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

14. The spirit of Moses doth now proceed further in the relation of this figure, and signifieth, under the outward history of King Abimelech, how that Abimelech's servants and Isaac's servants contended about the wells of water, and that Abraham's and Isaac's servants digged the wells of water, which wells were continually stopped up by the envy and enmity of the Philistines (vv. 18-21). By which figure the spirit secretly signifieth how the children of the saints, viz. the patriarchs Abraham and Isaac, have always digged in their ens of faith for the wellspring of life in the Covenant, and have also obtained the knowledge of the Messiah. 15. But these wells were continually covered and obscured by the devil in God’s anger, and by their earthly reason, until they appre¬ hended and laid hold of the promise of the Messiah in faith. And then they said we have digged a well, and have found of the water of life: the same, Isaac called Shebah,1 and therein hinteth at the Sabbath, Christ, as he also forthwith saith, that thereupon the place was called Beer-sheba (vv. 32, 33), viz. a contrition, and breaking of the anger and envy of the devil in man’s property; to signify that the Sabbath, Christ, viz. the spiritual wellspring, is truly called Beer-sheba, viz. a contrition of death, where the Sabbath introduceth itself into death, and brings forth the fountain of life through death.

16. At which fountain the children of God’s Covenant did pitch their tent, and waited upon the promise, until the same fountain was opened in the humanity, and flowed forth out of Christ’s blood and death; of which the poor soul drank, and thereby was brought into the eternal Sabbath, where it was redeemed and freed from the strife of the Philistines, viz. from the contention of the anger of God and of the devil. As the history in this text doth clearly signify thus much in the High Tongue; which the spirit of Moses hath thus represented in the figure, and doth play with the description of this figure. 17. As indeed the whole Old Testament is a figure of the New, and the New a figure of the future eternal world, wherein the figure shall stand in divine power, and the spirit of God shall in eternity play with his deeds of wonder; to which end also he hath created man, and inspired1 the power of his voice, viz. the living word, into him, that so he might be an image of the eternal Word, with which image the eternal spirit will play, and work wonders; that so there may be a joy and knowledge in the eternal wisdom.

18. Now when, as the spirit of Moses had pointed out the figure of Adam and Christ under a history, he proceeds, and further relates how it must go with the children of God in this time, shewing in what desire the poor soul in flesh and blood lieth captive, and is continually vexed and tormented, as here Isaac and Rebecca. For the text saith, When Esau was forty years old he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashematb the daughter of Elon the Hittite , which were a grief of mind to Isaac and to Rebecca (vv. 34, 35). And in this place he speaks no further of these wives, or their chil¬ dren; to signify that it is a figure, whereby he alludes at something else; which reason looks upon as very strange, and wonders that God should yet permit two evil women to be with holy Isaac, through his son Esau; with whom he and his fair, blessed Rebecca must live in trouble, vexation and opposition: so very secretly doth the spirit of Moses set forth his figure, that reason must even be blind in it. The spiritual figure is thus: 19. The forty years of the age of Esau, or of Isaac after he begat Esau, signifieth, that Adam with his Eve, when as he was man and woman, and yet neither of them, did stand in Paradise forty days in the temptation or proba, and had joy with his fair Eve, viz. with his female2 property in himself.

1 Or, inspoken. 2 Or, feminine. 20. But Abimelech, viz. the king of this world, had introduced his lust into this fair female1 rose-garden, viz. into the tincture of Venus; understand, into the holy life of love in Adam; and stirred the centre of the soul’s nature, whereupon Adam became lusting and longing to take to him in his property yet two wives, viz. the bestial wife, according to the beast-like property out of the four elements; and the astral [sidereal or starry] wife from the constellation [or astrum of this world] ; which wicked woman did awaken in Adam’s female property, which he took up to wife for his lust. As Esau did the wives of scorn and mockery, with whom he caused mere grief of mind, and lamentable perplexity to himself and his right female property: and we indeed do still suffer and endure the same, and must consume our time with them in misery and lamentation. 21. Further, this figure denoteth the forty years of Israel in the wilderness, when they did eat manna, and rejoiced with Rebecca under a strange king; where they lived in the kingdom of this world, and yet were led, preserved and nourished in the divine arm; and therefore they grew great before the world, as Isaac under king Abimelech. And when Israel, after forty years, pitched their tent at Beer-sheba, viz. in the promised land, they yet took these two wives to them in their fleshly lust; which caused mere grief of heart to them, for which two wives’ sake they were sorely punished of God, and were at last for their sake, driven from Beer-sheba.

22. Thirdly, this figure denotes the hard combat of Christ in the wilderness, in Adam’s stead, where Christ in our humanity took these two wives (which were manifest in Adam through his strange son, or will) unto his heavenly essentiality, and suffered them to hunger forty days, so that they must resign and give in their desire to the divine essence, and learn to eat heavenly manna. To signify that this earthly lust [in us], from the stars and four elements, should be broken in Christ’s death, and cease. 23. Fourthly, it denotes the forty hours of Christ in the grave, where these two wives of unquietness in the human property were changed again into one eternal wife, viz. into the true Rebecca, and right Adamical Eve, which was in Adam before his Eve. 24. Fifthly, it points at the forty days of Christ after his resurrec¬ tion, when the two wives of Adam and Esau were again changed into a manly virgin, when this virgin, viz. Christ in our male and female property, did rightly stand out the forty days of Adam in Paradise, when he was tried; and therefore he set himself by divine might into the royal throne of ejected Lucifer, as a judge; and with these two wives in one virginity, and one only person or image, would rule over him,1 as the causer of man’s misery, seeing he was the great cause that Adam, viz. the image of God, did manifest, by his son of the new will, yet two wives in his virginity.

25. This, the spirit in Moses and Esdras2 hath mystically and secretly hinted at under an outward figure, shewing how it should afterwards fall out. And although it is very likely that reason will not believe us, we care not for that, and it matters not much; seeing we have not disclosed this for its sake, but for the sake of the under¬ standing children. However, we know very well in what vision we write [we know from what spirit’s illumination and knowledge we have set down some glances of the great mysteries signified by this short divine history of Moses]. 1 Viz. Lucifer. 2 Note Esdras. Shewing what we are to understand by Isaac’s blessing Jacob , unknowingly, when he was old and ready to die1 THE GATES OF THE GREAT MYSTERIES OF THE WHOLE BIBLE I. TT then reason readeth this history of the twenty-seventh W chapter of Genesis it hath a twofold conjecture upon the same: one is as if Rebecca [only] loved Jacob more than Esau, and therefore brought him by craft to obtain the blessing of his father; and again it conceives, that indeed it was from the appointment and providence of God, because Esau was not worthy of the blessing, and therefore it will take upon it wholly to condemn Esau, whereupon also it hath set the predestination; and yet it understands nothing at all of this wonderful figure.

2. Now, if we would rightly understand and interpret this figure, then we must set here in the figure the patriarch Isaac, in God the Father’s stead, who alone can bless, who also blessed Isaac in Abra¬ ham’s seed, that Isaac should again bless his seed in the Covenant’s line. 3. And Esau was set in the place of the depraved nature, viz. in the kingdom of the corrupt nature in man’s property, apprehended in the anger of God. 4. And Jacob we set in the new birth, in the humanity of Christ, which God the Father blessed instead of the depraved Adam, when he brought forth a new generation out of our humanity in this line. 5. And we see here how Adam hath fooled away and lost the blessing and divine unction, and how he was rejected in the earthly image, from God; and how he hath lost his right of the divine unction; as here Esau [had lost] the first birth, and also the blessing. The inward spiritual figure stands thus: 6. Isaac was old, and expected to die, and called Esau his first-born son, that he might bless him with the blessing of Abraham, and bade him go take

some venison, and dress it for him, that he might eat gladly thereof, that his soul might he refreshed, and the blessing of the Lord might put forth itself in him, that he might bless Esau. And Esau went and did as his father would have him, that so he might be blessed (Gen. xxvii. 1-4). This, in the inward understanding in the figure, is thus : 7. When Isaac was ready to die, the blessing in God the Father’s property moved itself in him, and would bless the natural seed of the Adamical nature, viz. the kingdom of nature, in Esau: For Isaac longed after venison, viz. after the kingdom of nature in the bestial property, viz. after the depraved Adamical man, as to the first creation. 8. For the Father’s blessing would cast itself upon Adam, in whose stead Esau stood; but the heavenly ens was extinct in the first Adam, and therefore the natural man might not be helped and reme¬ died only with a blessing; but there must be another serious earnest¬ ness : the blessing must become a substance, viz. man, in the kingdom of nature; of which [substantial blessing] the kingdom of nature was not capable, in its own power and might: as here Esau, in his kingdom of nature, was not capable of the Father’s blessing.

9. For the kingdom of man’s nature was so poisoned that it must be dissolved; therefore the blessing of God the Father turned itself upon the woman’s tincture, viz. upon the Adamical female tincture, understand, the light’s tincture. For the fiery tincture in Adam was awakened in the wrath, viz. in the kingdom of darkness, and was made an earthly image; and herein the heavenly was swallowed up and mortified. Now, the blessing would come to help this heavenly disappeared image, that so it might be quickened again in the blessing; and so the kingdom of nature with which it was incorporated should be blessed, tinctured and regenerated. 10. Seeing then two lines went forth in Abraham’s and Isaac’s seed, viz. in Ishmael and Esau, the right depraved Adamical image, and in Isaac and Jacob the line of the Covenant in the free given grace, the blessing of God the Father, which was manifested in Isaac, turned itself upon Jacob, viz. upon the line of Christ whom God hath anointed; that he should again anoint the first-born Esau, viz. the first Adamical depraved man; for the first Adam had lost his first birth given him out of the divine Word in the creation, and could not any more be blessed out of his centre.

11. For the soul’s will was broken off from the eternal Word of divine holiness, and had given itself into the centre of the first Principle, viz. into the wrath of the eternal nature, into the severation of the speaking word, viz. into the opposition and contentious contrariety. Whence also Isaac blessed Esau with the word of strife, when he said unto him in the blessing, Thou shalt live by thy sword, and break thy brother’ s yoke from off thy neck. Signifying, that now the de¬ praved nature in him was become a servant of God’s anger, and should now bear and manage the combat which Adam had raised up in the life’s properties, and be a servant of the same. 12. But that Isaac did not understand this thing, and would have blessed Esau with the blessing of the Covenant, and given him the sceptre in Zion, doth shew unto us that Isaac, and all the holy children of God (although they be born again of the new birth in the line of the Covenant and stand therein), do not apprehend and under¬ stand the internal ground of their essence, wherein the kingdom of God worketh and is in power, so as to be able to do anything thereby in self-will. But God turneth this internal ground of the place of God as he pleaseth; and the soul must see to what he [God] doth; as here Isaac must see to what the Lord had blessed by him.

13. For Isaac said to Esau, That he should make him ready savoury meat, such as he loved to eat; and then his soul would bless him (v. 4). But now this blessing stood in the line of the Covenant, in which, Christ should spring forth; not in the soul’s might, but in God’s might. For the soul of Isaac and of all the children of Adam were as yet, with the soul’s root, on the band of God’s anger, which anger this internal incorporated line of grace should destroy in Christ’s death, and wholly incorporate and unite it into the line of the Cove¬ nant. 14. Therefore the soul’s will in Isaac should not propagate the blessing of this Covenant’s line, and give it to the kingdom of the soul-like1 nature, viz. to the first-born, Esau, and first Adam; for the soul was a cause of the destruction : the fire’s tincture received not the might and strength of the new virtue, for its might should be broken, viz. its proud Lucifer, who likewise is the very same; but the light’s tincture (which disappeared in Adam when the fire’s might introduced dark earthliness thereinto), which tincture sprang forth again afresh in this Covenant’s line in the power of the inspoken and promised, incorporated Word of grace, the same had the might and power of the blessing.

15. The seed of the woman, viz. the light’s tincture and virtue, should bruise the head of the fiery Serpent, and change the soul’s fiery might into a meek love-fire. The fiery soul’s will shall and must be wholly transmuted and turned into meekness. 16. As this disappeared light’s tincture was brought from Adam into the woman, viz. into Eve, which when it was in Adam was his fair Paradisical rose-garden of peculiar love, wherein God was mani¬ fest, and seeing now the figure of the new birth was represented in Isaac’s blessing, therefore also his wife, viz. the blessed Rebecca, must come, as one who also stood in the line of the Covenant; and set forth the right figure of Christ, viz. Jacob, in the place of the blessing. To signify that Christ should be manifested in this Covenant’s line in the seed of the woman, viz. in the tincture of the light and the water, and assume the soul’s nature from the power of the light, that so he might rule over the fiery nature of the soul, and change the same into the power of the light. 17. Now Rebecca, Isaac’s wife, was here in this place a figure of the Virgin Mary, who brought forth Christ, viz. the blessed of God, who should bless Esau, and all the Adamical children. And it was so ordered by the Lord that Rebecca should so carry it, for she under¬ stood that the blessing, viz. the sceptre of Israel did rest in Jacob.

18. For seeing the sceptre in Zion lay in the seed of the woman, viz. in the virginity, the same sceptre was here also stirred in the seed of the woman; so that a woman must bring forth the Covenant’s line to the place of God the Father’s blessing, which was in Isaac; and the man’s will, viz. the soul’s natural fire- will, must come behind, and be a servant of God’s wonders, and see what God hath done with him. 19. But that it appeareth to be as a deceit or cunning subtlety, in that Rebecca did so instruct and put on Jacob to take away the bless¬ ing from Esau, as if she loved Jacob far above Esau, therein reason hath blind eyes: For through the devil’s cunning the curse came into the world; and through the divine cunning in the love the destruction of death and hell came again into the soul: the divine cunning killed the devil’s cunning. 20. Understand it aright: All cunning ariseth from the lubet or desire. The devil’s cunning arose from the false lubet or lust: so like¬ wise God’s lubet came again into the woman’s seed (into which heavenly matrix the devil had insinuated his lust), and destroyed the devil’s lust.

21. It was of God that Jacob obtained the blessing, wholly contrary to the mind and will of reason. For he stood in the figure of Christ, and Esau stood in the figure of the depraved Adam. 22. Therefore Esau was a hairy or rugged man, signifying the monstrous bestial property, which Adam had awaked in the fall, through lust. Now when Adam’s lust had brought itself to substance, then the flesh became gross and bestial. Thus the bestial part swallowed up the heavenly in itself, and death was manifested in the flesh. And we see here in this figure very clearly typified how it should be. 23. Isaac would bless the bestial man in Esau, this, God would not: the divine blessing belonged to Christ. But the depraved Adam could not be capable of receiving the blessing of God, unless Christ take this rugged bestial skin [or form] which Adam had put on; as here Jacob could not be blessed unless he had on him the hairy beast¬ like skin. 24. God the Father set before him our misery in his Covenant in Christ in our humanity which he assumed; for Christ must enter into our humanity, and walk in our hairy form, and destroy our death of the bestial property; as it is written, He took on him our sickness ; and laid on himself our grief (Isa. liii. 4; Matt. viii. 17; 1 Pet. ii. 24).

25. For as Isaac took hold of his son Jacob in his hairy skin, and felt whether he was his first-born son to whom the blessing belonged, so God the Father reached into the essence of his Son, Christ, and felt whether the humanity of Christ were the first image created in Adam; whence the agony seized on him in the Mount of Olivet, that he sweat bloody sweat, of which Isaiah speaketh plainly, He took on him our grief. 26. And as Isaac found outwardly only Esau’s skin on Jacob, and inwardly heard Jacob’s voice, and yet blessed him instead of Esau, as if he were Esau; so likewise God the Father found our rugged human property on Christ, and yet inwardly he heard that the voice of God sounded in him ; that the divine heavenly ens was within, under his assumed humanity. Therefore also his voice did, in his Baptism in Jordan, rest upon him, when he blessed our humanity, in that he said, This is my beloved son, hear ye him. 27. So likewise Isaac heard indeed the voice of Jacob under the hairy skin, and understood that it was not Esau; but the spirit in his blessing did yet forcibly pass upon him; for he proved in him the incorporated ground of the Covenant, viz. the line of the new humanity. For he said, The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the

hands of Esau (v. 22). In which the spirit intimates, that in Jacob, and all the children of God in flesh and blood, there is even the first depraved bestial Adamical man, with his hairy skin, which God doth not look upon ; but only the divine voice, which is one spirit with God, doth inhabit in the inward soulish man. 28. And then we see in this figure that our beast’s skin in flesh and blood, wherewith we do so pride ourselves and make devout shows before God, is only a deceit; as Jacob in this beast’s hide stood as a deceiver before his father, and would blind his father with the beast’s skin. So likewise the earthly man cometh in his bestial property before God, and desireth God’s blessing: but he may not obtain it, unless he hath Jacob’s, viz. Christ’s, voice in him, under this beast’s skin. 29. For, as Jacob was smooth and pure under this beast’s skin, so must we be smooth, pure and holy in our inward ground1 under this our beast’s skin, if we will have the blessing of God to light and rest upon us. For we see very well in this figure that the blessing would not rest upon Esau, who had by nature a rugged hairy beast’s skin in his essence, although he was the first-born to whom the blessing belonged by right of inheritance. For the first man was become depraved in his nature and had lost the inheritance of God. The blessing and the filial inheritance resteth only upon the Second New Adam.

30. Further, this figure denotes, that the new man in Christ should take away the sceptre and might from the devil, and also from the man of sin; and in this blessing rule over him in power, as Jacob was made lord over his enemies : This figure points wholly at Christ. 31. For as Jacob took a strange form on him, and came in strange attire before his father, and desired the blessing of him, and also obtained it; so Christ, viz. the eternal Word, took on him also a strange form, viz. our humanity, and brought the same before his Father to bless it. 32. And as Isaac blessed his son Jacob with the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and with corn and wine (v. 28); even so God the Father blessed our humanity, in Christ. For our humanity was also in its original out of the limus of the earth, and was nourished and brought up by the dew of heaven, even by corn and wine; this, God blessed to the new birth, and resurrection of the dead upon the life to come. 33. And as Isaac set Jacob to (v. 29) be lord over his brethren of

1 Of the heart and soul. the natural property; so God hath set the new birth in the blessing of Christ to be lord over the Adamical nature in flesh and blood; so that the new man, born of God’s blessing, must rule over all the members of his natural body, and they must be subject to the new man. 34. And as Isaac set the curse between them, That whosoever should curse Jacob he should be accursed, and whosoever should bless him he should also be blessed (v. 29); so God hath set the curse upon the corrupt Adamical kingdom, that whosoever should not be found in the blessing of Christ, he must be eternally in the curse of God, but whosoever should bring his mind and will into this Jacob’s, viz. Christ’s, blessing, he should be eternally in the blessing. 35. Further, we see in this type how it goeth with the children of God; for when Isaac had blessed Jacob, then came Esau with his venison, and his father Isaac was astonished, and said, Why, who art thou (vv. 30-33)? And he was dismayed at it, that he had unknowingly blessed Jacob. Which typifieth how that the Adamical man under¬ stands nothing at all of God’s ways; and how God doth oftentimes wonderfully lead him according to the inward ground, and that although he be carried on in the way of God, yet he looketh much at the outward reason, and often stumbleth at external rational things, at temporal orders and goods, and suffereth fear to surprise him; and would fain that the will of his reason be done: As here Isaac trembled exceeding when he saw that the will of his reason was broken.

36. And herein we acknowledge the misery and ignorance of the children of God, in that reason entereth into its own dominion, and will not wholly leave itself to God, and is astonished when it goeth otherwise than it hath imagined to itself. 37. And then we see how God at last doth break forth with his light in the understanding, and sheweth man his way, that he is satisfied; as he did here to Isaac, in that he said; This Jacob is blessed, and he shall also remain blessed (v. 33); for now Isaac understood God’s will. 38. Further we see in this history how Esau weepeth lamentably before his father for the blessing, and saith to his father, Bless me also my father ; hast thou but one blessing? hast thou not reserved one blessing for me? But his father said, I have made him thy lord, and all his brethren I have given to him for servants, with corn and wine I have enriched him. What shall I do now unto thee, my son (vv. 34-37)? This typifieth out the king¬ dom of Christ, shewing how God hath made it lord over the kingdom of nature, as Christ said, All power both in heaven and upon earth is given to me of my father (Matt, xxviii. 18).

39. Furthermore it denotes, that the corrupt Adamical nature in Esau and all men cannot receive the blessing, unless they first die unto their own self- right and will: as Esau could not be blessed of his father with the holy blessing. For he was the type of the corrupt Adam according to the kingdom of nature; so likewise the earthly nature cannot be capable of the holy Spirit in its essence; of which Paul said, Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. xv. 50); unless it fall into the earth, and enter again into its first womb, as grain that is sown, and resign its nature to the first mother. 40. And then we see here how Isaac giveth his son Esau a temporal blessing, and intimates to him that the natural man is led by the spirit of this world. For to Jacob he said, God give thee of the dew of heaven , and of the fatness of the earth, and of corn and wine abundance (v. 28); but to Esau he said only, Behold! thou wilt have a fat dwelling upon the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above ; thou wilt live by thy sword, and serve thy brethren ; and it will come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou wilt break his yoke from off thy neck (vv. 39, 40).

41. And hereby he signifieth in what dominion the outward natural man is led, driven and nourished, and what his desire and endeavour should be; namely, he would be in his mind only a robber, murderer, and an evil malicious beast, that should desire to bear down all under it with power, force and murder. 42. For Isaac doth not say, Live thou by thy sword, but, Thou wilt do it. Namely, God’s wrath in the kingdom of the corrupt nature, with the devil’s will, will move thee thereunto; that thou wilt draw the fatness of the earth unto thyself, and wilt be ruled and driven by the stars above, and wilt in thy natural power drive away from thee the children of God, who rule in God’s power. That is, when the holy Spirit in God’s children doth reprove them by reason of their tyranny, they then kill and slay them, and tear the sword of the Holy Ghost from off their neck, as here Isaac said, Thou wilt do it. 43. As indeed Esau soon did, and would have killed Jacob, so that Jacob in God’s blessing was fain to flee from him. And here he pulled off the yoke of the holy Spirit from his neck. And this prophecy of the patriarch is a figure, how the Esauites and tyrants, viz. the fleshly brethren of the Christians, would dwell among the Christians, and be born as to their natural brotherhood of the same parents; as Esau, and Jacob [were] ; and yet they would persecute them with sword and

torments; and thrust them away, and yet stand themselves as [if they were the only true] Christians, and desire the blessing of God; as Esau stood and wept bitterly for the blessing, and he did not mind the kingdom of God, but that he might be a lord upon the earth over his brethren and other men; and might have riches, and fullness of the belly. 44. This Esau in his blessing is a true type of Antichrist, who draweth near to God with the lips, and gives himself to an external seeming service and worship of Christ; and sets himself forth as if he did it to God, and stands and makes mighty holy shows in his hypocrisy and glistering verbalities, sets forth himself with zeal and devotion, that so he might be honoured of man; and that his god [Mammon and] Mausim may be fat, and doth even mourn and lament for malice, when men will not do that for him which he will have; when he cannot get enough of the belly-blessing, according to the will of his god Mausim; and whosoever doth but reprove or touch him, and speaks to him of the blessing of God, him he will slay, and cannot endure a true servant of Christ under him.

45. Reason supposeth, that seeing Isaac said to Esau, Thou shalt live by thy sword, that God hath commanded him so to do, and here it props up [its murdering malice and bloodthirsty villainy], but it is far otherwise. God wills not any war; but the kingdom of nature in God’s anger willeth it; and whosoever is born only of the kingdom of nature he liveth also to the same. 46. Therefore said Isaac, Thou wilt do it; as if he should have said, Thou, through thy anger wilt serve the anger of God, and wilt be a lord in the kingdom of nature in this world; even as the rich and wealthy ones do bring themselves into power and authority, and do it through the kingdom of nature, in the wrath. 47. And we see further, how that Esau did deadly hate his brother Jacob for the blessing’s sake (v. 41), of which, notwithstanding, he was not capable, as to the kingdom of nature. To signify that the true children of Christ should for this blessing’s sake be hated, perse¬ cuted and slain of the children in the kingdom of nature. And that, because the kingdom of grace shall rule over the kingdom of nature, and destroy the same at the end of days, and change it into its might; and therefore there is strife between both kingdoms.

48. For the children of Christ in this lifetime, as to the outward man, live in the kingdom of the depraved human nature, viz. in the kingdom of the Esauites, and are, as to the spirit, only strangers and pilgrims therein. As Christ said, My kingdom is not of this world-, and therefore the children of this world are enemies to them, and persecute them, as Esau his brother Jacob. 49. For where the kingdom of Christ begins to flourish, there presently the kingdom of the devil begins to storm and rage; and therefore, because the kingdom of Christ shall and will take away and ruin his might and princely throne; hence is the strife in this world between the children of Jacob, and Esau. 50. For as soon as Jacob had obtained the blessing, Esau purposed in his mind to kill Jacob (v. 41). Which is a figure of Christ, shewing how that God’s anger would kill him in this blessing, in our assumed humanity, as to the kingdom of nature; and that the children of God also should be killed in God’s anger, as to the kingdom of nature, and shed their blood into this murdering spirit; that thereby God’s anger might be blotted out and changed into love.

How Isaac and Rebecca sent away Jacob be¬ cause of Esau into another Country; and how the Lord appeared to him in a Vision upon the Ladder, which reached even into heaven; and how Esau carried himself afterwards to¬ wards his Parents: What we are to understand I. X'V then Jacob had received the blessing,1 then he must depart VV from his native home, from father and mother, and flee from the wrath of Esau. This is now a figure of Christ, shewing how that he, after that he had assumed and anointed our humanity, should flee with our humanity out of its father’s Adamical house again into the first Paradisical house. 2. And it further denotes that the children of Christ (after they have received the unction and blessing, and the new birth begins to spring forth in them, in the blessing), shall and must forthwith flee with their thoughts and mind from their father Adam’s house of the depraved nature; and it shews that the devil and the world do soon hate them, and they must forthwith give themselves to the pilgrim’s path of Christ, and live under the world’s slavish yoke, in misery and oppression; in disfavour and disrespect. For God brings them forth with their thoughts and mind out of their father’s house, viz. out of the desire in flesh and blood; so that they do nothing at all regard the pleasure of the world, and flee from it, as Jacob from his father’s house.

3. And then we see how wonderfully God guideth his children, and defends them from their enemies, that the devil in God’s anger cannot kill them, unless it be God’s will. As he defended Jacob from the fury of Esau, and led him away from him. And we have here an excellent example in Jacob; in that he forsook his native home, also father and mother, for this blessing’s sake, and loved God more than all temporal goods, and willingly left all to Esau; that so he might but be the blessed of God. 4. And we see that when he had left the riches of the world in his father’s house, the Lord appeared to him with the eternal goods, and shewed him a ladder, whereupon he could ascend into God’s eternal kingdom: which ladder was no other than Christ, whom he had put on in the line of the Covenant. And here now the type was repre¬ sented to him, shewing him what person Christ should be. 5. For this ladder (as to his apprehension) was upon the earthy and the top of it reached into heaven ; and thereon the angels of God did ascend and descend (Gen. xxviii. 12). Which signifieth that God’s eternal Word, with the power of heaven, viz. with the angelical divine world’s essence, should descend or immerse itself into our essence, [which was] departed from God, and blind as to God; and assume our humanity; and so unite the heaven with the world in man; that the humanity, through this entrance of the Deity into the humanity, might have a ladder unto God.

6. And it shews that mankind should come through Christ’s humanity into the society of the angels ( Matt . xxii. 30). And this is clearly signified here, in that the angels of God do ascend and descend on this ladder. Also that the heaven in man should be again opened through this entrance of the divine essence into the humanity, and that the children of God should have the angels for companions in this world; which God shewed to Jacob, in that the angels came up and down to him on this ladder ( John i, 51). 7. Which shall be a very great comfort to the children of God, who turn themselves from their father’s house, viz. from this world’s vanity, to this Jacob’s ladder; for they shall certainly know that God’s angels do come unto them upon this ladder to which they have turned themselves, and are willingly about them [to serve them], 8. For this ladder signifieth properly the pilgrim’s path of Christ through this world into God’s kingdom, in that the kingdom of the corrupt Adamical nature doth always yet cleave unto the children of God, and hinders them in flesh and blood in the spirit of this world; and therefore they must, according to the inward man in Christ’s spirit, continually ascend up in much crosses and tribulation on this ladder, and follow Christ under his cross and red banner.

9. On the contrary, the world liveth in the pleasure of their father Adam’s house, in scorn, jeering and mocking, in envy, spite and malice ; whatsoever they can do to cross and vex these Jacob’s children, that they joy and take delight in, and laugh and fleer at them. As we have an example of it in Esau; how that he took, in contempt, disdain, and spite to his father and mother, Ishmaelitish wives, who were of the line of mockery or reviling, which were mere bitterness of spirit, and grief of heart, both to Isaac and Rebecca. 10. Where we clearly see that the devil hath his power in the kingdom of this world in the corrupt human property, and doth continually resist God’s children, and vexeth and plagueth them, and fights with them for his kingdom, which he hath lost, and doth not willingly beteem it them. 11. And we see very finely how the Lord standeth above upon this ladder of the pilgrimage of Christ, as with Jacob; and without ceasing calleth the children of Christ, and comforteth them, that they should cheerfully ascend upon it. He will not leave them, but come to them and bless them, so that their seed and fruit shall grow, increase, and be as the dust upon the earth (Gen. xxviii. 14). That is, that they in their toil, labour and anxiety, shall spring up and flourish in the inward divine kingdom.

12. For, so much as the children of Christ go out from this world, and forsake it in their mind, so much they spring up in the inward kingdom of Christ; where then God standeth above upon this ladder, and continually inspireth or inspeaketh his blessing and power into them, so that they grow as branches on his vine (John xv. 5), which he hath planted (Ps. lxxx. 15) again in our humanity, in this Jacob’s blessing, in Christ. 13. And we hereby clearly see that this whole type, from Abraham to Jacob, contains mere figures of the kingdom and person of Christ and his children. For here God reneweth the promised Covenant of Abraham concerning the seed of the woman, with Jacob also; that out of his seed (v. 14), as out of the line of the Covenant, He should come who should bless all nations. For which cause also Jacob was led from his father’s house, God having set before him outwardly the kingdom of Christ in the figure; for whose sake he caused his wrath to cease from the children of unbelief, and did not destroy them, but afforded them time to repent; and so appeased his wrath in this type, which pointed at the fulfilling which was to come.

14. We have here also a firm ground and assurance that Christ hath truly taken upon him our Adamical soul and humanity in the body of Mary, and hath destroyed death, hell, and the anger of God in our humanity which he assumed, and hath set up this ladder of Jacob. For God said to Jacob, Through thee and thy seed shall all the generations of the earth be blessed (v. 14). Through thee, Jacob, through thine own seed, which is God and man, viz. the heavenly divine ens and substance, and the human ens and substance, in the power of the eternal Word. 15. In which Word the holy name Jesus, viz. the highest love of the Deity, hath unfolded and manifested itself in our humanity which he hath assumed; which sole love of God, in the name Jesus, hath overcome the wrath of the eternal nature in our souls [which is] from the Father’s property in the anger; and hath changed it into the love of the divine joy; and hath broken the still death, which hath severed us from the life of God; and hath manifested the divine life of the highest holy tincture in the eternal speaking Word of the divine power, in death, and hath made death to be life; and so our soul, in this divine power, is together penetrated and pressed through death and the anger of God.

16. And it is in no wise to be so taken, as some say, that the sub¬ stance wherein the Word is become man, proceeded not from Adam; but, as some erroneously say, the Virgin Mary proceeded not from mankind, she hath outwardly only taken upon her a human body from Anna, and is not of the seed of Jacob, but is an eternal virgin chosen by God for this purpose before the world was. 17. This text teacheth us otherwise, where God saith, Through thee, and thy seed. Not through a strange divine seed only, but through thee and thy seed, with the entrance of the divine substance. Christ should break death in Adam’s soul and body, and destroy hell in Adam’s soul and body, which was manifested or revealed in Paradise. 18. For here lay our sickness and misery, which Christ took upon him as a yoke. Christ sacrificed his Father’s wrath, which was kindled in our humanity, and awakened his highest love in our human and his holy blood. His holy tincture entered into our human death, and tinctured our (in Adam) faded heavenly substantiality (which faded in Adam when he brought earthliness and the false will there¬ into), and raised up our faded heavenly substance with his heavenly living substance, so that life sprang up through death: And this was signified by the dry rod of Aaron.

19. Therefore that is not the true meaning, as some say: Christ hath assumed a soul from the Word in the eternal Virgin Mary, so that Christ, as one come from God, and his soul in the humanity of Christ, hath one and the same beginning. 20. They were indeed united in the incarnation or the becoming man, so that they are inseparable, but the true ens of the soul, which the Word assumed in the name Jesus, was of us men from the female tincture, viz. from the true Adamical soul, yet from the property of the light, which was severed from Adam [and put into the woman], that this property of the light might transmute or change the fiery masculine property again into the love and divine humility, and that the masculine and feminine property might be quite changed into one image again; as Adam was before his Eve, when he was neither man nor woman, but a masculine virgin. 21. Therefore Christ took his soul from a woman, viz. from a vir¬ gin, and yet was a man, so that he rightly stood in the Adamical image, and brought the averted severed properties of life, in which our will had broken itself off from God, again into the temperature and union, viz. into that ONE.

22. For Adam turned his will from the only will of God, and Jesus Christ took our soul again into the only will of God, and turned the will of our soul, in our humanity which he assumed, into the only will of God again. 23. But that the reader may be thoroughly and fundamentally in¬ formed what our soul, and what the Word that became man, is, compare one with the other. It is thus : Our soul, before the beginning of the human soul’s1 creature, was an ens of the Word of God, in the Word (John i), and yet it was inspired or inspoken from the speaking Word of God into the human image in a natural and creaturely life, and formed in an image of the eternal speaking Word. This creaturely life of the soul turned itself in Adam away from the divine speaking, into an own will and speaking, and was in this respect broken off from the most unsearchable substance, and separated from God. 24. Into this separated word, viz. into the soul, the only eternal divine speaking Word gave itself in again, and turned the will of the soul again into the eternal One, viz. into God’s eternal speaking. Therefore the soul is indeed from the eternal Word; but Christ, viz. the highest love of the Deity, did not take a new soul out of the eternal speaking, but [he took] our soul, viz. the word which was once spoken or formed in Adam, viz. our human soul, into his love¬ speaking in the grace and union of the Deity.

25. God spake again, into our poor fallen soul in Paradise, im¬ mediately after the fall, the Covenant and root of his highest love and grace, through the Word, as a centre of grace to conception, and to the new regeneration. 2 6. And in Abraham he manifested the Covenant, which Abra¬ ham laid hold on with his desire, and received it after a spiritual manner, as an ens to the tree, but it lay without substance in man, only as a spiritual form and model or idea of the powerful Word. 27. Which Word, in its spiritual figure in the Virgin Mary, was at the limit, viz. at the end of the spiritual form, where that same spiritual form of the Word of God was comprehended in a substantial ens; and therewith also in like manner our human substance as to the soul was comprised in the image of the Word, and as to the substance of the body in a human form j1 and was a self-subsisting God-man. 28. This comprised spiritual image, which was the seed of faith which Abraham laid hold on in the faith, was invested on Isaac, and from Isaac on Jacob; and to Jacob God said, Through thee and thy seed shall all the people of the earth be blessed (v. 14); viz. through this seed of faith which Jacob had received from his father Isaac in this line of the Covenant ; which line of faith had incorporated itself in the human property according to the inward ground of the second Principle, viz. in that image of the heavenly world’s substance which was extinguished in Adam.

29. In which incorporated ground the limit of God’s Covenant remained, in a spiritual form till Mary, and was propagated from man to man, as from Adam and Eve along to Mary; and there the Word of the divine power was moved, and essentially assumed our human flesh and blood, together with the soul, and quickened the extinguished heavenly ens in the seed of Mary as to our part; which manifestation penetrated and pressed also into Mary’s heavenly substantiality, so that she became living as to that heavenly virginity which disappeared in Eve: and in this living virginity, viz. in Adam’s heavenly matrix, God became man. 30. And this is the blessing of Mary above all other women (Luke i. 42), that she is the first from Adam in whom the heavenly matrix became opened, in which the dry rod of Aaron rightly budded, viz. the kingdom of God. She is the first in whom the hidden virtue was manifested, for in her the limit of the Covenant in the spiritual image or type was at an end; and in her it was fulfilled with2 our humanity. 31. Nevertheless she is truly the daughter of Adam, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, both as to the humanity and as to the Covenant of

1 Frame, or formation, building. 2 In, or by. the spiritual figure; and in her conception, when the inward incor¬ porated image or type of the inspired or inspoken Covenant of grace, which was laid hold on in the faith, did assume our human property, then was the kingdom of Christ manifested in the flesh. 32. Wherein afterwards the faithful put on Christ in the flesh, in their faith, yet only as to that heavenly image which was extinguished in Adam, as Mary [did], where Christ embraceth the poor souls in his arms, and encompasseth them with the power of God, and infuseth and floweth in with his love into them; which love preserveth and defendeth them from the anger of God, from sin, death, the devil, and hell. 33. This is a brief summary of the true ground, what the spirit of God hath prefigured and typified by the patriarchs, in that he hath led them so wonderfully, and hath thus alluded with the figure of Christ how it would come to pass afterwards. 34. For Jacob was now the stock, out of which the great and wide tree of Israel should spread abroad in the dividing of its branches, as a genealogy; therefore must he go away from his father’s house, and take wives of his father’s genealogy, viz. of Abraham’s brother’s son, that the people Israel, viz. the line of the Covenant, might come of one stock.

35. Now, when Jacob awaked from the dream of the divine vision, where the Lord appeared to him and established the Covenant, he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How holy is this place ! here is no other than the house of God, here is the gate of heaven (Gen. xxviii. 16, 17). This is a figure, shewing how it would go with God’s children, when God was manifest in them, that they continue to be in fear and trembling, and suppose God is afar off and hath forsaken them. 36. For where God withdraws himself in man, there will always sin and the anger of God be first manifested in that man, so that he will acknowledge and tremble at his sin, and enter into repentance; then appeareth to him God’s friendly countenance and comforteth him. For if the soul goeth forth from sin, then God’s grace entereth into it; and then it saith, Surely the Lord was with me in my anxiety, and I knew it not; now I see that the Lord is with the troubled heart, which is troubled in a divine zeal or jealousy, There is the place of God, and the gate of heaven.

37. Further it signifies, how the highest love of God in this Cove¬ nant in Christ would be immersed into our humanity; and how the humanity of Christ would be conversant in trouble, in that he took upon him all our trouble and misery; and how the humanity of Christ would be astonished before the anger of God and hell. As was in the mount of Olives, where in his agony he sweat a bloody sweat (Luke xxii. 39-44), and Christ in his humanity said, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me (Matt. xxvi. 39); where instantly the gates of God appeared and comforted the humanity. As here to Jacob, when he must in trouble depart from his father’s house, in fear and trembling at his brother Esau, who lay in wait to murder him. All which is a figure concerning Christ, when God’s anger in our humanity did lie in wait to murder him, that he would be in an agony, heaviness and distress; and how he would pray to his Father, and how his Father would comfort him; all which was done before he was crucified, 1 especially in the mount of Olives, in which place this figure of Jacob was fulfilled.

38. And as Jacob took the stone which he had laid under his head, and set it up for a remembrance, and poured oil thereupon (Gen. xxviii. 18), so hath Christ set up his anguish or agony for a remembrance to us poor men, and poured forth his oil of joy and victory upon it in our troubled terrified hearts; and of that same stone2 hath erected his Church for a continual remembrance; of all which this type of Jacob was a prefiguration. 39. Which Jacob signifieth in plain words where he saith, If God will be with me, and defend me in the way which I travel, and give me bread to eat and clothes to put on, and bring me home with peace to my father, then shall the Lord be my God: And this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house, and of all which thou givest unto me I will give the tenth to thee (Gen. xxviii. 20-22); where he clearly under this figure signifieth the Levitical, and afterwards the evangelical, priesthood, as it would be hereafter. 1 Or, his Passion. 2 Agony, and a troubled heart, because of sin.

How Jacob came to Laban , and kept his sheep for him fourteen years for his two Daughters; what the Spiritual Figure of Christ’s Bride contained under it signifieth. How God sets Jacob in Christ’s figure, and so sporteth with the Type of Christ1 i. then Jacob must now in sorrow go away from his parents, W and so avoid his brother Esau, and commit himself to God in the blessing of him, then God brought him to his beloved bride, with whom he spent a while in joy with patience, till he returned again with great riches to his father. 2. This is first a worldly history and example,2 under which the spiritual figure of the kingdom of Christ is represented, for if the poor sinner turn to God, then he attaineth, first of all the blessing, viz. the Baptism of Christ, whereby the Holy Ghost baptiseth him in the inward ground; and then3 it setteth him in the process of Christ under the banner of his cross, and biddeth him go forth from his father’s Adamical house of sin, and make towards the path of Christ’s pilgrimage. 3. And there he must lay the hard stone of reason under his head, and rest and sleep upon this stone of reason; that is, reason must stand still, and the mind must in itself turn in to the grace of God in the most inward ground in highest humility, and most willingly enter upon the pilgrimage of Christ, as Jacob here did; and then meets him his most amiable bride and beautiful Rachel, viz. the noble Virgin Sophia of the divine wedlock enjoyment4 in the love and humanity of Christ.

4. First he comes to the (Gen. xxix. 2) well, where the noble Sophia gives her sheep drink; that is, the soul is led to Christ’s fountain, out of which the water of eternal life doth spring; there he first seeth and demandeth of the shepherds, where the noble Sophia 1 Gen. xxix. 2 Or, precedent. 3 Secondly. feedeth her flock. The shepherds signify the children of Christ, viz. teachers of the word of Christ, in whom the spirit of Christ is, who also feed his sheep. There the penitent man asketh for his eternal kindred and friends, viz. for the Paradisical house,1 wherein his grandfather Adam dwelt; then those shepherds shew him that house, and also the beautiful Rachel, which is born in this house, viz. the noble Sophia. 5. Who, when the poor soul discovereth these things, looketh amiably upon the soul; whence the soul is kindled in great love, and rolleth away the great stone from the well, and giveth the sheep of noble Sophia drink (Gen. xxix. 10); that is, the soul rolleth away all its earthly lusts, which were a cover upon the wellspring of eternal life, and giveth drink and food to the poor needy sheep of Christ, the sheep of this noble Sophia, and kisseth the noble Sophia with its burning desire to the love of Christ.

6. And when the noble Virgin Sophia seeth this, and that the poor soul discovereth all its perils that it hath undertaken for her, then she runneth to her Father, and telleth him that her beloved suitor and friend is abroad with the sheep of Christ, and helpeth to give them drink. That is, the love of Christ presseth with the poor soul’s desire into God the Father, and saith, This soul is my friend, my bridegroom. Then God the Father commandeth that he be brought into his house; as here Rachel did to Jacob, and told it to her father who Jacob was, and what his purpose was (Gen. xxix. 12). And so also Christ sheweth his Father what the poor, troubled, perplexed soul’s purpose is, when it cometh to him. 7. And as Jacob was promised this Rachel for a spouse, for which he consented to keep the sheep seven years, and loved her dearly2 (Gen. xxix. 19, 20), and yet afterwards, at the wedding, the other sister, with her tender eyes, was laid by him, which he desired not. So it goes also with Christ’s children, when they turn to God and apply themselves to be shepherds of Christ’s sheep, to take care of them,3 then is the most amiable and beautiful Sophia promised and presented to them, whereat they find joy within them.

8. But when it cometh to pass that the soul thinks it will embrace this bride in its arms, and have perfect joy with her, then the other sister, viz. Leah, that is, the cross of Christ, is laid by it, and the beautiful Sophia hideth herself, and it must first take the cross of Christ for a spouse, and keep the sheep of Christ seven years more for 1 Or, family. 2 At his heart. 3 Or, provide for them. Rachel, viz. for the noble Sophia, before he obtains her for his spouse. 9. For the humanity of Christ doth not presently give itself to the fiery soul for its own; but stayeth indeed in the betrothing1 in the inward ground, in the image of the heavenly world’s substance, which disappeared in Adam. But God the Father giveth the soul instead thereof, the other sister, viz. tenderness of heart, that the soul in this time may not sport in the garden of roses, but be in trouble and calamity, that it may be tried and humble, and always keep the sheep of Christ, and not in this marriage solace themselves in pleasures and pride, as Lucifer did. 10. And though it be so that this noble Rachel or Sophia be given in marriage to the soul, as is done to the stable children of Christ, so that the soul keeps this great wedding of joy with this bride (which they alone understand who have been guests at this wedding), yet afterwards the noble Sophia is as it were barren, the wedding joy passeth away, and the soul is as if the love of this bride were taken from it.

11. In the meanwhile (Gen. xxix. 31 et seq.) Leah, under the cross of Christ, breaketh forth and beareth fruit; that is as much as to say, when the soul receiveth2 the spirit of Christ, then beginneth the great joy of this marriage, concerning which Christ saith, There is more joy in heaven for one sinner that repenteth, than for ninety-nine righteous that need not this repentance (Luke xv. 7). 12. For that is the wedding of the Lamb, that God and man is married, and Christ is born; and then he standeth in our poor and simple form3 in our most inward ground, and hideth his great sweet¬ ness, which the soul tasted in the marriage, and covereth it with his cross; and then must the poor soul in the meanwhile take the tender Leah, viz. patience, and labour with her for fruit in the vineyard of Christ. 13. And it is very well that the soul faultereth with this Leah, and then this Rachel in the inward ground of the soul is a stranger, and is as a stranger towards it. As Rachel towards Jacob, when she said to him, Give me 4 children, or else I die (Gen. xxx. 1). So also the noble Sophia saith indeed to the soul, Work [or bring forth] in my lovedesire divine fruit, or else I will depart from thee; whereas yet the soul cannot do it in its own power.

14. But this is therefore done that the soul may the more earnestly 1 Or, promise of marriage. 2 As a conception. 3 Condition or disposition. 4 Create. apply itself to prayer, and pray to God for the divine working of the divine fruit. As Jacob prayed to God, so that Rachel was fruitful, and did bear unto him Joseph (Gen. xxx. 22-24), the prince of all the land of Egypt, who preserved, fed, and nourished them in the famine. 15. So also when the noble Sophia seems barren to the soul, as if it could not bring forth the power of God in the soul, and yet the soul mourneth to God in patience [praying] that he would work in it and bless it; whereupon the soul often converteth in very great repen¬ tance, and casteth itself upon God’s mercy, till this noble Sophia become stirring, fruitful, and pregnant; and so it certainly generateth the true Joseph, viz. a lowly, humble, chaste, temperate and modest soul; which afterwards becometh a prince over the Egyptian house of flesh and blood. In which house the heathenish Pharaoh dwelleth, viz. the bestial spirit. Over that is this Joseph set for a ruler and governor, and is a ruler over reason, and governeth it with Joseph’s, viz. with God’s, spirit.

16. This is thus, as to one part, the spiritual figure ofjacob, where¬ with the spirit alludeth to the future kingdom of Christ, where now at present in the fulfilling it alludeth thus also in the children of Christ, and doth yet so always lead them. 17. But we see especially in this figure the way of God, how God’s mind is far other than man’s. What man loveth, in that God hideth himself; for that pleaseth him well which in the eye of the world is simple and despised, which dependeth on him alone, and feareth him. 18. Jacob loveth the beautiful Rachel, and desireth her. But the line of the Covenant, in which Christ should be born, would not pass through Rachel, but Leah; also Rachel could not conceive till Leah had brought forth the root or line of the kingly priesthood and prince¬ dom,1 viz. Levi and Judah. 19. For the priesthood came from Levi, and out of Judah came the sceptre of the kingdom, and the Prince Christ according to the humanity; to signify that Christ will be born and manifested in these men alone, and bringeth and worketh his priesthood of the Holy Ghost in them, who go forth from the love of themselves, and the pleasure of the flesh, and are in the eye of the world softly, bashful, simple and despised; who esteem themselves unworthy of such honour, and do not account such divine working to be their own, and pride themselves therewith, as the proud Pharisees did, and still do.

20. For this Leah desireth only to bear children for Jacob, that she might be acceptable to him, seeing otherwise, in respect of her bleareyedness,1 she was disregarded. Thus also the true children of God desire therefore only to walk in the divine power, with teaching2 and a simple life in the ways of God, that they may please God and serve him. 21. And again: we see here by Jacob’s seed that the line of Christ would not manifest itself in his first seed with Leah, that Christ might not be manifested in human pleasure or lasciviousness of fleshly lust. For Leah first bare Reuben (who defiled the bed3 of his father) (Gen. xxix. 32), to signify that this root sprang from human lust. 22. But when Leah was discouraged, because she was despised, and would fain go out of that contempt, then she bare Simeon, who was of an acute wit,4 of whom Jacob said, when he was to die, when he prophesied concerning all his children, from what root each of them was : The brethren , Simeon and Levi , their swords are murdering weapons. My soul, come not into their counsel, and let not my honour be in their churches or assemblies (Gen. xlix. 5, 6); to signify that he was sprung from the line of zeal or jealousy, wherein Leah was jealous and discontented that she was thus disesteemed, as she then said, The Lord hath heard that I was thus disesteemed, and hath given me this [. son ] also (Gen. xxix. 33).

23. But when she cried unto the Lord in her zeal for deliverance from her disesteem, then she was pregnant, and bare Levi (Gen. xxix. 34), viz. the root of the Levitical priesthood, a type of the kingdom of Christ. For she cried to God that her husband might be again joined to her in love, as she speaketh after this manner: Now will my husband be joined to me again ; to signify that God, with the Levitical priesthood, in a type, would be joined again to man, and would, in a type of the kingdom of Paradise, dwell among them again, as was done in the time of Moses. 24. But the spirit of God said by Jacob, when he was about to die: Let not mine honour come in their churches or assemblies ; that is, they are of murderous, Cainical minds, and serve me only in a figure, pointing at the future kingdom of Christ; but the spirit of my love and grace is not with them in their sacrifices and worship of God; which love and grace he calleth his honour , which he would manifest through the line of Judah, in Christ. 25. Which honour was, that he should break death in pieces, and

1 Or, tender eyedness. 2 Instructing. 2 Marriage bed. Gen. xlix. 4. 4 A strict, severe man. Text, a sharp, piercing mind. destroy hell, and take away the throne of the devil in man. This the Holy Ghost calleth his honour; and that was not in the Levitical priesthood, nor among the titulary priests in their churches. But when Leah gave up her will wholly into the will of God, and said, Now will I give thanks unto the Lord (Gen. xxix. 35), who hath delivered me from the disgrace of the devil, and of the world, then she bare Judah, viz. the line of Christ. 26. So here now the spirit saith, very secretly and covertly under a veil, And she left off from bearing (Gen. xxix. 35). To signify that Christ was the last, who was the end and fulfilling of the Levitical law; under which the spirit signifieth that men would not find Christ in the priests’ churches, laws, and ordinances of preaching. He would not dwell in their churches with his honour of victory, nor suffer himself and his honour to be tied to the houses of stone, where they exercise a hypocritical show, and have within them only murdering proud hearts, and with the murdering swords of Levi, disgrace and slay one another with words.

27. But in the souls of men, when they give thanks, and praise the Lord in great humility, as Leah did, when she bare Judah, the line of Christ; there will he dwell, and not be at all in the counsel of these priests and Levites, the titulary priests, who contrive only specious glistering ways for their honour and voluptuousness, and forget the true thanksgiving in humility, and honour and love themselves alone; and so give that honour to their feigned or supposed office, which belongeth to God alone, and to the love of our neighbour in great humility. 28. We see clearly by this figure that God will not manifest himself in the fleshly love of ourselves. For Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah (Gen. xxix. 30), and would have only Rachel in the beginning. But his seed must continue shut up with her, till Rachel humbled herself before God, and that Jacob prayed for her; to shew also that God will not work in the love of ourselves, in that we love and honour one another according to fleshly lust, worldly honour and riches, where men flock together, associate and love one another according to their greatness, state, riches, glory, beauty, bravery and pleasure of this world.

29. But the spirit of God requireth humble, faithful and sincere love, where the soul is resigned up into God, and seeketh not its own pleasure or self-love; but looketh upon the way of God, and joineth itself to the humble children, who love God and constantly give him thanks. There God manifesteth himself, and worketh in them, that they bear fruit to the Lord. 30. Jacob first served seven years for Rachel, which he himself had chosen in his own love, yet she was not given to him for the first seven years’ service; but Leah was, unknown to him, laid by him. Jacob desired Rachel as wages for his service: yet seeing the Covenant of the Lord lay in the line of Christ in him, therefore he first received the spiritual wages of the grace of God. 31. For Christ is the wages of God’s children: As they must serve their Lord for worldly wages, so God first payeth them with his Covenant of grace, and then afterwards they receive also temporal wages: As Jacob must first receive the gift of God, as God appointeth it for him, though it went very ill, as to reason. Afterwards he also received the wages according to his will, for which he must serve yet seven years more.

32. Which seven years, in the inward ground in this figure, signify the seven properties of the natural life, which must be given up to the service of God, into which God gives himself for wages in a co¬ working power, where the seven forms of life first help the Lord to bear a spiritual figure and image or type, and to manifest the line of Christ. Then afterwards that same spiritual form discovereth also the natural form, and beareth a prince in the natural life, in whom God worketh, and through whom he ruleth the world; as is to be seen by Jacob. 33. He served seven years for Rachel, but seeing he feared God, the divine wages, viz. the line of Christ, was first given him. After¬ wards God blessed also the human self-love, according to the kingdom of nature in him ; so that of Rachel, whom he had taken in natural selflove, he begat a prince and wise man, even Joseph, by whom the spirit of God ruled, and made him a lord and governor. 34. And this figure presents to us that first Christ should be born in us, and so then Christ in us beareth also the natural man, with understanding and wisdom, and appointeth him to his service in the kingdom of nature, and also in the kingdom of grace; as he did Joseph.

How Jacob served his Father-in-law1 Twenty Years, and begat Twelve Sons and One Daughter, and how God blessed him, that he gat great Riches, and how Laban often changed his wages, and yet could not hurt him: What is to be understood thereby2 i- TT 7E see in this history especially, how it goeth with the VV children of God in this world, how they must live in mere crosses and adversity, as Jacob did with his wives. For when Rachel saw that she was barren, she envied Leah, her sister (Gen. xxx. i); to signify that man’s own love seeketh not the honour of God, but itself; as now Rachel envied Leah because she had a name that God had blessed her, and said to Jacob, Give me children also, if not, I die. 2. Where we see how the ways of God are quite hidden to reason, although reason standeth in the figure of the divine wonders, as here Rachel, which here signifieth the own Adamical nature, which desireth of Jacob the life’s power from the blessing of God, and if it get not the same it must die. Which indeed the spirit of zeal in her desire doth very well signify, according to her inward ground in the Covenant of God; but her reason understood it not, but only desired children, that she might be delivered from disgrace; but her inward ground stood hidden, and panted through the human nature to manifest itself in the human essence. Therefore the inward ground in the Covenant of grace signifieth, through its own Adamical essence, that if the inward ground should not be manifested through the human essence it must then die eternally. Therefore saith reason, Give me children, or else I die; which seemeth outwardly to be an opposition and discouragement: But the spirit of God hath here its figure, under which it hath its signification.

3. And then we see in both these sisters, who yet were daughters of God’s Covenant in the Promise, how the poison of the Serpent, in 1 Stepfather. 2 Gen. xxx. the wrath of God in flesh and blood, so vehemently sets against the line of Christ in the Covenant, and always despiseth the same; and, as a proud Lucifer, elevates and puffeth up the rational human ownhood of self-will, and would have the dominion. 4. As here Rachel despiseth her sister because she was outwardly fairer and more beautiful than Leah, in that Leah, in the sight of the world, was simple and blear-eyed, and Rachel had the spirit of the world in reason elegantly, as an ornament. And so the Adamical nature in Rachel ruled over the manifested blessing of the Covenant in Leah; to signify that the line of Christ in this world would be manifested in a mean, simple and despised form in men of such-like dispositions. 5. Which men would, by the reason, pomp and beauty of the world, be esteemed fools and blear-eyed; who in such scorn and dis¬ regard would go away and sow in tears, but in their inward ground in the line of Christ would bear, and at the end reap in joy: to signify that Christ’s kingdom is not of this world (John xviii. 36); that in this world it must be thrown into God’s anger and disdain, and into death. And by this throwing-in, satiate the anger of God with love and meek¬ ness, and with love spring forth through the anger and death, and bring the proud Lucifer, in the human own-will and fleshly lust, to scorn, and to naught, as an unstable life; which life cannot overpower the divine humility.

6. Which humility springeth under all scorn, and also breaketh through death and the anger of God, and maketh death to be life, and taketh from hell the victory, and changeth the sting of the false Serpent’s essence with sweet love. As we see here by Leah, although she was envied by her sister, as by reason, yet the line of Christ in the Covenant springeth forth in her under all scorn, and maketh her fruitful, and Rachel barren, till she gave her maid to her husband for a wife. Which signifieth the Adamical, viz. the servile line, which in the kingdom of Christ attaineth the marriage of the line of Christ in the manner of a servant. 7. For Adam hath negligently forfeited the line. The right of nature in the kingdom of God was lost in Adam, and attaineth in the manner of a servant to the marriage, as the maids of Jacob’s wives did. Whereby we then see that Rachel, viz. the right self-nature, could not work or bring forth fruit till the line of servitude (under the yoke of the Adamical nature of self-love) did first become fruitful. To signify that the human nature must give itself up to be a servant under the

line of Christ; if it will be married in the line of Christ, and be engrafted as an heir of God. 8. And then first springeth forth the kingdom of nature in the kingdom of God, and in the blessing becometh fruitful. As Rachel was first fruitful when her maid had brought forth; to signify that Rachel also must be a handmaid to the Covenant of God and the line of Christ. And that the line of Christ in her also [must] be her Lord; so that she also attaineth the marriage of Christ’s line in the manner of a handmaid; and that she had not the line of Christ in her in self-power by the right of nature, but as a gift bestowed of grace, that standeth in another Principle. 9. And signifieth under it that the line of Christ was not propagated in human self-ability, but that itself doth press into their branches, and that the great or high name or stock1 or tribe of men is not respected; but it presseth as soon upon the meanest and most miserable in the world (which are but servants and handmaids), as upon the most high and noble. 10. As we have a powerful example of this in Jacob, who must be in a servile condition twenty years as a servant, till the twelve stocks of the tribes of Israel were begotten by him. To signify that a Christian must be born under the servile yoke of the corrupt, domineering, selfwilled Adamical nature; but if any should as a Christian be born of the line of Christ, then must the parent2 be given up as a servant to God, and be in the kingdom of nature, only as a servant of God, who in his heart forsaketh all temporal things, and accounts nothing his own, and in his condition and employment esteemeth himself but as a servant, who serveth his Lord therein.

11. As Jacob, who under this service of his begat the stocks or tribes of Israel, signifieth that they should be strange guests in this world, and serve God their Lord in the kingdom of nature therein, who himself would vote3 them their wages; that they should with great riches go out of this world and enter into the kingdom of Christ, viz. into their first Adamical Paradisical native country, as Jacob in his service got his stepfather’s goods, with great blessing. The inward spiritual figure standeth thus: 12. When Adam was fallen he must go forth out of Paradise, and yield up himself to be a servant under the spirit of the world in the 1 Stock, family or genealogy. 2 Mother. 3 Promise or appoint. kingdom of this world, and be subject to the stars and the four elements, and serve them in their dominion, and provide for and take care of their children, viz. the creatures of this world, as we see before our eyes. 13. But when he was to go out of Paradise, as Jacob out of his father’s house, the Lord meets him, and sheweth him the entrance in again into Paradise, through the seed of the woman, and destroyer of the serpent; as he shewed the same also to Jacob, by the ladder which reached to heaven (Gen. xxviii. 12).

14. And when Adam was gone out ofParadise, then he must submit himself to be a servant under a strange yoke, and serve the kingdom of nature in its wonders, and provide for or take care of the children of nature, which kingdom of nature in the fall became strange to him, in that it now holds him by constraint, and vexeth him with heat and cold, sickness and misery, and holdeth him captive in itself, and useth him in its service, which before was his best friend and patron.1 15. And as Jacob in this figure must flee to his friend, his mother’s brother, and serve him whom he kept as a servant, and yet also, in respect of his daughter, as a son-in-law; so also must Adam serve under the servile yoke of his great father,2 viz. the kingdom of nature, which kingdom gave him its daughter to wife; of whom under this yoke he begat the children of God in the blessing of God, and also placeth his children as ministering servants in his father’s house, viz. in the kingdom of this world. 16. And as Jacob obtained great riches in the blessing of God, and acquired the goods of his master with subtlety, in that he subtly used the half-peeled, streaked sticks before the drinking troughs, where the sheep drank, upon which they conceived, and brought forth ringstraked3 sheep, particoloured (Gen. xxx. 37 et seq.); so also when Adam was come under the servile yoke of the kingdom of nature, wherein also the envy and subtlety of the devil domineered according to the kingdom of wrath, God shewed him that he should with subtlety acquire to himself the kingdom of nature, viz. the working of nature, with its wonders; and procure the power of nature for an eternal propriety, that his works, which he operates in the kingdom of nature, must follow him into his eternal native country, and be his own.

17. Which subtlety was that which God shewed him, viz. the Destroyer of the Serpent, which Adam put on in the Covenant, which 1 Text, grandfather. 2 Text, grandfather. 3 Pied or spotted. put on the kingdom of nature [assumed] from us men, and with divine subtlety took away the strength and power of our lord and master, viz. of the kingdom of God’s wrath, which held us captive under its yoke, and put on all human power, and took away our lord and master’s own power, viz. the kingdom of nature’s own power, as Jacob took his lord and master’s goods. 1 8. And as the spirit of God shewed Jacob in the vision that the he- goats and rams that leaped upon the goats and sheep were ringstraked, speckled, and grisled (Gen. xxxi. io): so was Adam also shewn, in the spirit of the Covenant of promise, how the spirit of grace in the Covenant came upon the streaked, particoloured human nature, and blessed it, so that it became pregnant of the spirit of the Covenant. 19. Which human, streaked or particoloured nature is no other than the half-earthly, corrupt, and again in the Covenant, new-born heavenly nature. Upon this came the spirit of God as to the heavenly part, and made it fruitful, so that under the earthly yoke it drew the power of nature in the divine power into the heavenly; and so was his master’s or lord’s, viz. the kingdom of nature’s, goods taken away, and the heavenly man in the Covenant gat them to himself with the divine wit and subtlety, and returned therewith from his lord and master, viz. the kingdom of the outward nature, again into his Father’s house, viz. into Paradise, as Jacob into his father’s house.

The figure is fundamentally thus: 20. In Adam the kingdom of nature lay in the temperature, that is, all properties were of equal weight. But when the will of the soul went with subtlety into the separation, then the properties were stirred up, and the temperature was broken. And then the separation was his lord and master, and held the will captive as a servant, who now must serve this master. 21. But when God spake or inspired again his grace with the Covenant of love thereinto, then the inward, inspoken or inspired ground of grace drew the kingdom of nature with its wonders to it; and came away with the riches and self-might, and brought them again, with the inward new man, into Paradise. 22. For the riches of the natural outward mortal man, in that it bringeth forth the wonders of God with its exercise, doth not belong to the kingdom of nature as its proper own, but to the inward spiritual new man, born of Christ ; he shall draw these wonders to him, and take them with him to be an eternal vision and contemplation of the wonders of God. 23. When the body of the outward nature falleth away, then shall the works follow the new man as a treasure, which he hath gotten to himself by divine wit and subtlety, and put off the evil Adamical nature’s house of self-rule and dominion. As Jacob, who stood in the figure of the new spiritual man, with whom the spirit of God alludeth in the prefiguration to the future kingdom of Christ.

Shewing how Christ would obtain all the goods of this world, and all the riches of the power and might of nature, in the formed, expressed1 word of God, under his servitude, wherein he yielded himself up to be a servant of God in the kingdom of nature; and so make himself lord and master over it, and bring it with him into his eternal kingdom in our assumed humanity; and lastly manifest it at the end of the day of this world, and give it us again in our Father’s first house.

24. Thus we should not at all look upon this figure in Jacob as if God had bidden Jacob to deceive his father-in-law with subtlety, and bereave him of that which was his, as if God had pleasure in the natural false subtlety of man. No, the spiritual subtlety is only repre¬ sented in the figure, shewing how we shall obtain, in the kingdom of Christ, the unrighteous mammon (Luke xvi. 9-1 1), which we have not as by a natural right, but obtain it by the divine wit. And then the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and they that use violence take it 2 by force (Matt. xi. 12), with such wit of divine science, knowledge or skill, as Jacob did in the figure of Christ’s kingdom. 25. And it is shewn to the Jews (who with this figure help them¬ selves in their subtlety and earthly fraud and treachery), that this subtlety of Jacob prefigureth a spiritual type, and doth not at all cover their wickedness and falsehood. 26. For he that saith, Thou shalt not covet or lust after that which is thy neighbour’s (Exod. xx. 17), hath forbidden all outward subtlety, fraud and deceit; but in the genealogies the spirit of God hath thus, with the kingdom of Christ, signified and alluded in the figure at the inward ground of the new man, with an outward figure.

27. As with Ishmael, Abraham’s first son, from whom the goods also were taken away. To signify that they belonged not to Adam in the corruption and perdition, but to Christ, as the second Adam, which he took with divine wit and subtlety from the kingdom of God’s wrath in man; where he must first be subject to the wrath of 1 Or outspoken. 2 Tear and snatch it. God, and serve in the assumed human nature; yet so he obtained the goods, and took away all its goods : and that is it which this figure of Jacob signifieth. 28. The spirit presenteth here a most wonderful figure, in Jacob, shewing how Laban changed his wages ten times, and yet could not hurt him (Gen. xxxi. 7). To signify how it is with the children of God in this service, that under the yoke of nature they shall acquire the goods of the kingdom of nature in the divine wit in the inward new man. Thence happeneth such great alteration to man in his purposes, so that when he hath resolved upon the course that he will take, the devil comes with his envy, and hindereth him of his purpose by evil men, that it goeth not forward. As Jacob, when he thought the speckled sheep and goats shall be my wages, then his master dis¬ appointed him of his wages.

29. So it is also with the children of God in their labour and travail, when they think, now they shall reap the blessing of God, now they will apply themselves to the children of God, with whom they may work and bring forth fruit, and there they will effect their good purposes,1 and comprehend this work in their faith’s desire, that it may follow after them (Rev. xiv. 13). Then will everywhere all his work and purposes be broken, so that it goeth not according to his meaning and will: he must now trust and rely upon God alone, as Jacob did. And so no enemy can hurt him; and though it seems as if it would hurt him, and that his work should be vain, yet thus they work and bear fruit, incomprehensible to reason. And in the end that man departeth with much goods out of the kingdom of this world, and returneth again into his native country, as Jacob did. 30. For the Scripture saith, The works of the children of God follow after their faith; they take them with them; they are the wages of their faith (Rev. xiv. 13). The faith taketh Christ into itself, and Christ taketh the works of faith with him; and thus a true Christian returneth home again into his native country, with much goods, which he hath introduced and laid up in hope with his faith’s desire.

31. Which hope God filleth for him in Christ with the heavenly ens, and taketh also herewith his works of nature, and draweth them to itself for an eternal wages, which is Christ, with the expressed2 word, viz. the kingdom of nature, wherein lieth the wonders and being of man, kept to God’s Great Day of Separation, wherein every one shall reap what he hath here sown (Gal. vi. 7). 1 Text, do good. 2 Or outspoken. 32. When we rightly view and consider this history, how God did begin the kingdom of Israel with a servile shepherd, and exalted him before all the potent rich men on earth, even to eternity; and consider that the twelve stocks or tribes of Israel were begotten under a servile yoke, as servants (out of which stock Christ, according to the humanity, was to be born); so we see that all highness of the world, also all art and wit of nature, is foolish in the sight of God, wherewith yet men so boast and esteem their worldly matters, doings or pomp, and their high state, for great things; and yet in the sight of God, are not by far so acceptable as an honest shepherd.1

33. A shepherd, in whom the spirit of God worketh, is more highly esteemed before God than the wisest and most potent in self-wit, without the divine dominion. And we see very well how God erecteth his kingdom in simple, lowly and mean men, who are not esteemed by the world, but are accounted in the eye of the world no better than herdsmen. As Christ also chose such for his Apostles who were but poor, mean, contemptible people, by whom he manifested the king¬ dom of Israel in divine power. 34. Where are the learned and worldly-wise men? Again, where are the potent lords, who contemn the simple? where is their might, strength, art, and wit? They must all come, in dust and ashes, and fall down to the simplicity of such shepherds, and bow their hearts in servitude under Christ’s yoke, if they will be partakers of the line of these shepherds. Yea, they must be as the maids of Jacob’s wives, if they will come to this marriage. 35. For the line of Christ in the beginning was manifested in Abel, a shepherd. So also afterwards, in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses and David, they were all but shepherds when the line of Christ was manifested. There is no potentate, noble, rich, learned, or high worldly-wise, hath attained it; but mean people of no account, who have put their trust in God.

36. Where are now the high priests, schools, and universities, who ascribe to themselves and assume the authority and power of these Mysteries, and often tread underfoot the gifts of the Holy Ghost in such shepherds, and laugh at them, and count them fools? Are they not, all of them, Cain, Ishmael, and Esau, of the left line from the kingdom of this world’s nature, in the hypocrisy of self-reason? which in the sight of God is not so acceptable as a shepherd. 37. O ye poor blind men in Adam! cast your eyes down from 1 Like unto an honest shepherd. above, and lay yourselves low under the simplicity of Christ, in the line1 of these shepherds, and look not upon the pomp of art and lofti¬ ness, or you will be miserably deceived. If you will be capable of this line, you must not attain it from loftiness, which boasteth itself in hypocrisy in this office of a [pastor or] shepherd; but in humility and mean simplicity, where the soul submitteth itself under Christ’s yoke : there will the poor soul, blind as to God, get root in this marriage, and be capable of this line. 38. The twelve children of Jacob are even the lines, which the spirit of God, from Adam to Noah and his children, signified, which sprang from the line of the Covenant in Paradise, and pressed from Adam to Abel, and so on to the children of Noah; and there also twelve lines or stocks [or tribes] were manifested. Here the same tree openeth itself again out of one stock, which was Jacob; and signifieth how those lines should all be sanctified in one stock; which stock is Christ, who also chose him twelve Apostles to manifest this tree, which was grown out of the line of the Covenant.

39. And as Jacob begat these twelve sons, he begat also a daughter, Dinah by name (Gen. xxx. 21), who went out to see the daughters of the land (Gen. xxxiv. 1), and thereby lost her honour and virginity; and he begat her of Leah, in whom the line was manifested out of the stock [or tribe] ofjudah, to signify that the line of Christ at this time as yet stood hidden in the woman’s tincture, and yet was manifest through the masculine, viz. the fiery tincture, till Mary, the mother of Christ. As we see in the Covenant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that the Covenant pressed forward in their seed; we see it also in the circum¬ cision, which was given only to the man [or male]. 40. And much more do we see in the Law on Mount Sinai, which was also given in a way of fire; to signify that men, before Christ, were led in the Father’s property, which held us captive in the wrath, till his love, viz. his Son, through the wrath, manifested himself in the woman’s tincture, and changed the man’s and the woman’s tincture into one again: therefore the line of Christ, with the Father’s, sprang forth in the woman’s tincture through the man’s.

41 . In the man’s tincture it was stirring in the Covenant of faith in Abraham, and was manifest out of the man’s tincture in the woman. But in the fullness2 of time it was manifest in Mary, in the woman’s tincture, viz. in the highest love; in which love Adam loved himself before his Eve [was], for God was manifest therein. 1 Or, true succession. 2 Fulfilling. 42. There we see here in Dinah a figure of Eve, for after Leah had borne six sons, she bare a daughter, which signifieth the female tinc¬ ture, which in her vain curiosity squandered1 away her honour 5 as Eve would see and know the daughters of the world, viz. the bestial creaturely lust, and in this lust lost the Paradisical virginity. 43 . Thus the spirit of God here in Dinah sets a figure of Eve near the line of the Covenant, seeing he who should seek and save the poor children of Eve should come out of the line of the Covenant. 44. For Leah did bear six sons, which signify the six properties of the natural life, and the seventh is the substance or corporeity of the six; in which spiritual substance Adam died or was extinguished as to the kingdom of God, when his will brake itself off from God. And that same seventh property of nature is now even the woman, viz. the mother wherein the other six are continually borne, which rightly signifieth the Adamical Eve, when Eve was yet in an image or type in Adam.

45. The figure whereof the spirit of God represents in Dinah with Jacob, signifying how that seventh property of nature in Adam is become a whore, perfidious to God; and sets this figure near the line of Christ, [signifying] that Christ should come and change this whore, viz. the seventh property of the human life, into the virginity again. 46. Therefore was Christ born of a virgin, that he might sanctify the woman’s tincture again, and change it into the man’s tincture, that the man and the woman might again be one image of God, and no more man and woman, but masculine virgins, as Christ was. 47. In Rachel we see now the self-love of the kingdom of nature, where both tinctures, the masculine and the feminine, according to the kingdom of nature in self-love, bind themselves in conjunction; as Jacob loved Rachel according to the kingdom of nature, according to the tincture of self-love, and on the other side so did Rachel love Jacob. Therefore must these tinctures of natural self-love be so long shut up and bring forth no life, till the Lord remembered Rachel , and heard her (Gen. xxx. 22), as the text in Moses saith. That is, till the Lord stirred up the tinctures of the kingdom of nature with his blessing, then she bare a prince in the kingdom of nature, viz. JOSEPH, in whom we see, by his great chastity and fear of God, that the blessing of God stirred up the tinctures of the kingdom of nature, which

lay shut up in the seeds, and manifested the Covenant of grace therein. 48. For Christ should deliver from wrath the kingdom of nature in man; therefore also the spirit in this figure presenteth an image or type in Joseph, which it sets down also in the figure of Christ’s humanity, how it would go in the future with Christ’s humanity, which he took from us men. 49. In Leah Christ was represented according to his heavenly hidden humanity, shewing how the heavenly world’s substance would be hidden in our humanity under the yoke of God’s anger, and how Christ must appear in a servile and contemptible form. 50. In Rachel with Joseph now the figure is represented, which sheweth how he would overcome, and in our human nature should be a Lord and Prince over all his enemies, who have held us poor men in flesh and blood captive; and how he would bring us forth out of the misery and famine of Adam, into a good land, and not remember how we in this world have cast him into the pit, as Joseph’s brethren cast Joseph. 51. The spirit of God presents this figure in the twelve patriarchs, as a glass, to see by whom God was atoned in his anger, pointing at the future fulfilling, for the text in Moses speaketh very hiddenly in this figure, and saith, Now when Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, Let me depart and travel to my own place, and into my country. Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served thee, that I may go (Gen. xxx. 25, 26).

The inward spiritual figure is thus: 52. When the blessing of Jacob, viz. Christ, in the kingdom of the human nature was manifest, so that man stood in Christ’s image, then he desireth to return from the servitude of this house wherein he must serve, and go again to his Father’s first house, and desireth to take with him his fruits, viz. his children, brethren and sisters, and all the children of this birth; he hath a great longing after that, as Jacob had after his father’s house. But the Lord saith to him, Stay and serve here a while, and feed my sheep, appoint the wages that I shall give thee (Gen. xxx. 28); that is, ask of me, so will I give it thee, as Christ saith, Whatsoever ye ask the Father in my name, he will give it you (John xvi. 23). 53. Thus then this Jacob demerseth himself in humility, and keepeth the sheep of Christ, in hope of the eternal wages, which followeth after him; for in Joseph, that is, in Christ, the wages will be first given him; as Joseph was the wages of Jacob in the outward kingdom, and preserved and nourished him and his house in the famine. Which signifieth Christ, who will eternally nourish us in himself, and bring us home with him into his Father’s house, as Joseph brought his father and children into his lord’s country.

How Jacob departed from Laban : What this Figure signifieth, and what is to be understood thereby1 !• TN this chapter for the most part is the outward history set forth, JLunder which yet the spirit hath its secret figure wherewith it playeth, for the text saith, And the words of the children of Laban came before Jacob, saying, Jacob hath gotten all our father’s goods to himself, and of our father’s goods hath he procured this riches. And Jacob looked upon Laban’s countenance, and saw that it was not towards him as formerly (Gen. xxxi. 1, 2). 2. This is a figure represented in the spirit of Christ. When the spirit of Christ in man hath gotten the kingdom of the human nature to himself, then the envy of the Serpent in the wrath of nature in flesh and blood awaketh, understanding and feeling that the power of nature in man is taken away from him, and opposeth the spirit of Christ in the power of nature. 3. Then proceedeth the opposite will in man, so that the poor soul is everywhere faint and in an agony, perceiving that it dwelleth among strange goods, and that the devil is its neighbour, and hath a continual access to its own nature, and opposeth the soul, because it hath, in Christ’s spirit, taken away from him the kingdom of nature, viz. the land and country which he had for his possession. And there¬ fore the mortal nature in the wrath of God sets its desire and endeavour against the poor soul, as a stranger, unfriendly, when it seeth that it looseth its voluptuous earthly inheritance (which right is intimated in the children of Laban, where reason looketh to get temporal honour and pleasure), that all its natural right is taken away, as Jacob by subtlety took away Laban’s goods.

4. Then thus saith God to the soul, as here he did to Jacob, Return again into thy father’s country, to thy kindred: I will be with thee (Gen. xxxi. 3). That is, the poor soul should enter again into its first country of its father, viz. into the eternal Word, out of which it proceeded; and therein God blesseth it, and therein it can also call its children and members, and bring them along out of the servile house of God’s anger in the kingdom of nature, as Jacob called his wives and his children, and brought them out of the servitude of his father. Thus also the enlightened soul bringeth the power of its life in the kingdom of nature, together with its fellow-members, out of the servile house of flesh and blood, again into the first house, viz. into God’s Word. 5. And as Jacob did flee from the servile house of his stepfather, and Laban pursued after and would hurt him (Gen. xxxi. 21-23), so also in like manner is done to the children of Christ, when they begin to flee out of the servile house of Satan, viz. out from fleshly pleasure and voluptuousness, and would again enter into its first land of its father, viz. into righteousness and the fear of God. Then instantly the fleshly crew of the wicked world, with rage and folly pursue after it and would slay it, and take away with evil and false tongues all its riches and goods in God’s righteousness.

6. But the Lord aweth them, that they cannot do it (as was done to Laban), though they stand up and reprove the children of God as un¬ righteous, because they turn away from their idols and abominations, and follow their hypocrisy no more, neither will they bear their evil yoke any more, and serve them in their unrighteousness, and call their falsehood, good. As the present world playeth the hypocrite under this yoke, and serveth their wickedness only that their god Mausim may live and be fat. 7. The spirit of God here also presenteth a figure, shewing how Christ would for a while put himself under this servile yoke in the kingdom of nature, and would betroth to him Adam’s daughter, that is, our flesh and blood, and acquire to himself Adam’s possessions, goods and riches, viz. the kingdom or dominion of the human nature; that is, draw many men to him, and in the end go therewith out of this servile house of this world, again into his Father’s eternal house, in which departure to his Father would the devil and the wicked world scorn him and quite slay him, and would take away and rob him of his goods, as also of his children which he hath here begotten. Even as the devil, by the Pharisees and wicked Jews, did, who would take away and rob Christ of all his faithful children, as Laban pursued and hunted after Jacob, and would take away his purchased goods from him again.

8. But as God would not suffer Laban to hurt Jacob , (Gen. xxxi. 7), so God would not suffer the devil and the wicked high priests to rob Christ of his purchased goods. Although they slew his outward humanity, yet he rose again from the dead, and brought his purchased goods into his Father’s country. 9. The spirit of Moses representeth in this chapter a wonderful figure, which ought well to be observed, because he intimates a secret mystery under it: For he saith, When Jacob did flee away from Laban, Rachel had stolen away her father’s idol gods: and further saith, Thus Jacob stole away the heart of Laban the Syrian, in that he told him not that he fled: and we see further, how Laban, when be came to Jacob, was eager after his idol gods, and searched all Jacob’s household stuff for his idol gods. Also we see in this text, how Rachel was she that loved those idol gods , and sat upon them, and so hid them that her father could not get them again (Gen. xxxi. 19, 20, 30, 33, 34). 10. In these words there is represented to us an outward and an inward figure, shewing how it would go with Israel in the future. For these idol gods were not heathenish idols, according to the constel¬ lation or star (Acts vii. 43) Moloch, as the heathen had. But as we read, they made images, monuments, statues or pictures of their friends that were dead, as a pattern for instruction, which images among the heathen afterwards were turned to idols; and these might well be such images of his kindred that were dead, which Laban was loath to lose, because they were patterns of instruction, and memorials to him of his ancestors and deceased kindred whom he loved.

11. But the true figure under which the spirit pointeth at the future, is this : First, That Israel would not continually cleave to God with their whole heart, but would always take these idol gods of fleshly self-love along with them, and love themselves and their images, viz. genealogies of human greatness, state, high birth and noble pedigrees of gentility, more than God, even as it came to pass. 12. Especially this departure of Jacob intimates the departure of Israel out of Egypt into the promised land, when they took with them also their fleshly idol gods, and presently after served their own idol gods (1 Sam. viii. 8), viz. human greatness; and forsook their God, and regarded their Mammon, and would have kings among them according to the custom of the heathen (1 Sam. viii. 19), and forsook their right King, who had brought them out of Egypt. 13. Secondly, It intimates how Christ, in whose figure Jacob stood, would take to him this Rachel in our flesh and blood, viz. these, in Adam, idol-wills of the soul turned away from God, which hath acquired to itself images and idols, and possessed them as Rachel; and would bring the averted wills of the soul, with their acquired idols

and images, out of the idol’s house or temple, which idols, viz. idolwills and desires, must afterwards be all broken to pieces in the death of Christ. 14. As presently the figure is represented to us, when God said to Jacob, Arise, and go to Bethel, and dwell there: and make there an altar to God, who appeared to thee when thou fleddest from thy brother Esau. Then said Jacob to his household, and to all that were with him, Put away from you the strange gods that are among you, and cleanse you and change your garments: And let us arise , and go to Bethel; that I may there make an altar to God, that heard me in the time of my trouble, and hath been with me in the way which I have gone (Gen. xxxv. 1-3). 15. Which history of Jacob signifieth nothing else but this, viz. when Christ would with this Rachel’s idol gods, viz. our flesh and blood, depart from this servile house, and go to his Father, then he would by his going forth, when he should build the high altar before God (which altar is himself), lay off these our idols in human self-will, viz. every imagination of self-love, before the altar of God in his death, and cleanse our hearts, viz. our soul’s will, and change our garments, viz. our flesh and blood ; as this text in the thirty-fifth chapter clearly signifies, and wholly intendeth it, that Christ would offer us up upon that same Altar of his New Testament, to the God who appeared to us again in our trouble and misery after the fall, in his Covenant of grace.

16. But that the text of Moses saith, Jacob stole away the heart of Laban the Syrian, in that he secretly fled away with his daughters (Gen. xxxi. 20, 21): it hath the very same inward spiritual figure contained in it. For the PTord became man, and took Laban’s, viz. the earthly Adam’s daughters, and brought them by divine subtlety away out of Adam’s house into God’s house, which in that place is called stealing, in that the children of Adam are thus stolen from the kingdom of God’s wrath, that is, brought away in the divine wit and subtlety. 17. For the anger of God had possessed men in the right of nature, but Christ came and married with them, and stole them, together with the idol gods, away from the anger, and offered them up to God upon his Altar, which is himself, and laid off the images of man’s selflove, and cleansed our garments before God, that we might serve him at this Altar. 18. This is properly understood concerning Rachel’s idol gods: the figure indeed sets down only the outward history, but the spirit of God hath its figure under it. For the whole history of Abraham,

Isaac and Jacob stands inwardly in the figure of Christ; for the covenant between Laban and Jacob, and all that happened therein, is a figure of Christ; for Laban here standeth in the figure of the kingdom of nature, and Jacob in the figure of Christ. 19. Laban upbraids Jacob, that he fled from him, and did not suffer him first to kiss his children, and that he might conduct them on their way with mirth and with tabrets (Gen. xxxi. 27, 28). Thus also doth nature with the children of Christ, when they secretly flee from it, and forsake the idol’s house [or temple] ; then the children of nature’s kingdom up¬ braid these children of Christ, for fickle forsworn people, for heretics, novellists, new lights, enthusiasts, or whatsoever sect can be named. And say unto them, When you will depart from your wicked way and enter into another life, why do you not tell it to our high priests, that they may lead you onwards with their ceremonies, viz. confession, sacraments, intercessions? Why do you not observe the usage of the Churches, where the kingdom of Christ is in mirth, with roaring, organs, and pipes? Why do you steal away from us secretly, and go another way than our ordinances and decrees prescribe? and therefore are enemies unto them, persecute them, and hunt them with censurings and disgraces, as evil children and forsworn, which had robbed them of their idol gods, and will not honour their hypocrisies for gods ; as Laban pursued after Jacob and upbraideth him, because he had not first kept that pageantry and solemnity, and told him beforehand that he would travel and be gone.

20. Thus Babel also would fain have it, that the children of Christ should only enter in to God through their pageantries and solemnities, and belly-ordinances; and whosoever will enter in to God otherwise than through their ordinances, and flee from this servile house [of bondage], he is damned and cannot come to God. 21. But Jacob can well go to his father without Laban’s pageantry and solemnity; and though he upbraid Jacob and calleth his way wrong, yet his way was right in the sight of God. For God had com¬ manded him so, and Laban could not withhold him at all. So also Christ’s children, when the spirit of Christ in them commandeth them to flee out from Babel, cannot be withheld ; also it doth not hurt them, though the world blameth them never so for it, and scorn, deride, disgrace, and upbraideth them for fools, heretics, and enthusiasts. 22. Yet the Most High reproveth and chargeth Laban that he speak not otherwise to Jacob than friendly;1 that is, the disdain2 of 1 Courteously and kindly. 2 Blasphemies, reproach, misusage. Babel towards the children of Christ must, in the end, turn to their mere joy and kindness, and now Laban must let them depart with their goods and riches. For God commandeth his children to flee from Babel (Rev. xviii. 4), and to go into the first country of their father (out of which they are departed with Adam), not through the solemnity and pageantry of Babel, but through the conversion of the mind and will : viz. a new obedience.

23 . For God hath as much pleasure in the solemnity and pageantry of Babel, as in Laban’s tabret and piping. He requires a penitent, con¬ verting heart, which in highest simplicity and humility, without any solemnity or pageantry, draweth near unto him, and departeth from Babel : with such a one he goeth along and blesseth him. 24. For when Jacob was gone forth, without solemnity and pageantry, then the angels of God met him , whom he called God’s host (Gen. xxxii. I, 2); which signifieth that when the children of God go forth from human inventions1 and imaginations, and account all earthly things as nothing, and slip away from the hypocrisy of all their titulary brethren, then they get the angels of God for a guard, who go along with them, and lead them on their way in their going out from Babel, as here was done to Jacob. 25. For as soon as Christ is born in a man, so that the mind goeth forth out of the Adamical servile house of images,2 then the angels of God are appointed his guardians. 1 Trifles, fables, chimeras, fantasies. 2 Or imaginary conceits. How Esau went to Meet Jacob , with four hundred Men, Soldiers: what this signifieth. And how Jacob sent a Present to his Brother Esau; and how a Man wrestled with him the whole Night. What all this meaneth1

I. A /T OSES saith, And Jacob sent messengers before him to his brother Esau into the land of Seir, in the borders of Edom. And commanded them, saying, Tell my lord Esau thus, Thy servant Jacob saith thus, I have been long abroad with Laban until this time: and I have oxen, and asses, sheep, menservants, and womenservants : and I have sent forth to thee my lord to tell thee, that I might find grace in thine eyes. The messengers returned again to Jacob, and said, We came to thy brother Esau, and he also cometh to meet thee, with four hundred men. Then Jacob feared very much, and was in distress: and divided the people that were with him, and the sheep and oxen, and the camels, into two companies; and said, If Esau come upon one company, and smiteth it, the rest will escape (vv. 3-8). 2. This whole chapter stands eminently in the figure of Christ. For when the Word was become Man, and would now go forth from this world and with our humanity possess his eternal mansion, then meets him this host of soldiers in the kingdom of nature in the anger of God.

3. For the kingdom of nature, viz. the natural Adam, was the first¬ born Esau, which was angry with Jacob, that is, with Christ, for the blessing and heavenly inheritance, viz. for the eternal life; because it must die, and lose its right; in which kingdom the anger of God had gotten the dominion. That same anger of God came to meet Christ, when he was about to bring his acquired goods into the eternal country of his Father, viz. into the love of God; as Esau did Jacob, in the type or image of the figure. And Christ was astonished at this warrior, viz. the anger of God, as may be seen on the mount of Olives: as Jacob was astonished at the anger of Esau. 4. And as Jacob divided the herds into two parts, because of the wrath of Esau, that if Esau should smite one company the other might escape: so also was the humanity of Christ divided into two sub¬ stances, viz. into a heavenly, whereof he speaketh, saying, He was come from Heaven, and was then in Heaven (John iii. 13); and also into an earthly, from our flesh and blood; that if the anger of God did smite the one part, viz. our humanity, with death, yet the heavenly part should escape the wrath, and penetrate through death, and therein make our humanity living. For the messengers which Jacob sent to Esau are nothing else but the prayers of Christ, which he sent through the anger of God into his love, viz. into the mercy, that our humanity might find grace and favour with God.

5. For as Jacob sent to Esau, saying he had been long abroad with Laban, even till this time, and had with him menservants and womenservants, and camels, with other cattle; that he might with all this find grace and favour with his lord Esau: so also Christ saith to his Father, in our humanity (viz. in Adam) which he hath assumed, he hath been long abroad absent from the kingdom of God, and hath brought forth,1 in the kingdom of this world in God’s works of wonder, many images out of the divine wisdom through the formation of nature, that he might with these formations of wonders find grace and favour with God, seeing these wonders were brought forth through the nature of his manifested wrath; that so they might come to the eternal divine vision and contemplation. 6. But the anger went to meet him in the four elements, and would devour the earthliness and evil of them. For Esau’s four hundred men signify nothing else but the wrath of nature in the four elements of the body: and they went to meet the humanity of Christ. When Christ was bringing the created image of Adam in our humanity into God, viz. into Paradise, then would the wrath of God first kill the Adamical image, that it might no more live in the kingdom of anger, seeing it was to live in God.

7. And as Jacob humbled himself before God, and said, 0 God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, Lord, thou who hast said unto me, Return again into thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee: I am unworthy of the least of all thy mercy, and all thy faithfulness and truth, which thou hast afforded unto thy servant; for I had no more but this staff with which I went over this Jordan ; and now I am become two bands. Deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I am afraid of him, lest he come and smite me, with the mother and the children (Gen. 1 Born, generated, or begotten. xxxii. 9—1 1). So also Christ humbleth himselfin our assumed humanity before God; and though God in the prophet David, in our assumed humanity, hath bidden him sit at his right hand until he hath laid all his enemies under his footstool (Ps. cx. 1), yet he humbleth himself, even as Jacob did before the anger of Esau: so also did Christ before the anger of his Father. 8. And as Jacob said, When I went over this Jordan I had only this staff, but now am become two bands; so also when Christ, viz. the eternal Word of divine love, came to us in our humanity, then it was only the staff of divine grace.

But in our humanity, in the servile house of Adam, he was enriched with two bands, viz. a twofold humanity, the heavenly, extinguished in Adam, and the earthly from the limus of the earth. Therefore he saith, in this twofold humanity, as Jacob said to God: 0 God of my father Abraham , and God of my father Isaac, 0 Lord, thou hast said unto me, Return again into thy country, and to thy first kindred ; I am less than the least of all these mercies which thou hast bestowed on thy servant-, to signify that it was only in divine mercy that these two bands, viz. the twofold humanity, returned home again into its first country of Paradise to the angelical kindred.

9. And when Jacob had humbled himself before God, and his brother Esau, He stayed there all night, and took of that which came to his hand, for a present to his brother Esau, two hundred she goats, and twenty he goats, two hundred ewes, and twenty rams, and thirty milch camels with their foals, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty she asses with ten foals. And put them under the hand of his servants, every herd by itself; and said to them, Go on before me, and leave room for one herd after another. And he commanded the foremost, and said, When my brother Esau meeteth thee, and asketh thee to whom dost thou belong? whither goest thou? and whose these are that thou drivest? thou shalt then say, They are thy servant Jacob’s, who sendeth them for a present to his lord Esau ; and he followeth behind after us (Gen. xxxii. 13-18). 10. This type is now the great earnestness, whereby the spirit of God in the figure pointeth at the future. For this present of Jacob to his angry brother Esau, pointeth at the place and condition of Christ. When he should appease the anger of his Father, then he must first send these beasts in our implanted humanity for an atonement, which should be presented to the anger of God.

11. But these beasts, which Christ sent to the anger of God before his passion and death, were our implanted beasts, viz. pride, covetous¬ ness, envy, wickedness, lying; whereby one man slandereth, disparageth, disgraceth, shamefully censureth with words, discourageth, suppresseth and exclaimeth against, as wicked and ungodly; and, summarily, all abominations of the devil and the wicked world. 12. These evil beasts are in Adam in sin all awakened and become living. These very forms or conditions of life, wherein Adam generated his evil beasts, wherein the temperature of nature was rent asunder, Christ took all upon him in our humanity: as they are well intimated in the figure ofjacob by five hundred and eighty; and sent them to the anger of God for an atonement, when he was redeeming the humanity from these beasts. 13. And these beasts were, as to Christ, his being despised, scorned, spat upon; whatsoever the Jewish priests did to him, were all our beasts, which Christ, in his body, gave up to the anger of God, as if he himself were the transgressor: and yet he had generated none of these beasts in his will. But Adam had generated them : and Christ took them on him as a lamb, and presented them to the anger of God on his body and life, and did it as if he himself were the transgressor; so that the anger of God devoured them on his body and life, viz. his inheritance which he had in man, as a natural right; whereby the anger of God laid hold of its own; and his wrath and hunger after this vanity to devour these beasts was appeased.

14. And the spirit of Moses speaketh further in the figure of Christ, and saith, thus, The present of Jacob went before him, but he stayed that night with the company. And arose in the night, and took his two wives and handmaids, and his eleven children, and went over the ford. And he took them and sent them over the water, and sent over that which he had, and stayed alone (Gen. xxxii. 21-24). The figure of Christ standeth thus: 15. When Christ had sent this present, before, to the anger of God, he stayed with his company, viz. with his disciples, and arose in the night of the great darkness in our prison of misery, and took his two wives, viz. the twofold spirit of man, viz. the soul and the spiritus mundi (the spirit of this world), the outward soul, and the inward eternal soul, together with the two handmaids, viz. the twofold humanity of the body, and the eleven children, which are the eleven apostles;1 and passed over the ford Jabbok; that is, he went over the brook Kidron, in the dark of the night, over the water (as here Jacob), with all whatsoever he was, or had assumed from us men.

1 1 1 Apostles. 16. For the right twelfth Apostle1 of Christ was not yet chosen in Judas his stead (as here with Jacob), the twelfth son lay yet in the mother’s womb unborn. And as Jacob with his eleven sons went over the water in the great night or darkness: so went Christ with his eleven disciples, in this night of Jacob, over the brook Kidron into the garden, and wrestled with the anger of God, so that he sweat a bloody sweat, till he overcame. 17. And as in this night a man wrestled with Jacob till the day¬ break (v. 24), so also the spirit of God, viz. the love of God in our assumed humanity, wrestled with God’s anger in our humanity till the love of grace brake through the anger, and the daystar of divine love arose in the soul, and overcame the anger (2 Pet. i. 19). As the text in Moses hath here very secretly, and yet very clearly, signified in this figure, saying: 18. When Jacob in this night was passed over with his eleven children , and both his wives , and the handmaids, and all his company, and afterwards was alone, there wrestled a man with him till the break of day appeared. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the ham% of his thigh • and the ham of his thigh was displaced with the wrestling with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. But he answered, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And he said, What is thy name ? And he answered, Jacob. And he said, Thou shalt no more be called Jacob, but Israel: for thou hast striven with God and man, and hast prevailed (Gen. xxxii. 22-28).

19. This text stands wholly in the figure of Christ: for this man, who wrestled with Jacob this whole night, is nothing else but God’s righteousness and truth, in which righteousness, in Adam and in all men, the severe judgment of God was awakened. And it signifieth the same Man who, on Mount Sinai, gave the Law to the people of Israel, in fire and terror; where he appeared in his righteousness, in the type of the Judgment, and commanded man to keep the law of righteous¬ ness under pain of the eternal curse; where he required the possibility and ability from man, viz. from the image of God that he had created in Adam. 20. But man having not stood in the trial,3 therefore God inspake or inspired into him the ground, viz. the fountain of his most inward hidden love, in the promise of the Serpent-Destroyer, viz. the holy name J E S U S. This name J E S U S stood now as a Covenant of grace in God’s severe righteousness, hidden in the most inward ground of the 1 1 2th Apostle. 2 Or, hollow. 3 Proba or Temptation. human soul; and opened itself in the holy fathers,1 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in their faith’s ens.

21. But Jacob at present standing in the figure with his brother Esau, viz. Jacob in the type or image of Christ, and Esau in the type or image of God’s righteousness in the anger, according to the kingdom of nature, so at present in this night, when Jacob was in great anxiety, this figure was manifested to him, that he perceived how God’s love, in the Covenant of grace in the incorporated name JESUS, wrestled with God the Father’s righteousness in the anger of the judgment, viz. in the great night of the darkness of God’s anger, wherein the poor soul lay captive, and was so hard tied and bound2 and put thereinto; and that the anger in the righteousness will not give over, unless it give itself into the love of grace, that the love may break through the anger, as the shining of light doth out of the fire, or as the morning breaketh out of the dark night, and changeth the dark night into day. 22. For the Covenant of grace in the love, and the soul, stood at present in one person. Therefore at present the soul of Jacob must, in Christ’s figure and type, wrestle with God’s righteousness about the heavenly ens, viz. about the substantial wisdom, which the name Jesus brought along with the poor soul in its heavenly substantiality, which faded in Adam; whereby Adam’s faded [substantiality] sprang forth again in this living [substantiality], as a new birth.

23. Therefore the spirit of God saith to Jacob, Thou hast wrestled with God and man (viz. with God’s love in the Covenant, and with the future heavenly substantiality, which substantiality became man in the seed of Mary), and hast prevailed. For Christ, in whose figure Jacob stood, should thus, in our assumed humanity, wrestle with God’s righteousness, and conquer. 24. And the spirit in Moses saith here, And when he saw that he prevailed not against him (understand, God’s righteousness in the anger of the judgment prevailed not against the grace) then he touched the ham of his thigh, and the ham of his thigh was displaced by the wrestling with him. 25. This signifieth the destruction and displacing of the Adamical humanity : that when Christ would stand out this victory, then would the human self-might and own-will be displaced, and broken and killed. But as Jacob died not by this wrestling (though the ham of his thigh was indeed displaced), so also our humanity should not die eternally, but be only displaced, that is, be changed. 26. This signifieth especially how the repentant man must enter 1 Patriarchs. 2 Coarcted. upon this combat of Jacob, and so wrestle with God and man, in the spirit of Christ in God’s righteousness, in the anger. And when he overcometh, then will the ham of his fleshly self-will be broken, that he must go up and down in this world as one half lame, that cannot well walk in the way of the world, but goeth halting, as if his limbs were half broken, with which the wantonness and vanity of this world is driven on.

For the spirit in the victory of Christ toucheth his thigh, that he is half lame in the pride and malice of this world, and never regardeth it more; but goeth up and down as a despised lame man, who in the pride of the world in their hale or frolic jollity [the world] little regard, but hold him for a lame halting man, who cannot follow the garb of the antic tricks, conceited jests and lasciviousness of this world. But he hath wrestled with God and man, and is with this victory touched and marked.

27. This, the pride and wantonness of this world understandeth not, for it goes up and down still in God’s severe righteousness, in the kingdom of nature, in the might of the fire, in self-will, and thinks itself very well, till the judgment possesseth its place; then must the poor soul stand in the eternal judgment, and live in pain and torment. 28. And as Jacob stood in the wrestling, and had his thigh touched that he halted, then the man said to him, Let me go ; for the daybreak dawneth. But he answered, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. 29. This is first the figure of Christ, when he yielded himself up in the righteousness of God in the Father’s anger, so that the anger according to our humanity slew him. Then said the righteousness, Now let me go, for at present the eternal morning breaketh forth in me. But Christ had taken hold of the righteousness, and said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless the humanity again; that the judgment may cease; except thou bring the morning of thy inward power forth through the humanity, that the curse may cease, and that man may wholly stand in the divine working again, in the blessing.

30. Secondly, it is the fair type or image, shewing how it goeth with the repentant man, when he giveth himself up through earnest repentance into this combat of Christ, in Christ’s suffering and death, in his victory, and in the spirit of Christ wrestleth with God’s severe righteousness, which continually assaileth him in his conscience. 31. For God’s righteousness in the conscience saith, Let me go; thou art dead in sins, and hast no part in the divine grace; thou hast purposely and wilfully sinned, and set the grace behind thy back. Now thou art mine, praying will not avail thee, I will not let thee in thy conscience attain the grace; thou wilt obtain no comfort more from God, the morning will no more rise to thee in thy conscience, for thou art a child of death. Now leave off and let me alone, that I may shut thee up below in the dungeon or chamber of death. 32. When this comes to pass then the poor soul wholly immerseth itself into the death of Christ, and giveth itself up to the severe righteousness of God, into the judgment, for the judgment layeth hold on it. But the soul catcheth hold of the incorporated grace in the death of Christ, and diveth therewith into the most inward ground of the judgment of God; in which ground God’s Love is broken forth through the righteousness, and through the judgment, viz. through the eternal night, and hath made that same night in man to be day.

33. Into this day, viz. into the abyss without all human possibility or ability, it diveth as a child, that neither can nor will do any more, [as a child] that is too unworthy of all grace, and must indeed give itself up to the judgment. But with this diving the soul yieldeth all its utmost will and ability, and is in itself as it were void of nature and creature, and falls again into the Word wherein it stood in the eternal speaking before its creaturely nature. 34. For God’s righteousness and judgment hath no deeper ground than merely the creaturely life; but when the will of the soul yieldeth itself up in going forth from the creature, and sinketh into the abyss, then is it again as a new child; for the abyss in the eternal speaking Word, out of which the highest love and grace of God hath manifested itself, layeth hold on it, and penetrateth into it, as the sun doth into the ens of a herb, whence the herb becometh half solar [or of the nature of the sun]. Thus in this diving the soul in its will is half divine; and then it wrestleth with God’s severe righteousness in flesh and blood, and will overpower the anger of God.

35. Then saith God’s righteousness in the conscience, Let me alone. That is, Leave off, and slay me not, for thou seest very well that the divine morning ariseth in me: cease from striving against the judgment of God. But in the right combat the soul saith to God’s righteousness, I will not leave thee except thou bless me. That is, except thou givest me the promised grace out of the death of Christ in his conquest, that I may put on my Saviour Christ, that he may be mine and I his. And then thus saith God’s righteousness (as [was said] to Jacob), What is thy name? And then the poor soul nameth itself according to its own creaturely name; as Jacob did here, when he called himself Jacob. But as the Lord said to Jacob, Thou sbalt no more be called Jacob, but Israel, that is, a tree of life, thus also saith God to the soul: Thou shalt no more have self-names in me, but thou shalt be called a Christian in Christ, viz. a branch in the Tree of Israel, a sprout on the vine Christ (John xv. 5). For thou hast fought with God and man, and hast prevailed. Thou hast overcome God’s righteousness in the wrath of the anger, in thy combat in the spirit of Christ, and art now an essential Christian, and no more a titulary and verbal or mouth Christian, from whom grace is yet far off.