it ; for as is, as much as, thus I will see into it [or open my loveaspect in the ens of its life]. As I live.3 Hereby we are not to under¬ stand, as if he had said, If I yet live, but he would live in the as-, he would come in the as, viz. essentially, and not figuratively and typi¬ cally [as at this time he did].

29. For when God cometh, then he comes no otherwise, than 1 Or, parables. 2 Ger. so signifies, as, or if. 3 Or, if. as,1 that is, like the sunshine into the fruit. This is understood in the Language of Nature, essentially, with emphatical excellency; for if God speaketh of his own coming, then he speaketh only essentially, in nature and manner of the uncompacted tongue of sense. 30. And Sarah laughed at this. She thought that she should bring forth a son from Abraham’s lust only, from the human cohabitation in the concupiscence of the flesh; therefore she said. Shall I, now I and my Lord are both old, take pleasure? The bestial world-spirit laughed at its youth, in that it was now weak; and should now again become youthful; and thought with itself, This were a sport, if thou couldest. As if one should tell an old man, Thou shalt become young again, and receive such a desire and lust as when thou wert young. At this, nature would laugh, and think, yes indeed, would that were true; as if doubt and hope were coupled together. Thus it was also with Sarah: for the world-spirit understands not the Mysteries of God. It is before God only as a beast; and seeing the world-spirit did now hear that it should so come to pass, then it thought, Thou shalt be the work-master; oh that thou couldest, thou wouldst very fain; and laughed at itself, that it should become young again.

31. The natural man understands even as much of God, as a beast; when it sees the hay, then it thinks, now there is somewhat for me to eat; but if it sees nothing, then it hopeth for it out of custom. But Sarah had now hoped until she was ninety years old ; and thought it to be very wonderful, that God would do somewhat unto her above the ordinary and usual course of nature; and imagined it unto herself after the manner of human pleasure. 32. But the Lord said, Wherefore did Sarah laugh at it? And she was afraid, and said, I laughed not. But the Lord said, It is not so, thou didst laugh; should any thing be too impossible for the Lord to do? Here is the type of Eve; when she had turned her vain curiosity into self lust, to eat of the forbidden tree, and God afterwards asked her wherefore she had done so, she denied also her own lust, and laid it upon the Serpent. 33. And seeing that now God had here alluded with Abraham concerning the new birth, he also doth the like with Sarah concerning the lust of Eve, which this woman’s seed should slay as a lie. For Sarah must here therefore tell a lie, that she did not laugh, in that Eve also lied. God did here represent before him the lie of Eve, and that he would confound it with the eternal truth, and reclaim her;

as he did to Sarah, and convinced her so of her lie, that she must be ashamed of it. 34. And here we are to understand that God hath represented or delineated the whole process, how he would regenerate anew the true man which he created; and how the same should come to pass, and how he would burn the Serpent’s ens in the eternal fire, and how he would put the lie of the poor soul to open shame and death on the cross ; for we see this here very excellently in the type. 3 5 . After that God had set forth the process of the new birth, these three men went towards Sodom; and would burn Ham, viz. the evil Ham-like fleshly property, with fire from the Lord, as it also came to pass; so that we see it very emphatically, how the judgment of God begins at the house of Israel; how Christ is set to be a Judge of the devil’s ens and will, who shall burn the devil’s essence with fire; as this following figure signifieth. Of the Ruin and Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, how the same was foretold of God unto Abraham

i. AND the Lord spake to Abraham,1 when he had blessed Abra- TjLham, and had said that he would command his children to walk in the ways of the Lord, and that he would also bless them, as is before mentioned : Behold! there is a cry of Sodom and Gomorrah, which is Great, and their sin is exceeding grievous ; therefore I will come down, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry which is come unto me; and if not so, I will know. And the men turned their faces from thence, and went towards Sodom. God said, How can I hide from Abraham that thing which I do, seeing that he shall become a great and mighty nation. And there¬ upon shewed him what he would do. 2. The un-illuminated reason looketh upon this figure very wonderfully, that God said : He would come down and see if the cry were true, that he might know whether it were so or no. Reason supposeth with itself: Is he then circumscriptive,2 or dwelleth he aloft alone and above, doth he not know all things before? Doth not the Scripture also say of him, Am not I he who filleth all things? Also, the heaven is my throne, and the earth my footstool. Would he then first come down like unto a circumscriptive3 being, which was separate from time and place?

3 . Much more is reason incapable to search out the cry which came up before him. And hereupon the creatural reason thinketh, that God dwelleth only on high above the stars, in a heaven, alone, and looketh down here beneath, as the lustre of the sun looketh and shineth from its body upon the earth. So far reason reacheth, and further it knows not what God is, or where he dwells : it knoweth not that he is every essence,4 and dwelleth through every essence or being, and possesseth no locality, also needs no place or space for his habitation ; and yet that he (so far as he is called God) is no essence,5 but is as a nothing in 2 Comprehensible or measurable. 3 Concluded in a place severed and apart, by himself. 4 The whole Being, Substance, or Essence. 6 Substance, thing, or being. reference to the essence; and yet he is even through all things, and giveth in himself, in an energetical working manner, to [every] essence, as the powerful influence of the sun [giveth itself] to the fruit; but [he] worketh with the creature and its life, not from without into it, but from within out of it, to his own manifestation; and that the nature and creature is his manifestation. If reason did but under¬ stand this aright, it would here make no further question [but be undoubtedly satisfied in itself what God is].

4. Now, understand the sum of all briefly thus : God dwelleth in himself, both according to the love, and according to the anger; each property seeth only into itself, and is not manifest in the other with its own property; as ye have a similitude of this in the day and night, viz. in the light and darkness. The light dwelleth in the dark¬ ness, and seeth it not; also the darkness seeth not the light; and as the light dwelleth in its great meekness in the fire, and yet receiveth not the source and pain of the fire to itself, but remaineth only good, without any feeling life of the fire, and yet it ariseth through the consuming of the fire, viz. through the dying of the essence:1 in like manner also understand the being of God. 5. God’s love-eye doth not see essentially into the wicked rebel¬ lious apostate soul; neither also into the devil, but his anger-eye seeth thereinto; that is, God, according to the property of the anger or fire of wrath, seeth in the devil, and in the false soul. 6. Therefore God said, There was a cry come up before him. There he understood, before his manifested Word, viz. before the voice in the divine revealed ens of these three men. It was come before the ens, and before the hearing which had now in the promised ens represented itself, in three persons, unto man, concerning the humanity of Christ.

7. For the judgment over all the devils and wicked men was given unto this Word or hearing; for it was the moveable2 Hearing whereby God the Father heard in the humanity, and whereby he would separate the evil from the good. 8. Now this Hearing, viz. the Hearing which would manifest itself in Christ’s person in the humanity, heard the voice of the Sodomites in itself, viz. of the children of Ham; that is, according to the property of the anger; and brought the hearing before the infinite Hearing into the first Principle, viz. into the original of nature and creature. For the Sodomites, viz. the children of the flesh, do all live 1 Material substance. 2 Affective, or effective. in the hearing of this world, viz. in the expressed formed Word, in the figure of the Deity, where evil and good are manifest together in one essence. 9. Now understand us here very punctually and acutely. The angelical world is called1 above, and the formed outward is called1 below ; in manner as we may say when a fire is enkindled, then the light is above, and the substance [or matter] below. When we speak of God’s [being] above, then we mean and understand within, for the [being] within, without the substance,2 is the [being] above; for without the substance [or matter] there is all above, no below; that which is under the substance is also above.

10. Now the cry of the Sodomites was come before the above? viz. before and into the first Principle, where the above* doth conceive or comprehend itself out of the Nothing in the first eternal beginning; viz. to a nature and formation of the powers or Word; and God’s formed Word or voice, out of the Father’s and Son’s property, out of love and anger (which had betrothed itself by promise to be a Christ to man, and formed itself into a divine ens) heard the cry in the property of the anger, wherewith he is a judge of the wicked ens, or ungodliness. 11. Therefore said the Father, I will come down that I may see whether it be so or no. That is, he came down, that is, out of the above,4 with that formed Hearing of these three men in the ens, which God had formed to be judge of the world, which was to become the Christ. 12. For this ens was to be creatural in the person, therefore it was formative, in an angelical manner, in the conceived Word of the promise; and therewith it came from above, that is, out of the above, viz. out of God; out of the unchangeable God; and with his love heard first in Abraham into the ens of the Covenant, into the aim or limit of his Covenant. And with the anger, viz. with the hearing of the fire, he heard into the iniquity and vanity of man ;

and saw with the anger what they did; that is, his wrath saw essentially into the iniquity and vanity of man, in manner as an incentive fire should arise in any piece of wood [or fuel] , and would devour the wood. So likewise God looked with his anger-eye in the formed ens (through the same judicial Word in Christ’s ens, wherein he will judge the world) into the wicked infection and will of the children of Ham at Sodom and Gomorrah.

1 Or, is said to be. 2 Extra substantiam. 3 Or, highness. 4 Or, from on high. 13. For when God had set before him, in Abraham, the new birth of his holy children out of his love ens ; he also set before him the judgment in his anger ens, how he would, through this Christ, prove the wicked in the fire. 14. And the judgment upon Sodom is a figure of the Last Judg¬ ment; as the three men which came before Abraham were a figure of our new angelical humanity, where God dwelleth in man; so was also his anger in the wicked. And we see here, that God will judge the devils, and all wicked men, by the children of the saints; as he now did represent the figure of the judicial office in a humanity of three, and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah from the world. 15. Also God said to Abraham, How can I hide from Abraham the thing which Idol It was hidden unto the earthly Abraham, but unto the heavenly, out of God’s ens, God would not hide it. And here he set forth the figure of his love, and his anger, viz. the humanity of Christ in the great humility and love, and his truth and righteousness in the two angels.

16. For thus saith the text in Moses: And Abraham stood yet before the Lord (viz. before these three men, which he here calleth only one), and came near to him, and said, JVilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Per-adventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy them; and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from thee to do so, to slay the righteous with the wicked; and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: that thou, who art the Judge of the whole earth, shouldst so judge (Gen. xviii. 22-25). 17. This is now the very excellent and pregnant figure; how Abraham (in the ens of faith in Christ’s person and spirit) cometh before God, viz. before the triune God, before the severe righteous¬ ness of God; and will reconcile and atone the Father; and prayeth for his children, which dwell among the company of the wicked; that his Father would be pleased to spare that place (where yet righteous people dwell) from rebuke, and draweth his mercy into his righteous¬ ness, and saith, Thou wilt not so judge, thou who art the Judge of the whole world.

18. This figure is nothing else but God in his righteousness, and God in Christ with his mercy. Here the two types stand both to¬ gether; what else should it mean, that a man would withhold God from doing what he please? 19. The man Christ doth withhold God’s righteousness and severe judgment from falling on the crew of wicked men, else they had been devoured at the first disobedience in Paradise. This is he which cometh before God, and into God, viz. into God s anger, for he is of God, and therefore he can come before God [draw near to, or intercede with, God] . 20. That is, the formed Word, viz. the creature, standeth before the judgment, and sits in judgment, and suffers not the anger to judge, so long as there are righteous people; as is here to be seen; if there had been but ten righteous persons, God had spared them. Indeed there were but three persons only which were righteous before God, viz. Lot, with his two daughters. His wife was also not fit [or capable of this mercy], therefore although she went out of Sodom, yet she remained still, and was turned to a pillar of salt, as shall afterward be cleared and expounded.

21. Abraham, that is, the spirit of Christ, entreateth so far with God that God would spare all these places for ten persons’ sake. But they were all revolted and gone astray, save his brother’s son, who was a stranger among this people, whom God first brought out, before he enkindled the wrath. 22. The spirit here speaketh very covertly and hiddenly in Moses and Esdras,1 who wrote again these Acts in the Spirit of God, after that they were lost among the children of Israel. And we here see very fully and pregnantly, how exactly and punctually the spirit here aimeth at the figure in Abraham, and pointeth out what thereby is to be understood. 23 . For at the appearance unto Abraham he speaketh of three men ; and here he speaketh of two angels, which went towards Sodom, and destroyed the cities ; to signify that the person of Christ is the third, which went not along; for here only two went, viz. God’s truth, and God’s righteousness, viz. the judgment, and the truth: the judgment remained in2 Sodom, and the truth brought Lot out. 24. And when both these [angels] at even (when their time was out, and their day passed) came to Sodom, Lot sat at the Gate, and when he saw them, he arose up to meet them ; and he bowed himself with his face towards the ground ; and he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, l pray, into your servant's house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. But they said, Nay ; but we will abide in the street all night. And he earnestly entreated them ; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house j and he made them a feast, and baked them unleavened cakes, and they did eat (Gen. xix. 1-3).

1 Note. — Esdras wrote the Book of these Acts, viz. Genesis, etc. 25. If we should declare and explain this in its right under¬ standing, then we would express it after this manner: The cry of the Sodomites was the curse which Noah laid upon Ham, when he cursed him (by reason of his unchaste, wanton, bestial eyes and desire); this same cursed, bestial spirit had propagated and bred up itself in the malicious, profane, wholly earthly and serpentine property, in the flesh and soul of this generation of Ham, so that it had established it¬ self in a kingly dominion, under which they lived more like to beasts, than true men. 26. This cry of the cursed Serpent’s ens, grown up to its full height in the anger, was made manifest, and sounded aloud in its mother, viz. in the anger of God in the dark world’s property, and had awakened the judgment upon and in itself. And now God sent his judgment upon the Serpent’s ens. This was now the time of Enos, his hidden, and at present opened seal (as it is before mentioned concerning the seven lines1 [or general junctures of time]) where his mystery was at the end; and was now revealed as a sound of his preaching in the Word of power, both in love and anger.

27. As in Abraham in love: for here the formed word, which began to be taught in the days of Enos, did now manifest itself in the formed pregnant and grown ens or being in Abraham, with the promised and holy seed of faith. And in the children of iniquity, who were of the generation of cursed Ham, the property of the anger did here manifest itself out of Enos, his preaching, wherein he threatened God’s judgment and rebuke: this same was now grown up in the children of iniquity, and brought to substance. 28. And now, seeing the seal of this Enos did open itself, seeing his mystery was at the end, and was forthwith to be manifest accord¬ ing to love and anger, thereupon each property set forth its substance to the divine contemplation; viz. whatsoever the word in the love ens had wrought under the sound or voice of Enos, and also what the sound of the denunciation of the anger of God had wrought: Here now the essences of both properties did open themselves, and set themselves into the judgment, to the final sentence of the righteous¬ ness of God. Now in this final arbitration or determination of the divine j ustice, viz. in Abraham, there stood Christ in the judgment of Enos, his preaching of repentance; and in Enos, his threatenings of plagues and punishment, the earnest and severe judgment of God, viz. prince Lucifer, did there stand (in the judgment in the children

1 Ch. 30 of this book, v. 36. of the curse in Ham), to execute the same in the wrath of God, as a servant of the house of darkness. 29. For God said to the people of Israel on Mount Sinai, I will visit and punish the iniquities of the parents upon the children, even unto the third and. fourth generation (Exod. xx. 5), which is here to be seen in Ham, Noah’s son. Here came first the curse of Noah into judgment. 30. And here two angels were sent (that is, in the power and might of the judgment) in Christ’s stead, seeing Christ was not yet in the flesh, and in office; for Christ’s office continued in Abraham before the Lord, and prayed for the rebellious men of Sodom and Gomorrah. 31. But when they were tried in the judgment (viz. in the office of the love of Christ before the Lord), whether there were any men of Sodom who were capable of the office of Christ, in the love, and yet none were found, then the office of Christ in Abraham remained be¬ hind, and went not unto Sodom. But the office of divine righteousness and truth went in the form of two angels to Sodom, and looked very intimately into their essence and being, and proved the same in itself, as it is to be seen, that as soon as these two angels came into the city, the property of the people did open and manifest itself, and they would have these men brought forth among them.

32. For these two angels had stirred up or moved their properties, and set them in open view before the Lord, to see what was in them; and they found that they were only bestial, unchaste, lewd murderers ; which brought them into judgment; and now they must be judged according to their essence. 33. But that the spirit in Moses signifieth, that Lot sat at the gate, and knew these angels, and entreated them earnestly to turn in unto him, that so he might wash their feet, and bake them cakes, and that they did eat; and yet at first did deny to turn in unto him. The same is a very hidden mystery, for it is the spirit of truth and righteous¬ ness, which Lot knew very well, for it was moved in the essence, and entered first with the trial into Lot; and when as he humbled and bowed himself before the Lord, he was proved and found upright in himself. 34. But the truth did first refuse to go into his house with the righteousness, viz. with the judgment, and would remain in the street, for it was because of Lot’s wife, who, when she was proved, and the judgment passed through her, was cast as to her temporal

life. For she continued in the judgment, as a first matter,1 viz. as a Sulphur, Mercurius, that is, an impressed2 matter of the judgment, as a transmutation into the first essence out of which the body was created. 35. Yet not so soon before the execution of the judgment. But when Lot went with her out of Sodom, and the judgment began, she drew the judgment back again on her, as is to be seen in the judgment, which then laid hold on her, for it had taken her in the probation. 36. Yet the command was given her not to look back, and so she might have overcome, if she had forthwith entered into repentance, and broken the evil earthly will, and fallen down with Lot, at the Lord’s feet: and this was the cause that the two angels refused to turn in unto Lot. 37. And by Lot’s wife the earthly matrix is signified, which shall not go along through the judgment, although it must help to work and bring forth fruit, as an instrument. Yet it is not in its outward form chosen unto the kingdom of heaven; for it was adjoined to Eve in the sleep in Adam’s fall, and shall remain in the judgment, and be changed again into its first matter out of which it was created. It is not condemned into the abyss, but it shall pass into the mystery, viz. into Sulphur, and Mercurius, which in the Grand Mystery3 is a Salt-spirit, viz. a cause of all corporality ; as it shall be mentioned here¬ after concerning Lot’s daughters, who for this very cause were to be gotten with child of their father.

38. Thus understand the figure further, internally: Lot baked cakes of unleavened dough, and made them a least, and they did eat. Now the angels do not use any such food; but they were only formed angels in an angelical shape, for Abraham and Lot also called them, Lord : it was God’s judgment, and truth. 39. This feast was eaten in manner as the offerings of Abraham, and Moses, as is before mentioned; for the will’s desire formeth4 itself therein into a substance: God eateth only the word of the will, but the food is consumed in the outward spirit in which it is wrought. 40. For Lot’s faith’s desire was the divine food of these men ; but with the feast, which Lot gave them out of his good love- will. Lot s will was formed into a substance that so he might be preserved in this judgment outwardly as to the earthly life, and inwardly as to the will 1 Prima Materia. 2 The hard astringent. 3 In Mysterio Magno. 41. For these angels did eat of Lot’s food as if they had eaten of his body and spirit, which was therein apprehended, in manner as it is to be understood in the offerings;1 as is before sufficiently explained concerning the offerings1 of Cain and Abel. For the un¬ leavened cakes were (or did signify) the informing [or impression], as may be seen everywhere in Moses, and they denote the Body of Christ, whereinto the imagination of God entered, as into a type, and yet was only conceived or apprehended in the faith.

42. Furthermore, the spirit in Moses saith: And before the men lay down, the men of the city, Sodom, came and encompassed the house round about, young and old, even all the people from every quarter; and called for Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men that came in unto you the last night ? bring them out that we may know them (Gen. xix. 4, 5). 43. This is now the figure, as it is before mentioned: The judg¬ ment (after that it had bound itself with Lot in the feast) did now penetrate and press in the probation of their essence and being, into all; that they came pell-mell on heaps, running as mad enraged people, driven, forced and compelled to the judgment. 44. For the zeal of the Lord, which longed after them, drew them to itself. It hungered earnestly to devour their vanity; therefore they ran altogether, young and old, and would know the mouth which hungered after them, for they in their blindness knew not what they did; thus the anger drew them to itself. 45. And Lot went out unto them at the door, and shut the door after him. And said, ah! I pray, dear brethren, do not so wickedly. I have two daughters which have never known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do with them what seems good in your eyes: but unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof. But they said, Come hither, thou art the only stranger among us, and thou wilt rule; well, we will deal worse with thee than with them.

46. Here the ground of their sin is finely deciphered and laid out in its colours, wherein their cry was come before God; as, namely, uncleanness, lasciviousness, tyranny, self-willed perverseness ; and the greatest of all was the contempt of God; for Lot had told them of the punishment which God would bring upon them. And then they said, Thou art the only stranger among us, and wilt go about to rule and judge us, we will yet plague thee worse than those; to signify, that God had before sent them warning by the messengers of his mouth, and that they had only plagued and contemned them. Therefore they said also to Lot, Wilt thou govern us with thy threatenings, and contemn and nullify our works, we will serve thee worse than them. 47. For when they understood that men [of God] were come in unto Lot, who threatened them with ruin and destruction, they made an uproar against them, and would kill them. As the mad blind world hath always done, when God hath sent them messengers, who have rebuked and reproved them ; then the Babylonical whore hath cried out, Run, run, there is a new heresy, which would teach us other doctrine, and reprove our way which we go in.

48. Thus it was here: the self-full rebellious devil’s will, in his Serpent’s ens, would be uncontrollable, unreprovable ; and seeing these men were come, they cried out, Mordio-,1 and said there were false prophets and teachers come, to rebuke and contemn them, as the Babylonical whore hath always done; for she will not hear what the Lord speaketh through his children ; but that alone must be accounted sacred, which she speaks from the Serpent’s ens. 49. This whore hath covered herself with the literal word, and gives forth herself for holy, and boasteth much in a strange attire; but her heart is only Sodom and Gomorrah. When she seeth these two angels come from Abraham, that is, from Christ, to her in her Sodom and Gomorrah, and lay open her shame, then she makes the whole city of an uproar, with a cry of murder; so that all people, young and old, come running together, and think that there is some strange wonderful beast arrived. 50. And when they can perceive no new strange thing in God’s messengers, and hear that they do only teach and reprove, then they think, O! our minister and pastor calls him a new upstart, a heretic and false prophet, there is a fool [and a frantic fellow, sure enough he is worse than out of his wits] ; and they begin to wonder at him [like birds] at an owl, and assault him, and his house, his wife, and his children, with scorn, reproach, and contempt, as the Sodomites did Lot; every one thinketh, that he doth well if he can but jeer and revue these messengers.

51. And although he knows no other ground or reason [in the world], but only that the high priest2 (who hath put on the whore of Babylon) doth set him at nought; yet he is very raging mad, and suffers a false wind (viz. the spirit of the Babylonish whore) to drive him, and raveth in misunderstanding, as here the Sodomites did, who (both young and old, small and great) do force upon Lot, and the 1 Murder. 2 Or, some noted minister. two men which were come in unto him ; that they might know them, that they might plague them, scorn, revile and reproach them. For thus the anger of God doth drive itself into a fire, for its own en¬ kindling. And thus made also must the people be, when the punish¬ ment shall come, that they must all make up the measure of their iniquities. 52. And we will not hide from thee, thou unclean, lascivious, rebellious, self-willed, lewd, idolatrous, murderous Babylon, full of all vices, sins, and abominations; that now also these two angels, viz. God’s truth and judgment, are come into thee; and declare unto thee, now, at the end of Enoch’s seal, which was hidden (but at present is opened in its sound and voice), thy destruction and overthrow. For the time of thy judgment is at hand. And behold thyself aright; and observe it very narrowly: thou hast at present cast scorn, reproach and contempt upon Lot, and the two angels, as the Sodomites did; and therefore thy punishment hangeth over thee. And observe it: when the two angels shall carry forth Lot under the opened seal from thee, then the day of thy destruction is at hand, which now thou wilt by no means believe, but must be forced to find it so by sad and woeful experience, saith the spirit of wonders.

53. We may see very fully what was the Sodomites’ vice and great sin, the cry whereof was come up before God; for Lot would bring out his two daughters, which were yet virgins, unto them, that so they might but cease from the raging uproar against these angelical messengers, for he knew well enough that they were wholly drowned in uncleanness; if so be they might satisfy their desire. 54. The inward figure in the spirit, giving us to understand what Moses doth hereby typify, is this: The judgment begins at the house of God, as here in Lot; the children of God must be first brought into judgment, and proved; to see whether there be children of God in any place which may withhold the anger, so that the punishment may be kept back; then the spirit taketh the children of God, and proveth them in the same vice and sin of that city or country, [to see] if they be capable of the same lewdness. 55. Lot must set his two daughters with entreaties into judgment; he would give them to the unclean lascivious people to be tried; for that which he said was so directed by the spirit, which had the two daughters of Lot in the judgment, and had brought the proba or trial into their essence, and hereby signified and laid open the sin and shame of the city, viz. that they were only unclean harlot’s beasts.

56. But when these two virgins were not capable of this vice, the spirit, viz. the two angels, defended them; understand, God’s truth protected them from the judgment of this people, and also from the sin of uncleanness. For Lot did not speak so of set purpose, as if he would suffer his daughters to be deflowered and defiled; but the spirit did set forth its figure. 57. And know for certain that this first book of Moses was written wholly from the prophecy of the spirit, intimating what each act or sentence of the history holds forth in the figure. And whosoever will read, and rightly understand these acts [of the patriarchs], he must modelise or represent in his mind the old and the new man; and set Christ and Adam one against the other; and then he may understand all; and without this, he understands nothing hereof but a child-like history; which yet is so rich and full of Mysteries, that no man, from the cradle unto the longest age, is able to express them; although he had obtained the knowledge and understanding thereunto in his childhood. And we in our gifts do also give but some glances and hints thereof, albeit we have obtained the apprehension and meaning of them from the gift of God; yet we cannot express all, and the world were not able to receive it.1

58. And Moses saith, The men of the city pressed sore upon the man, Lot, and when they drew near together to break the door, the men put forth their hand and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door. And the men which were before the door of the house were smitten with blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied themselves, and could not find the door (Gen. xix. 9-1 1). 59. This figure was achieved2 thus externally, so that they were thus blind with visible eyes, and could not see the door, and did not hurt, neither to Lot and the two men with him, nor his house either. But in the spirit, the figure stands thus : 60. When God sendeth these two angels, viz. his truth and judg¬ ment, into a man’s spirit, viz. into the house of his heart, as here it came to pass in Lot (in whom also the spirit, viz. God s truth and judgment was manifest, and therefore he rebuked Sodom, for which cause they did encompass him about, to slay and murder him), then the judgment passeth first upon this man, who is represented unto the Sodomites, as if he were a fool, whom they must vex, plague and perplex, and they also do without intermission revile and rail at him, and condemn him for false.

1 Understand or apprehend it aright. 2 Acted or done. 61. But he must reprove, rebuke, and teach them, and he hath no external protection of man, they all cast the dirt of their mouths upon him; and they that should hinder it do but laugh at it. Let him look where he will, he hath no deliverer. Then, supposeth the common people, God rebukes and punisheth him on this wise. 62. But these two angels are with him in his heart, and stand in his person, as in their vessel and instrument, even amidst the enemies. But the common people do eagerly labour and bestir themselves to destroy him and his house. 63. And when it comes to the trial, in earnest, then these two angels do put forth their hand upon the wicked malicious men’s hearts, and strike them with blindness, that they are confounded, and know not how they should get by1 this Lot and the two angels; one casteth forth this, another that; one saith he is honest, another reviles him and saith all evil of him; so long till they cannot find the door, wherein they would break in unto him, and do him mischief. For these two angels do shut him up in themselves, that they cannot see the door of revenge. As may be seen here in Lot, how God doth deliver the messengers of his mouth, and hides them from the enemies ; and this pen2 hath so found it by good experience.

64. And these men said unto Lot , Hast thou here any besides? son in law, and sons and daughters ■ and whosoever belongs unto thee in the city, bring them out of this place: For we will destroy this place, because the cry thereof is waxen great before the Lord, who hath sent us to destroy it. And Lot went, and spake to his sons in law which were to marry 3 his daughters, and said, Arise, get ye out of this place ; for the Lord will destroy this city. But he seemed unto them as one that mocked (Gen. xix. 12-14). 65. This is now an excellent mirror, how God also gave warning unto these men, and would have spared them for Lot’s sake, if they would but have followed him. But the wrath had captivated them, and wholly hardened them; that they did but laugh and jeer at him; and as it were said unto him, What is happened to the fool? he thinks the sky will fall. 66. The inward figure stands thus: God’s truth in the love drew these men, Lot’s sons in law, and would deliver them; but the wrath was stronger in them, and had captivated them in the probation of their hearts. They continued in the judgment, as Lot’s wife, whom notwithstanding Lot brought forth with him before the city, yet the wrath drew her back again into judgment; so that she (seeing she

1 Or, at. 2 The Author. 3 English translation, which married. was for Lot’s sake freed from the fire-sword) must go into a trans¬ mutation, until the Last Judgment, which is a terrible example. 67. In this figure this present world may behold itself, and take warning; for as certain, and as true, that the preaching of Lot was true, and the punishment followed thereupon; so certainly also shall the punishment1 of the sixth seal’s time (which seal is even now at hand, and hath already opened itself) suddenly follow. 68. But that the warning hereof came so long ago, declareth that the time of the sixth seal, in its manifestation, is the most wonderful of all the six seals ; till the seventh number,2 which is yet more wonder¬ ful; for it is the end of this world, and the Last Judgment. 69. Let this be declared unto thee, Babel, HHI'punder the voice of the open seal of this sixth time, although thou contemnest and dea¬ dest it, it hitteth thee, and hath already strucken thee with the obdurate obstinacy of wrath, which hath thoroughly sifted thee in the appearance of the message of these two angels, and shall now be hinted only to some few, which shall go out, and be delivered with Lot’s daughters.

70. The hardened, surprised and apprehended crew is already judged; for the doleful sifting sword hath taken hold of them; they run now in a raving raging manner, as mad people, in pride, cove¬ tousness and envy, and contemn what the angel’s trumpet soundeth. 71. The cry which the angel’s trumpet soundeth is this; Go out from Babel; Go out from Babel; Go out from Babel. She stands apprehended and captivated in the flaming sword. Amen. 1 Or, judgment. 2 Or, seal. sixth seal in wrath on the mystery of iniquity, and also the time. a *, % • M ,JAp i 7 ^ BS 1235 H66 tt