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

36. And Moses saith further, And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, what is thy name ? But he said, Wherefore askest thou what is my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my soul is preserved 1 (Gen. xxxii. 29, 30). The inward holy figure standeth thus: 37. When Jacob with the desire of faith in his wrestling appre¬ hended the morning or daybreak of God in the spirit of Christ, and saw Christ afar off, without the creaturely humanity, then he said, What is thy name? But Christ said, Wherefore askest thou what is my name? That is, I am no stranger, but am even the Israel in thyself, I have no other name, but thy name and my name shall be one. 38. For God, without nature and creature, hath no name, but is called only the eternal GOOD, viz. the eternal ONE, the abyss and profundity of all beings. There is no place found for him, therefore can no creature rightly name him; for all names stand in the formed Word of power. But God is himself the root of all power, without beginning and names. Therefore saith he to Jacob, Wherefore askest thou what is my name? And blessed him.

39. As the creatures and also all vegetables of the earth cannot know how the sun’s power is named, but they stand still for the sun, and the sun giveth them power and warmth and blesseth them, that they grow and bear fruit: so also here is to be understood concerning Jacob and all men. When Jacob saw and felt the morning or daybreak of God in his soul, then the Divine Sun, in the name JESUS, blessed him through an essential working. 40. And this must thereby signify, as it went with Jacob and all the children of God, and yet still goeth with them in this sunshine. When the sun of grace, with its working power, ariseth in the soul, then the soul rejoiceth, and would always fain behold the countenance of God after a creaturely manner; as also Moses desired; and always thinketh God is of some form. They look not yet rightly upon God, but will know God in imagery: thus hard lieth the creaturely imagery upon us, in the departed apostate self-will in the mind, that we cannot at all understand what God is, viz. that he himself is the abyss of all nature and creature, viz. the eternal ONE, that dwelleth in nothing, but only in himself, and hath no form, nor any thing.

41. And it were very well and good that we were not so led by the masters of the letter in an imaginary form, when they teach and speak of the only God, as hath been done hitherto, where men have led us on in vain images of1 the essential will, as if the only God did will this or that; whereas [he] himself is the sole will to the [being of] nature and creature, and the whole creation lieth only and alone in the formation of his expressed Word and will, and the severation of the only will in the expression ; and is understood in the impression to2 nature. 42. If the pride of Lucifer might be torn out of the hearts and eyes of these masters, then men would soon see the countenance of God. But the Babylonish tower, upon which men will climb, and in opinions climb up to God into a severed heaven, where God sits cooped up, this withholdeth the true knowledge and understanding; and makes us always ask, What is the name of God? Where is God? What is the will of God? Also, they say God willeth good and evil, from which they make a multitude of decrees3 in the divine purpose; as a prince in his land makes laws; and they have as much understanding of God and his will as the pot understands of the potter.

43. It is to be lamented that we are so blindly led, and the truth withheld in images;4 for, if the divine power in the inward ground of the soul were manifest and working with its lustre, and that men did desire to go forth from their ungodly ways, and give up themselves to God, then is the whole Tri-une God present in the life and will of the soul; and the heaven, wherein God dwelleth, is opened in the soul; and there, in the soul, is the place of God, where the Father begetteth his Son, and where the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the Son. 44. For God maketh use of no circumscribed place, he dwelleth even in the abyss of the wicked soul, but incomprehensible to it, as to his love; but as to his anger he is manifest and comprehensible in the wicked soul. 1 Or, in. 2 Of. 3 Or, determinations and conclusions. 45. For the eternal speaking1 of the Word, incomprehensible to nature and creature, becomes imaged2 in the will of the soul; of which the Scripture saith, J With the holy thou art holy, and with the perverse thou art perverse (Ps. xviii. 25, 26). Also, such as the people is, such a God they have.

46. For in the thrones of the holy angels God is manifest in his love; and in the thrones of the devils he is manifest with his wrath, viz. according to the darkness and torment; and yet there is but one only God, and not two. According to the tormentive nature he willeth torment, and according to the love he willeth love: as a burning fire desireth hard brimstone like itself, and the light of the fire desireth only an open place where it may shine: It taketh away nothing, but giveth itself for the joy of life; it suffereth itself to be taken; it hath no other will in itself but to give forth itself, and work that which is good. So God, as to his holiness, hath no other will in himself but to manifest the power of his love and shining lustre, in a creaturely form.3 As the sun manifesteth itself in a herb, and tinctureth it and maketh it wholesome and good : so also is to be understood concerning God. 47. Therefore all is but vain jangling, babbling, and a creaturely imagination,4 for men to ask what is God called, or what is God’s name. Or for men to talk much and say, God willeth this or that evil and good, and know not how to say upon good ground how he willeth evil and good, and how a man shall understand the texts5 of Scripture to that purpose.

48. This contention and strife about the letter is, indeed, the very confused divided tongue or language on the high tower of the children of Nimrod in Babel; for that high tower is a figure of the exercises in the Universities,6 where the one divine language is divided or con¬ founded and wrested into many speeches;7 that one people doth not understand another, and that men contend about the only God, in whom we live and subsist, and whereby even the kingdom of nature in its wonders is manifested, and brought into figured wonders.8 49. But the true ground, what God is, and how he is, what the Being of all Beings is, remains as blind to them, as the visibility of this 2 Conceivable, or perceptible, or gets an idea. 6 Disputations in the High Schools. 7 Perverted in phrases and expressions. 8 Fashioned wonderfully. Ps. cxxxix. 14. world is to one that is born blind. And though they are called Masters of the Letters, yet they have lost the five vowels, which are the power of all words; which is much to be lamented, that men understand nothing at all more of the Holy Ghost’s language, what the spirit of God hath spoken in Moses and the Prophets, and how he hath in his speech declared and pointed at that which is future, eternal. Men cleave merely to an historical action,1 and see not what is signified by this or that action.

50. For God’s spirit hath not done such wonders for the history’s sake of a plain simple shepherd, as it standeth in the outward form of it; and hath so exactly expressed those things in writing, as if he were so much concerned in a history, that he hath preserved it among all people, and suffered it to be proclaimed for his word. No, sure: but for this cause; that under such plain, simple, historical relations is signified (and wherewith God’s spirit in the figure alludeth at), that which is future, eternal. Therefore should men look upon the Scripture of the Old Testament with clearer eyes, for the whole New Testament is couched under it in the figure of the plain simple acts or actions. 51. When God had blessed Jacob , then Jacob called the place Peniel (Gen. xxxii. 29, 30). That is, God’s inspection into the soul, where God is manifest in the soul. Then saith the soul, I have seen God face to face in me, and my soul is preserved in this inspection. And when he passed over Peniel the sun arose to him. That is, when God’s sun, viz. his power, is manifest in the soul, then the essence of the soul carrieth the power in itself; and then the divine sun ariseth in the soul’s essence, and then the Father hath there begotten his Son in the soul, which is the sun of righteousness, as also the divine love and joy. And then self-nature halteth, for the sinew of its natural will is displaced, so that the self-will is lame in its ability; as here Jacob. And the text of Moses saith, Hereupon the children of Israel eat not of the sinew upon the ham of the thigh, to this day: because the sinew of the ham of Jacob’s thigh was touched.

52. This sheweth clearly that Jacob and his children understood this mystery, and have instituted a memorial in this sinew. For what doth that which was done to Jacob concern a beast? The sinew of a beast is not therefore displaced or venomed : only, the children of the saints looked upon the ground of the divine mystery. 53. Concerning which the present Jews are very blind, and hang only on the Law. If they did so eagerly seek after Jacob’s sun as they cleave fast to the Law, then would that sinew in them also be dis- 1 Act or thing done. placed, and they would not so hunt after covetousness and gain: But they wash the outside of their cups and dishes, and inwardly remain foul (Matt, xxiii. 25 ; Luke xi. 39). 54. Even as Christendom cleaveth to the history, viz. to the purple mantle of Christ, and hunt away Christ in his power from them, and will not, with Jacob, have the sinew of the wild bestial properties of the voluptuous will of flesh displaced and lamed, but walk nimbly with the beast, under the mantle of Christ. 55. This displaced sinew signifieth that Adam in his innocency, before his Eve, was not such a gross beast as afterwards. Therefore when the spirit of Christ in the Covenant was manifested in Jacob, then it touched the bestial ham of his thigh. To signify that in Christ it should be broken and cease, so that a spiritual man should arise from death, and not such a gross bestial man.

The Excellent and Wonderful Figure, shew¬ ing how ejacob and Esau met, and how all Heart-burning and Evil Will was changed into great Joy, Kindness, and Compassion: What is to be understood thereby1 i . AT this text blind reason should better open its eyes than hitherto jtTit hath done, and better consider the figure of Jacob and Esau, and learn rightly to understand the decree concerning Jacob and Esau; where the Scripture saith, Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated, when the children lay yet in the mother’s womb, and had done neither good nor evil, that the purpose of God might stand (Mai. i. 2, 3 ; Rom. ix. 13). 2. Here men should rightly look upon the purpose of God, what the spirit of God meaneth thereby, for Esau stood in the type or image of the corrupted Adam, and Jacob in the type of Christ, which came to help poor Adam. Therefore must these two brothers come of one seed, to signify that God would become man, and that God’s seed, viz. his Word, and Adam’s seed in its own nature, should be manifested in one person, and become man; and that God’s seed should overcome the corrupted Adam’s seed with great divine love, and quench the Father’s anger with love, and the love should wholly give itself into the anger of the soul, that God’s grace, compassion and mercy in the love may pass through the anger, and also change the anger into compassion;

as here Jacob, with his present, and in great submission and humility, yielded himself to his brother Esau, and changed his anger, which he bare towards Jacob, in respect of the natural right of the first-born, and of the blessing, into such great compassion that Esau fell about his neck and wept in great compassion, and his anger in him was turned into love; even as Christ, with his great love and humility in our assumed humanity in our fiery burning angry soul,2 changed his Father’s anger into such great mercy and compassion, that the divine righteousness in the anger ceased and departed from our souls.

3. For as Jacob appeased his brother Esau with the present and 1 Gen. xxxiii. 2 Anger-soul. [with] humility, when he gave up himself into the anger of Esau, so also Christ appeased the anger of God, when he gave up his heavenly blood with the great tincture of love into the anger of God to be devoured; then was the anger, viz. the nature of the dark world which was manifested in Adam, turned again into the divine light of love, viz. into a love-fire. 4. Moses saith, Jacob lifted up his eyes, and saw his brother Esau coming with four hundred men. And he divided his children to Leah and to Rachel, and to both the handmaids. And set the handmaids with their children foremost, and Leah with her children next, and Rachel with Joseph last. And he passed over before them, and bowed himself to the ground seven times, till he came to his brother (Gen. xxxiii. 1-3). The inward precious figure standeth thus: When Christ, in our assumed humanity, entered into his suffering, then the anger of God in the four elements of the body came to meet him; and then Christ divided his Deity and his humanity, viz. the heavenly world’s substance, which he brought from God in our humanity, and the kingdom of the natural humanity from Adam, into two several Principles: for the Deity, as to the omnipotency, stood yet still. Therefore saith the humanity on the cross, My God, why hast thou forsaken me (Matt, xxvii. 46; Mark xv. 34; Ps. xxii. 1)?

5. The two wives of Jacob, with their children, signify here, in Christ’s state and condition, the twofold soul, viz. that from time and that from eternity. And the two handmaids, with their children, signify here, in this state and condition of his, the heavenly and the earthly corporeity, viz. Leah, in her blear-eyedness signifieth the spiritus mundi in limo terrcef wherein the corruption in Adam was effected, wherein God promised the Destroyer of the Serpent; and wherein Christ should be manifested. And therefore in Leah the line of Christ, viz. the Destroyer of the Serpent in the type and prefigura¬ tion, was born, viz. Judah; and Rachel signifieth the extinguished ens of the heavenly world’s substance, wherein the true soul dwelleth, which faded in Adam’s fall and became unfruitful; as Rachel; till God in the spirit of Christ made her fruitful ; as was done to Rachel. 6. And as Jacob set the handmaids with their children foremost, so was the earthly image in the human nature set foremost in the suffer¬ ing of Christ, which should pass through the sharpness of death; 1 The spirit of the world in the dust of the earth. next after would follow Leah, that is, the body out of the lirnus of the earth, wherein the Destroyer of the Serpent lay, in the suffering of Christ; and after that, Rachel, viz. the heavenly limus with the prince Joseph, that is, with the true Adamical image of the divine world’s substance; and the name Jesus passed before into the suffering of Christ; as Jacob before his wives and children.

7. And as the name and power Jesu, viz. God’s sweetness and love, saw and felt the wrath of God in the human flesh and soul, then the name Jesus bowed itself through all the seven forms of nature’s life, wherein the anger of God was become manifest; that is, he then pressed essentially through the centre of nature, through all the seven forms of nature, quite through the wrathful fire-source. 8. As Jacob bowed himself seven times to the earth before the anger of Esau, and appeased Esau in this humility, so also here the love in the name Jesu appeaseth the anger of the Father’s property in the fire, in soul and body. For the natural life from the spirit of the world, viz. the soul from time, which was breathed into Adam’s nostrils, must yield up its natural right and die. As Jacob yielded up his riches and also his outward life to his brother, to do what he would with him, thus also Christ yielded up our life to the anger of God, and left it willingly. But the name Jesus went before, and brought our natural life quite through death, and took it to himself again, and triumphed with our natural life over and through death.

9. And as Esau his brother, in this humility and submission, ran to meet him, and fell about his neck and kissed him, and in great compassion wept upon his neck: so also in like manner, when the essence of the anger of God [kissed and] tasted the sweet love in the name Jesu in the blood of Christ, then it was transmuted and con¬ verted into such great compassion towards mankind. As Jeremiah in the spirit declareth, where he speaketh in this figure, Ephraim my dear child, my heart is troubled, I must have compassion on him (Jer. xxxi. 20). Where he speaks concerning this compassion. 10. And when Esau wept upon Jacob’s neck, He lifted up his eyes, and beheld the women with the children ; and said, Whose are these with thee ? Jacob answered, They are the children which God hath bestowed upon thy servant. And the handmaids drew near with their children, and bowed them¬ selves before him. Leah also drew near with her children, and bowed themselves before him: afterwards Joseph and Rachel drew near and bowed themselves before him (Gen. xxxiii. 5-7). SHEWING HOW JACOB AND ESAU MET The inward figure stands thus:

When the anger of God held man captive in the darkness, then was he not, in the anger, known to God’s holy image. But when the love in the suffering of Christ in the humanity brake through the anger, so that the anger was changed, then the only God looked on it again in his image, and spake to the name Jesu, saying, Who are these that are with thee? And Jesus answered God and said, They are the children which God hath vouchsafed and bestowed upon his servant. 11. For here Christ presents himself as a servant of God, with his children that are born in him in the faith, viz. with us poor children of Eve. And there passed through the death of Christ, and were presented before the countenance of God: first, the handmaids with their children; that is, man that had been sinful he sets him first in God’s countenance; which Jacob’s handmaids do signify. 12. Afterwards there pressed forward the line of the Covenant, with the spiritual Leah, viz. the first created image out of the limus of the earth, wherein the five prints of the nails, the wounds of Christ, stood; they should be shewn to the only God, that therein he should receive the handmaids’ children, who all bowed themselves before God.

13. Then afterwards came Joseph with his mother, viz. the image of the heavenly world’s substance, and bowed before the only God, which had been angry with him. 14. Men should not understand this in divided figures, types or images, but as the properties of the humanity are manifested before God through the suffering of Christ in one only image, viz. in Christ’s humanity in the kingdom of the restoration or redemption, viz. in the kingdom of heaven. The reader should understand our sense properly : for we write here in the vision of all the three Princi¬ ples, how it went, and still to this day goeth, with the new birth. Our exposition will not bear any dividing of the figure or creature: we understand it in one creature. 15. Our earnest and hearty consideration is this: That we may see and understand how we poor children of Eve were brought through Christ’s suffering and death, and set before God’s counten¬ ance, and how first the soul, with the body of sin, must pass through death, and in the resurrection come again with the body before God, where the body from the limus of the earth is esteemed strange in the presence of God. Therefore it is prefigured in the type in the condition

of a handmaid, and then presently, in that body, the prints of the nails and the suffering of Christ is set before God. Out of which death of Christ the fair image created in Adam appeareth again ; as the whole figure together of Jacob thus fairly typifieth, and as the spirit hath signified thereby. 16. And Esau said further to Jacob, JVhat meanest thou by all this herd which I met? He answered, That I might find grace in the sight of my Lord. Esau said, I have enough, my brother ; keep what thou hast. Jacob answered, 0 no, if I have found grace in thy sight, then receive my present at my hand: for I have seen thy face, as if I had seen the face of God ; and let it please thee from me. Take, I pray thee, the blessing from me which I have brought thee; for God hath bestowed it upon me, and I have enough. Thus he constrained him that he took it (Gen. xxxiii. 8-n). This now is the fair figure wherewith the spirit alludeth, how Christ appeareth before God, with his Christendom, viz. with his purchased goods. Then saith the Father to the Son, Whither wilt thou go with these thy children, who meet me daily, in that they come to me? And Christ saith, O Lord, that I might find grace from thee with them. And the Father saith, They are thy purchased goods, keep what thou hast, I have without them enough, even all things.

17. But Christ saith, O no, my Lord, receive, I pray thee, the blessing which God hath bestowed upon me in my children, which I have brought to thee; for God hath bestowed them on me, and I have enough: and he constrained God his Father that he received the kingdom again from him. And it is a true figure [shewing], how Christ, after he sits at the right hand of God and ruleth over his enemies, would deliver up the kingdom again to his Father. And then also will the Son be subject to the Father, together with his Christendom, as the Scripture saith (1 Cor. xv. 24-28). Which the spirit in this figure powerfully prefigureth, and representeth in a type or image. 18. This is an excellent figure, where Jacob cometh to his brother Esau that had been angry, and perceiveth how Esau falleth about his neck and weepeth, that Jacob saith, I saw thy face, as if I saw the face of God. Which signifieth to us that the wrath of God in the kingdom of nature was become an enemy in Adam’s soul and body, viz. the fiery soul itself, which standeth in the Father’s property in the eternal nature.

19. But when this great love and humility pressed through in the blood of Christ, then was this wrath, viz. the fiery soul, converted again into God’s most clear countenance, and attained again the eye of God’s love. Thus also we are to understand concerning Esau. When the Covenant of grace in the figure of Christ, in Jacob’s humility, was discovered to him, then was his curse and malice, through the spirit of Christ, turned into love, that he was no more he of whom the Scripture saith, Esau have I hated (Rom. ix. 13). For in the kingdom of the Adamical nature was God’s hatred manifested in him, and he was himself that hatred; and of that saith the Scripture, Esau have I hated. Now so long as the hatred in him had the dominion, so long he was in God’s hatred, and was himself the hatred; but when the Covenant of grace in Jacob discovered itself to him, and that Jacob’s humility pressed into his hatred, then began he to lament and weep, and God’s clear countenance was manifested in his hatred, so that in great compassion he fell upon Jacob’s neck and wept. 20. Which denoteth the repentance of poor sinners. When the malicious wicked soul which lieth captive in the hatred of God turneth to God, then beginneth first this compassion and repentance and sorrow for its former sin. When the spirit of Christ afflicteth the soul, then it weepeth and sorroweth that it hath been so wicked; and then instantly the sun riseth upon it, and the hatred of God is turned into the countenance of love; where, of a hateful spirit, he is made an angel.

21. And though clearly the Scripture saith in a certain place, Esau sought repentance with tears , and yet found it not (Heb. xii. 17). But this text giveth us to understand much otherwise, namely, that indeed Esau, and all the children of corrupt Adam, do not find repentance in their own willing, going, and running; else would it stand in the ability of man to attain grace; but the grace and divine mercy and compassion worketh repentance: Yet man must give up his will to the divine working. 22. The soul’s will must incline itself towards the promised grace; and then will the divine sun shine into its will, and dissipate the hatred of wickedness.1 And then the soul graspeth after the sun of grace, and so beginneth the working of repentance in the power of grace; and then the anger of God in the soul giveth its severe righteousness to the spirit of Christ. And so Christ then saith to his Father, I have lost none of them that thou hast given to me (John vi. 39). 23. The Scripture saith, God willeth that all men should be saved (1 Tim. ii. 4). And Christ is come to seek and save that which is lost (Matt.

1 Or, the hatred in wickedness. xviii. n). And He hath no pleasure in the death of a sinner (Ezek. xxxiii. n). Then, saith reason, If God will that all men should be saved, and willeth not the evil, can he not then save all? Why do they remain hardened, if he willeth not their hardening? 24. Answer. The soul standeth in the unsearchable1 will of God, in the eternal speaking Word. It is a spark from the divine speaking, whereby the abyss, viz. the eternal One, expresseth or speaketh forth itself in the science, understanding, and knowledge of the severation.2 In the speaking it is come into nature and creature, and hath now the ability to express again, viz. an image of itself. 25. Also in its knowledge it speaketh forth the wonders of the divine possibility in good and evil. It speaketh itself in its essential speaking, out of the eternal science itself, in evil: where it should speak God, it speaks in itself, want: where it should speak in its science, into the eternal One, viz. into God’s love and wisdom, there it speaks into severation, viz. into multiplicity; and bringeth the science of its ability, which standeth in the eternal speaking Word, out of the temperament into a self-will, which breaketh off from the only will of God and entereth into self.

26. Therefore then it changeth the eternal will of the Unity in it, into the centre of severation, wherein the only God introduceth his only will, in the speaking forth of the Word, into nature and painful¬ ness, to the divine perception and feeling, viz. into an essential spiritual fire; and out of the fire into a light, whereby the abyss becomes majestic and working. Thus the false or wicked soul speaks itself only into a source of fire. 27. For its will to the speaking, which in God stands in the abyss, which brings itself through the desire into the fire-speaking, viz. into properties, that goes not easily back again into the abyss, viz. into the eternal One: But if it go back again, viz. into the eternal One, viz. into God, then the fiery science becomes majestic and light, and then is the soul an angel of God, viz. an image of the eternal divine science. 28. But if the will continue in the fire as a magical fire-source, then is the soul that very fire-source. Who shall now advise and per¬ suade this fire-source, seeing it hath its ground in the abyss, and is itself its ground? The power of the majesty shineth through it; but the desire shuts it up, and maketh it dark, so that the light cannot be manifest therein. As it stands in John i. 5, The light shineth in the darkness,

1 Unfathomable. 2 Separability. and the darkness comprehendeth it not. They dwell one in another, as day and night : the soul, in its imprinted desire, maketh itself darkness. 29. The eternal One, viz. God, is in it, and it comprehendeth him not; it maketh an angry God to itself. Where God’s word in the anger speaketh, and formeth itself into nature and creature, there it worketh in itself, evil. But if it stood still from its working [for] the twinkling of an eye, then it would dive again into the eternal One, viz. into God; and so the divine science in the light would begin to work in it, and so it would come to repentance, even as it cometh to pass with the penitent. Concerning which Christ saith, Except ye he converted, and become as a child, you will not see God (Matt, xviii. 3). 30. The soul’s will, which hath its ground and rise in the divine revelation (whence it is become a working life), should and must turn again into its mother out of which it proceeded; and then it is as a child in the mother’s womb. And so in its mother it beholdeth God, viz. the Abyss of all beings; and is new-born in its mother; that is, the mother giveth it the light’s power, and in that power it attaineth the ability to work repentance. And then the eternal unsearchable will of God, which is called the Father of all beings, begetteth his only Son, viz. his power of love, in and through the science1 of the soul, as in the particular or parcel of the whole will of God; for the ground of the soul, and God’s eternal speaking Word, is one only ground, undivided.

31. And as we know that the same only eternal-begetting and speaking Word expresseth itself in heaven, viz. in the power of the light, in holiness, viz. the holy wisdom: so also the same only Word expresseth itself in the hell of darkness, in flames of torment, viz. in hellish essences; according to which God calleth himself, An angry God, and a consuming fire (Deut. iv. 24; Heb. xii. 29). For without and beyond the only Word, or speaking, of God, there is nothing. So also it is to be understood concerning souls, as also angels, and devils. 32. In the resigned soul God the Father expresseth the holy name Jesu, viz. the grace, mercy, and compassion; that is, he begetteth Christ in it, and bringeth the Adamical, evil, innate will, through the suffering and death of Christ, again into the eternal One , where the Son delivereth up the kingdom of the soul’s nature again to the Father (1 Cor. xv. 24). 33. But if the soul will not stand still from its working of wicked¬ ness, then the Father, through the Word, speaketh hell torment in the soul; and the desire of the soul imprinteth and fixeth itself therein, and its impression maketh the eternal gross darkness, viz. a gulf between God [and it]. And yet no strange foreign speaker must be here understood, which from without shall speak into the soul; but the word, that is, the soul itself, speaketh itself thus into wickedness.

34. But it hath lost in Adam the good speaking [or expression of good], viz. the divine ability. But of God’s mercy it is inspoken or inspired again of grace, in Paradise, as a self-centre of the soul; and it stands now at present in the soul as a self-centre or principle, and speaketh continually into the soul [saying], It should stand still from its false [and wicked] imagination, and then will that good1 manifest itself again in the soul. But if the soul will not stand still from its ungodly speaking, then cannot the good inspeaking or inspiration manifest itself in the soul ; and so it cannot be converted. 35. Therefore this is the conclusion: that God, in the false [and wicked] soul’s speaking, cannot be good; and in the resigned soul’s will, he cannot be evil. In himself he is indeed good, but notin that soul. 36. God is only called God where his love is expressed, and known and manifest operatively and feelingly. Of which the Scripture also saith, The Word (John i. 1) which is God, is nigh thee, namely, in thy mouth and heart (Deut. xxx. 14; Rom. x. 8). Also, The kingdom of God is within you (Luke xvii. 21): with the holy thou art holy, and with the perverse thou art perverse (Ps. xviii. 26).

37. In heaven he is called God, and in hell he is called anger; and yet he is in the Abyss, both in heaven and in hell, the eternal One, viz. the only Good. 38. And man can speak no further or deeper concerning God’s will, but merely and only as in his manifestation through the Word; where the Word bringeth itself into nature and creature: there God willeth through the expressed Word of evil and good. As the science of every thing is in the formed Word, so also is God’s will therein: That same expressed Word is in the angels, angelical; in the devils, diabolical; in man, human; in beasts, bestial. And yet in itself, in its eternal speaking, in the One, is only God, viz. one only holy Word, a ground and root of all beings. 39. Therefore salvation lieth in the will of the soul,2 whether it will suffer itself to be saved, or whether it will stand still in its will. Not that it can take salvation to itself: no, it is given of grace, only the 1 Good speaking, motion, or inclination of the spirit in the mind. 2 Note the Grace of God.

divine sun shineth into it in the abyss; and it lieth in it,1 whether, with its will, which it hath from God, it will again for the twinkling of an eye dive down in its mother, viz. in God’s unsearchable will, and so it will attain the ability. 40. For the ability hath opened its mouth to the soul, and saith, Come ye to me (Matt. xi. 28). As the sun shineth the whole day into all plants, and giveth them power, and the sun is not in fault that the thistle is a thistle, but the first ens is the cause whence it is a thistle. 41. So also a false and wicked soul from the ens of God’s anger in the curse, and from the inherited wickedness, as also from the actual wickedness, becometh a thistle, in that the will, viz. the science of the soul, speaketh in [the quality] a thistle; and from such a false and wicked ground there grow more thistles. As God in Moses saith, He will visit or reprove the sins of the father upon the children unto the third and fourth generation (Exod. xx. 5); and Christ saith, A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit (Matt. vii. 18).

42. Thus we see that perdition cometh from the soul. And we see that God’s holy will cannot be manifest in false and wicked working. So long as the soul’s will worketh evil, so long God’s speaking formeth itself therein in anger; but when it beginneth to stand still from such working, then is God’s power of love manifest therein : for if it worketh no more, then worketh in it the Abyss, viz. the One. 43. For God worketh from eternity to eternity, but no other than his Word; and that Word is God (John i. 1), viz. a manifestation of the Abyss. Now if the soul speaketh no more its own will, then is the unsearchable will speaking in it: where the creature standeth still, there God worketh. 44. Now if the creature will work with God, then must its will enter into God; and then God worketh with and through the creature; for the whole creation, both heavenly, hellish, and earthly, is no other than the working Word, the Word itselfis All. 45. The creature is a compacted, coagulated vapour and exhala¬ tion from the Word. And as the Word is exhaled out of the free will, where the free will bringeth itself out of the Abyss into the profundity, so also the free will of the angels and souls bringeth the Word into a profundity. And that profundity is the creature, viz. a fire-source to its re-speaking-forth; and out of that re-speaking-forth proceedeth evil and good; and according to that re-spoken-forth substance and power the soul hath its judgment and sentence.

4 6. For that is the judgment: that the evil be separated from the good, and that every thing possess its own principle. Whatsoever soul now speaketh forth hellish source, viz. the curse, it must [speak it] into death, that it no more bring God’s Word into evil and good, but [into] the evil alone, that every thing may remain with its own. 47. And therefore because in the place of this world, through the Word, evil and good are spoken forth, therefore in that place is a final day of separation appointed, when good and evil shall cease to be spoken in any place. And the wicked shall have their place prepared, where evil shall be spoken in its eternity, that the good may be known, and in the good the joy be manifest. Also that it may be known what evil and what good are; also what life and death are; and that the children of God may rejoice. 48. For if evil were not known, joy would not be manifest; but if joy be manifest, then is the eternal Word spoken in joy : to which end the Word, with nature, hath brought itselfinto a creation. 49. And this is the true ground wherein all conceits and opinions are known, and all sophistry thrown to the ground; also all strife and contention hath an end. Whosoever rightly seeth and understandeth this, hath no further question about anything; for he seeth that he liveth and subsisteth in God, and he giveth himself up to God, that God may further know and will through him, and speak what and how he will. This party seeketh only the estate of lowliness, that God in him may alone be high.

50. But so long as Lucifer hath his dominion in man, so long the creature presseth forward to advance itself, and will be its own God. And this is also a wonder: as God’s wisdom standeth in the wonders in the love, so it is also in self, and in the appropriation of the creature. 51. Every thing is good in its own principle wherein it liveth, but to another it is opposite: Yet it must be so that one may be manifest in the other, and the hidden wisdom may be known; and be a sport in the severation, wherewith the profundity, viz. the eternal One, may sport with itself, before itself. 52. We should therefore learn to understand the Scriptures aright, how God willeth good and evil, namely, the determination is not in his very self, but in his expressed word, viz. in nature and creature. God hateth Esau in the corrupt nature, in Esau’s self-nature: Esau was the type of hatred itself; but in God’s self, viz. in the impressed or inspired Covenant of grace, he loveth him. 53. Therefore he presents the type of Christ, viz. his brother Jacob, together with him, and lets them both come out of one seed; to signify that, in the corrupted Adamical nature in the hatred of God, Christ should call Esau to repentance, and beget him anew; as Jacob brought Esau to repentance, so that he let his malice fall, and wept bitterly, and departed from his evil will towards Jacob.

54. This therefore is the understanding of the Scripture: that the earthly Adam in the kingdom of corrupt nature, in his own will, findeth not, nor can find, repentance, for there is no ability therein to good; but the incorporated grace in him awakeneth or stirreth up the ability, when the will turneth to it: For if self-will could work repentance and become good, honest and virtuous, it needed not grace. 55. The decrees in Scripture point only at two kingdoms, viz. the hardening respects the false and wicked will; the false will hardeneth itself: God’s anger in the will’s own substance hardens it; this hardening doth not enter in from without, but is manifested in the will’s own substance. The will is from God, and the same God in the will introduceth himself into the hardening, in that manner as he introduceth himself into hell in darkness and torment. The same is also to be understood concerning the kingdom of grace. 56. God willeth in man only that which is good, in the kingdom of his grace; where the free will yieldeth itself up into the grace, there God willeth that which is good in the will, through the grace.

57. But when a man will say, Man cannot turn his will towards that which is good, viz. towards grace, that [saying] is groundless : in all wicked men grace indeed standeth in the abyss of the creature, and the will need only stand still from wicked working, and then it beginneth, as to its self-will, to dive down into the abyss. 58. For that which standeth still, standeth still together with the eternal One, and becometh one substance therewith, for it goeth into its nothing. Must not the false will or desire for a worldly law’s sake, for fear of punishment, forbear or stand still from unrighteous works? Wherefore then not also for the sake of the commandment of God? Can it be obedient to a worldly lord and master, and for that end stand still for [that] which he would have him? Wherefore not also to God? especially when the ability is as soon given, as a man doth but incline his will to stand still. 59. But the cause why the total false, wicked will doth not stand still, and incline itself to grace, is this: that it is clearly a thistle born, wherein grace lieth too deeply hidden; and the wrath of God is too

strong in nature. Grace draweth it, and sheweth to it its own false¬ hood and wickedness; but it contemneth grace, and worketh as a thistle doth in the power of the sun. Such a one is to God a good savour of death to the damnation in hell, that grace may be severed from the false and wicked will (2 Cor. ii. 15, 16). 60. But the conclusions of reason which pronounceth that God in himself, so far as he is called God, hath determined that one part of men, and indeed the greatest number, shall and must be damned, and that of his own purposed will he hardeneth them, is false; and hath no ground, either in the Scripture or in the light of nature: if a man but rightly consider the Scripture, and doth not blindly look upon it. 61. For in God, so far as he is called God, there is no purpose nor beginning to will: he is himself the will of the profundity, viz. One, alone. And he himself willeth nothing but good, and therefore he is himself also that same good will, or willing of good: For the good that he willeth is the birth of his power, viz. his Son.

62. God willeth in himself nothing but to manifest his own good, that he himself is; and that could not be done if the only good power did not introduce itself, with the exhalation, into the desire to nature, and into a severation, viz. into the science; for if the good did remain alone, there would be no knowledge or skill. 63. But now the good, viz. God in himself, maketh not evil or separation, but the science, viz. the Fiat, or the desire to severation, bringeth itself into nature and creature; and from the science springeth evil and good, and not from God, or in God, in his Trinity. 64. For there is no decree: but there is a consultation therein. And then there must also be a cause of that consultation therein. And then again, there must be a cause of that also; and so there must be something before God, or after God, wherefore he so consults and determines. 65. But he is himself the profundity, and the One; and is one only will, that is, himself, and that is only good; for one only thing cannot be opposite to itself, for it is but one, and hath no quarrel with any thing.

66. Therefore it is the folly of reason, that they speak of compul¬ sion and inevitable necessity, and understand not the Mysterium Magnum.1 Or that they say, God of his purpose willeth the evil desire or will, which he hath hardened that it should not attain the grace. 1 The Great Mystery. 67. I shew to this blind reason a thistle to consider of, which the sun for a whole day toucheth, and giveth it light and power: yet it remains a thistle. So also the wicked will: the divine sun shineth to it the day of its whole life : but its ground is an ens of a thistle. 68. Otherwise, if God did of purpose harden it, the righteousness could have no judgment therein: for that which doeth what it must do liveth according to the will of its Lord. But if God willeth not that which is wicked , as in Ps. v. 4, then the evil cometh out of the root; and in the root of knowledge out of nature’s ground to the creature, and by accident. And for that cause hath God manifested his will, and given his Law and Gospel ; that is, hath manifested his threatenings and his grace, that a day of separation might be kept with righteousness, and that no creature might have excuse.

69. And the history saith further, after Esau had received the present of Jacob, he spake unto his brother Jacob, saying, Let us take our journey, and go forward, I will go with thee. But Jacob said to him, My lord, thou knowest that I have with me tender children, and, moreover, cattle that are great with young, and sucking calves: if they be overdriven for one day the whole flock would die. Let my lord pass over , before his servant, and I will follow on softly, as the cattle and the children are able to go, until I come to my lord into Seir (Gen. xxxiii. 12-14). This text appeareth to be only an outward history, but the spirit hath also its inward figure under it, for Jacob stands in that figure of Christ. And the figure is thus: 70. When Christ through his suffering and death appeased his* Father’s anger in the kingdom of nature, thus said the appeased anger: Now will we arise, and take our journey together (understand, in the life of man). But the love said, Man is too tender, feeble and impotent, and can scarce go in God’s ways, I will remain with them even to the end of the world (Matt, xxviii. 20). And lead them slowly,1 as they are able to go, lest they fall into temptation and error, and be blind as to grace. Go thou before, my lord, I will lead them on softly under my yoke of the cross, that they die not; for if they should now presently be led in the Father’s severe righteousness, they would not be able to go: though they are indeed redeemed, yet they live still in flesh and blood, I will come after with them to thee into Seir; that is, into God’s righteousness.

1 Gently and moderately. 71. And Esau said, Let me now leave with thee some of the folk that are with me. He answered, What needeth it? let me but fnd grace in the sight of my lord (Gen. xxxiii. 15). That is, God the Father said, Let me leave some of my severe righteousness, commandments and laws with thee. But Christ said, What needeth it? let me, with these redeemed chil¬ dren, only find grace with thee, for they cannot fulfil the Law. 72. Thus Esau went his way again that day towards Seir (Gen. xxxiii. 16). That is, thus God’s righteousness pressed into its own principle. And Jacob went to Succoth, and built him an house, from whence the place is called Succoth (Gen. xxxiii. 17). This, in the figure, is as much as to say, Christ led his Christendom, viz. his children, not to Seir, that is, into the proof or trial of God’s righteousness (though indeed grace was manifested in them), but he erected a house, viz. the Christian Church upon earth, and made his children tents,1 that is, Christian ordinances, wherein they might dwell. And hence it is called Christendom, as Jacob’s city is called Succoth. So also the place or city of Christendom is called Suchet (seek), so shall you find (Matt. vii. 7; Luke xi. 9) Christ, who is always in these tents with his children, to the end of the world (Matt, xxviii. 20).

73. And the text in Moses saith further: Afterwards Jacob went to Shalem, the city of Shechem, which lieth in the land of Canaan, when he came from Mesopotamia f and set up his station before the city. And bought a piece of ground of the children of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for an hundred pieces of money, and there he set his tent up, and erected an altar, and called on the name of the strong God of Israel (Gen. xxxiii. 18-20). In this text the spirit alludeth rightly to the future Christendom; for after his resur¬ rection Christ led his children to Shalem, that is, into salvation, or the anointing or unction of the Holy Ghost, as Jacob led his children to Shalem; but it was to the city of Shechem, that is, among the heathen. 74. And set his station before the city. That is, Christ should have his habitation by the heathen, and set his temple and doctrine near the idols’ temples of the heathen, and purchase the city of his holy Christian Church from the heathen; that is, with his blood purchase it from God’s righteousness, even as it is come to pass; and there erect his altar among the heathen, and preach the name of the God of Israel, that is, Christ.

75. For the name Shechem signifies that the Christian Church must be in misery and trouble: As Jacob buildeth his habitation before the 1 Tabernacles, booths. 2 Padan-aram. city Shechem, so must also the children of Christ be but strange guests in this world, and be but as household servants to the heathen, potentates, and children of this world. Though indeed they have their habitation, viz. the temple of Christ in them, which Christ hath purchased for them with his blood, yet they are outwardly but strange guests and pilgrims, and dwell without, before the city of this world, viz. in an earthly tabernacle and tent, in flesh and blood. Of Dinah , Jacob’s Daughter, which he begat of Leah , how she was deflowered by Hamor’s Son, and how Jacob’s Sons slew Shechem for it, and all the males that were in that City, and took Dinah again: And what is to be understood by this figure1 I. A OSES saith, But Dinah the daughter of Leah , which the had borne JlVA/o Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land. And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the lord of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and deflowered her. And his heart clave to her, and he loved the damsel, and spake kindly to her. And Shechem said to his father Hamor, Get me this damsel to wife (Gen. xxxiv. 1-4). The Reader should very seriously consider this figure, and rightly meditate on the text in Moses, and look thoroughly into it;2 then he will well understand our sense and meaning and most precious apprehension, opened to us by the divine grace; and learn to look upon the Scriptures of the first Book of Moses with clear eyes.

2. Leah the wife of Jacob bare to him six sons, viz. the half stock of Israel, and of her came Judah, viz. the root of David, of whom Christ was manifested according to our humanity. Afterwards she bare this Dinah, a daughter, by which figure the spirit powerfully prefigureth Christendom, that after Christ’s ascension into heaven, after the work of human redemption, the true Christendom should be born; as Jacob first begat the twelve patriarchs, but afterwards of Leah, that is, of the mother of Christendom, a daughter of fleshly self-love would be born, which daughter would go agadding to see the daughters of the land, among whom she should be a stranger. 1 Gen. xxxiv. 2 Into the face of it. That is thus much in the figure: 3. When Christendom would be born, that its number might be great, it would go forth in self-love and seek the pleasure of the flesh; and would set its heart upon the customs and behaviours of the people, and depart from lowliness and humility, and would look after the wantonness and pride of the daughters of the land, that is, of the people. And then they would beget this daughter, Dinah, and appear before God in fleshly voluptuousness of spiritual whoredom, and would play the whore with the heathenish customs, but yet would present itself beautiful, and trimly dressed, as an amorous virgin which runneth abroad to be seen, that she might take lovers, as Dinah did, which went thus forth agadding.

4. Thus also would Christendom trim itself, and dress itself with great ostentation and solemnity, with churches and schools, and put on glittering, sumptuous, appearing-holy garments, that they might have respect with the daughters of the land, as with strange people; and yet would be full of flames of self-love and fleshly menstruous pollution under such habits, and have a whorish heart, as a whore outwardly flatters, beautifies and trims herself, and will throughout be called a chaste virgin. Thus also would this trim Christendom be called holy: but her heart would only play the whore with fleshly voluptuousness. 5. She would fain see the dress of the daughters of the land, which dress is no other than the heathenish wisdom and philosophy; and would draw the same into Christ’s kingdom, and would live under Christ’s purple mantle, in those rites and customs, and trim herself therewith, and thereby quite forget that her tents and habitations are without the city of these peoples’ customs, as Jacob dwelt without, before the city of Hamor (Gen. xxxiii. 18); and also Christ said, His kingdom was not of this world (John xviii. 36). 6. But this Christendom would set her heart upon the kingdom of this world, and so, in the dress of a virgin, trim herself with many churches, priests and ceremonies, under the habit of a virgin; but in this departure from the simplicity and humility of Christ, she would but gad abroad in the world, and look after fleshly whoredom; as Dinah did, which is a type of fleshly Christendom, which is always born after the true children of Christ: as Dinah was born after the twelve patriarchs. That is :

7. When Christendom is born and manifested among a people, it begetteth in that place, first, the twelve patriarchs, viz. the ground of the Apostolic doctrine. But when she mixeth again with the heathenish wise men, and with the lust of the flesh, then that place begetteth a Dinah, viz. a whoredom with Christ; that is, a seeming Christian, yet the heart is but a whore; and then this whore goeth abroad gadding to find the habitations of that people. That is : 8. She seeketh again the heathenish ground, and mixeth herself with the heathen, and is with child by the heathenish philosophy, and bringeth forth a bastard, half Christian and half heathenish, viz. a new sect or doctrine, which doth not fully agree in form with the first customs of that people among whom it did spring forth; and yet in her heart is no whit better than they. 9. And then this people raise themselves up against that strange opinion, and cry out in anger, These have deflowered our sister Dinah, and have made her a whore, and are enraged against the new¬ found opinion, as the sons of Jacob against Shechem; and with fighting and the sword, with storming and cursing, run on against the deflowerer of their sister Dinah, and murder him; and not only him, but all the males that are with him, as Jacob’s sons did the Hamorites. And then the innocent must thus suffer with the guilty; to signify that they all of them, both the one and the other, live in such religious whoredom. For the whore, for whose sake they take vengeance, is their sister, and born of their stock, as Dinah their sister was, and they came of one mother.

10. We see here eminently the type of contentious Christendom, how Christendom would be headstrong and furious in opinions, and that, in great blindness; and not know wherefore, and would not see themselves, that they thus rage in their own whoredom, and strive not about the power of true Christianity, as about the true Christian life; but about their contrived opinions, as about their sister Dinah, which goes abroad gadding from them, and gazeth upon the strange opinions; and cry out upon the opinion for a whore, and yet see not how they should help their sister’s heart, wherein sticketh the lust of whoredom. As Jacob’s sons did not see how to help the evil, that their sister might save her credit; and though Hamor and Shechem sent to them to give her a dowry, and would marry their sister, and love her, and be circumcised, and become one people with them, and would perform all love, faithfulness and friendship towards them, yet all this did not help. 11. And although they told them, that if they would be circum- cised, and be one people with them, they would give them their sister, yet they were furious in killing and slaying; to signify that this is a figure of future Christendom, which would arise out of this stock. As we see that it so comes to pass before our eyes, that men strive about the gadding separated opinions, and kill and murder one another for them; and yet this is but for the opinion’s sake of false whoredom, which the titulary Christendom hath taken up, wherein they trim themselves in hypocrisy and whoredom, and look not how their sister might be helped, who is gone astray in a strange opinion. But they take their swords, and would slay the new opinion, and snatch their sister, who is with child with another opinion, forcibly again with her bastard out of Hamor’s house, and slay Hamor and Shechem and all their males.

12. And though they would unite themselves with them, as with the true Christian ground, viz. with the chief Articles of Christian doctrine, yet it avails not; they will, against all faith and promise, slay and kill, and keep their opinions, which they have contrived in their ease and pampered jollity, with their fat bellies and heathenish festivals. As it is seen at this day in the contentions and opinions. 13. Men of self-love have introduced their Christianity into a fleshly kingdom, and finely trimmed it with laws, ceremonies and opinions, and have covered it with Christ’s purple mantle, and yet live in mere spiritual whoredom under it, with a hypocritical show. But their hearts constantly beget this lustful Dinah, which runs abroad from the simplicity and humility of Christ, and plays the whore with the idols of fleshly lust, viz. with pride and covetousness, merely with their own honour and reputation, and a voluptuous life; quite contrary to the true Christian ground. 14. But seeing the spirit of Christ dwelleth yet always in his Christendom, he often stirreth up men which do thus acknowledge and see the sleep and whoredom of the titulary Christendom in their Sodomitical life, and turn away from them, and search in the Scrip¬ tures, and also in the light of nature, whether this their fleshly ground can subsist in the presence of God; and when they see that it is false, then they fall upon some other ground, and reprove the whoredom of the titulary Christendom.

15. And when the hypocrites in their voluptuous glory hear and see these things, that thereby they are blemished and defiled, and that their God Mausim is made manifest; then they cry, O, there’s a heretic, he deflowereth our sister Dinah, viz. our opinion, and maketh the Church a whore. And though some should offer to give a good account of his ground and opinion, and reconcile and marry himself with the true Christian ground, and marry with their sister Dinah, viz. to espouse the first true virgin Christian ground, and to be of one and the same heart and will with them in the Christian ground, all this avails not; they snatch their sister, viz. the name of a Christian from them, and had rather keep the deflowered damsel with her bastard by them, whose shame the truth hath discovered; than they may see how to help their sister’s shame, that she may attain the wedlock with Christ. 16. They suppose, when they can with power rescue and keep their opinions, and though indeed the whoredom in their opinion is laid naked, that it is weakened and blemished; yet they will have their Dinah to be taken for a virgin, and though her shame of whoredom be open to the daylight, yet they will defend the same with the sword, and with slaughter. As we see before our eyes, and the present strife intimates no less, but that it is manifest that Dinah is become a whore, viz. titulary Christendom that playeth the whore in the presence of God, and hath lost her virgin chastity, and the purity of her conscience. And so at present the brethren of this Dinah fight for her, and will preserve her honour and reputation with the sword and with killing; and will murder all those who do deflower and defame their Dinah.

17. This Dinah is at present nothing else but the stone churches and great colleges of their ministers, wherein men use the name of Christ, but seek thereby only their own honour, voluptuousness, and good days,1 how a man may be honoured in the world. 18. For the true Apostolic temple is the temple of Jesus Christ, viz. the new man, who liveth in righteousness and purity before God, who walketh in humility and in the simplicity of Christ. And his ministers are such as do declare the peace in the love of Jesus Christ, who labour that the deflowered Dinah might be married with Shechem, and that Hamor and Shechem with their males might also become Christians; who leave the sword in its sheath, and teach with the meek and gentle spirit of Jesus Christ; and shew instead of the murdering sword the spirit of cleansing, how this deflowered Dinah might get Christian honour again, and be married to her Bridegroom. 19. Behold, O Christendom! the spirit hath set this before thee in the figure of the twelve patriarchs, and signifieth that thou wouldest do thus: not that thou shouldest do it. Though this strife must come, that the true children of Christ might be exercised and made manifest ; otherwise if no strife did arise among the Christians, all wicked men could appear as Christians. But the strife maketh it manifest that the false ground of verbal Christians is brought to light, and they are distinguished from the true children of Christ; which will be also a witness against them at the Last Day of Judgment.

20. Man’s true Christianity standeth in the inward ground of the soul in the ground of man, not in the ostentation and fashions of this world, but in the power of well-doing in the spirit and conscience. 21. The strife wherewith a true Christian striveth is only the spirit of righteousness, which casteth away from it the falsehood and wickedness in flesh and blood, and suffereth and endureth all things willingly for Christ’s sake, who dwelleth in it; that it may not live to itself, and please itself, and have satisfaction in itself, and triumph with the earthly Lucifer; but that he please God his Creator in Christ Jesus. 22. He hath nothing in this world to strive for, for nothing is his own. For in Christ he is not of this world, but as the Scripture saith, Our conversation is in heaven (Phil. iii. 20). All things for which and wherewith he striveth is about the earthly, voluptuous, fleshly Lucifer, in the mortal flesh and blood. For Christ saith, His kingdom is not of this world (John xviii. 36). So also a Christian’s kingdom, so far as he is a Christian, is not of this world, but in Christ in God.

23. Therefore now all the strife of Christians is only about their Dinah, viz. about their fleshly whoredom. A Christian ought not to strive otherwise than in spirit and power against the ways of un¬ righteousness and falsehood. 24. Outward war that Christians make is heathenish, and is done for the bestial mortal man’s sake. For immortality cannot be attained or kept with the sword and forces, but with prayer, and with entering into the fear of God. But the earthly Lucifer striveth about the belly, and about worldly honour and pleasure, wherein Christ is not; but it is the deflowered Dinah, where men make war about the houses of stone, and temporal goods, and thereby declare that the spiritual virginity in the spirit of Christ is made a whore, who plays the harlot for the kingdom of this world. 25. Hearken, all ye who call yourselves Apostles of Christ, Hath Christ sent you to fight, and to make war, that you should strive about temporary goods and outward power and glory? Is that your authority (John xx. 23)? When he gave you the sword of the spirit did he command you that? Hath he not sent you to make known the peace which he hath brought us? What will he say to you, when he shall see that your Apostolic heart hath put on armour, and that you have instigated your worldly kings and princes to the sword and wars, and have allowed them that, as of Christian liberty? Will he find you thus, in his ministry? Do you that, as the disciples of Christ?

26. Are you not the apostles of the anger of God? Whither will you go with your reproach? Do you not see, that, as to Christ who hath taught you peace, you are become forsworn or perjured harlots? Where is your Christian virginity? have you not with Dinah squan¬ dered it away in worldly pleasure? What will Christ say to you, when he shall come again, who on earth had not whereon to lay his head (Matt. viii. 20; Luke ix. 58), when he shall see your pomp, state, and glory, in such palaces [and colleges], which you have built in his name, for which upon earth you have made wars? 27. When have you striven about the temple of Jesus Christ? Have you not always striven about your colleges or palaces, and about your own laws, wherein you have lived in opinions, and disputed about those opinions? What need hath Christ thereof? Christ bestows him¬ self upon his children substantially, in a living manner, to dwell in them, and will give them his flesh for food, and his blood for drink. What needeth he opinions, that men should strive about him, who and what he is? 28. When I consider a true Christian, then I understand that Christ is and dwelleth in him. What means then your outward wor¬ ship of God? Wherefore do you not serve him in your hearts and consciences? He is present within you, and not in the solemnity and ostentation of outward things. Ye have the sword of the Holy Ghost by right, with that you should strive: Use you the power of the true Apostolic Churches, and not the sword of man’s hand.

29. The excommunication is your sword; but yet it must be used in the power of the Holy Ghost, in divine zeal against the wicked and ungodly, and not for that purpose to maintain human inventions and fictions, that a man must call your spiritual whoredom in opinions a chaste virgin: as for a long time the Babylonish Church hath used it to such a power. 30. All outward ceremonies, without the inward ground, that is, without Christ’s spirit and co-operation, is whoredom in the sight of God, that a man will approach to God without Christ the Mediator. For none can serve Christ but a Christian, where the spirit of Christ itself co-operateth in the service. But how will he serve Christ, who holdeth in one hand the cup of Christ, and in the other hand the sword of self- revenge? Christ must, in a Christian, overthrow sin by his spirit, and not [by] the Father’s fiery sword in the law of severe righteousness. 31. O ye children of Simeon and Levi, the spirit at Jacob’s end hath signified concerning you, that your swords were murderous, that Christ is not in your councils. As Jacob saith, My soul, that is, the Covenant and grace of Christ, be thou not in their Churches and congregations, nor in their council. Read Genesis xlix. 5, 6, where the council of the Pharisees and Scribes, who institute themselves pastors without the divine calling, is thereby signified.

32. All spiritual whoredom proceeds from hence: that Christ’s ministers possess worldly power and authority; and so one playeth the hypocrite with another; the inferior that is without power and authority playeth the hypocrite with the potent, that he may ad¬ vance him also, and bring him to honour and [plenty, to deliciousness and] fat days; whereby the spirit of zeal declines and falls to the ground, and the truth is turned into a lie, and the spirit of zeal of the mouth is stopped with power, and man is honoured in God’s stead. 33. This history, relating how Simeon and Levi went into the city to Hamor and his children and people, and slew all the males in this city (Gen. xxxiv. 25), may well be understood to be a figure, whereby the spirit signifieth that he declareth in the figure concerning the future time, and is so written as a figure. 34. Also the history is clear, that Hamor and his son Shechem, and all the males of the whole city, were circumcised and became Jews,1 and then presently were slain by these two brethren, Simeon and Levi (Gen. xxxiv. 24-26), which indeed is a hard figure to be understood, seeing reason questioneth whether it were so done or no, that two men should slay a whole city. But seeing it is a figure, and was done even by Simeon and Levi, viz. by the stock and root of the Levitical priesthood, and signifieth the future Christendom: This therefore is to be understood under it :

35. These two brethren required first, and proposed, that if they would be circumcised, and receive their Law, they would give them their sister; and afterwards, as it came to pass, they slew them all, both the innocent and the guilty. This is that which Christ said to the Pharisees : JVoe unto you, Pharisees ! ye corn-pass sea and land to make a proselyte, and when he is one, you make him twofold more a child of hell than yourselves (Matt, xxiii. 15). 36. This also may be said of the Christian Levites, they persuade people to be baptised, and called Christians; and when that is done they stick their murdering sword into their hearts, that they learn to slay other people with words, which are not called after their name, and are not of their opinion. They curse and damn them, and they give occasion that one brother persecutes another, slanders, con¬ demns, hates, and becomes his malicious enemy, and yet understands not wherefore. Here it is rightly said, These Levites have promised me their sister to wife, so that I am become a Christian, and now they slay me with false doctrine, and not only me but all my generation, who hear them and receive their blasphemy for divine truth; and believe them that it is right, that one man should thus judge and condemn another, which yet Christ hath earnestly forbidden. And thereby now that man judgeth himself, since he doth that himself which he judgeth in another.

37. Thus is the murdering sword stuck into many innocent hearts, so that they are guiltlessly slain by the Levites. But seeing Simeon and Levi are placed together, and Jacob also, when he was at his end, prophesied concerning them, and putteth them together, calling them murdering swords, it hath this signification: that they will not only slay them with the sword of the mouth, but they would also set themselves up in worldly power and authority, and for the truth’s sake kill their bodies, and would do it even to them which are under the circumcision, or under the Gospel, whom first they had persuaded to be circumcised, or to be baptised. 38. As it is also come to pass among the Christians, when men have first persuaded them unto baptism; afterwards, when they have for a while seen their abominations, that they live worse than the heathen, and will not in all things give their consent and approbation, then they begin persecution with fire and sword, and slay them, with their innocent children, both in soul and body, which is powerfully prefigured in this type of Simeon and Levi; else that were a grievous gross murder of the children of the saints, for them to persuade people to their faith, and give them their promise, and then afterwards, under such hypocrisy, to slay all, both innocent and guilty, when they had so deeply humbled themselves before them.

39. Therefore men should carefully and accurately look upon the Old Testament, especially the first book of Moses: for the veil of Moses hangeth before it; there is always somewhat more signified under the text. Although we will have the text left also standing as a history, and doubt not at all thereof; which is known to God, who hath thus suffered it to be described. 40. For the text saith, They fell upon the city, and slew all the males, and took all their children and wives captive, and plundered and spoiled all that was in their houses (Gen. xxxiv. 25-29). Which though it doth indeed seem that these two men were not able to do it, yet even Jacob him¬ self witnesseth that there were no more than these two, when he said to Simeon and Levi, Te have raised mischief unto me, that I stink before the inhabitants of this land (Gen. xxxiv. 30). Which stands very right in the figure, that the murdering sword of the Levites hath raised such disturbance in the world that Christendom, for their base murdering practices, stinketh before the strange nations; so that they say, If they were God’s people they would not be such tyrants and out¬ rageous scorners. And they hate them for that very cause; and slay and kill them as a turbulent evil people, that contend only about religion, and kill one another for it; therefore there can be no cer¬ tainty among them, and their divine service and worship of God must needs be false, say they. For which cause the potent countries of the east are departed from them, and have subjected themselves to a doctrine of reason. As is to be seen by the Turks, which ought further to be considered of.

How God called Jacob to depart from Shechem , and what happened upon it. And how after¬ wards Rachel bare Benjamin , and died in the birth; also how Isaac died: And what is to be understood thereby1 i. TT Then Simeon and Levi had committed that murder, God said \\ to Jacob , Get thee up, and go to Bethel, and dwell there: and make there an altar to God, who appeared unto thee when thou diddest flee from thy brother Esau. Then said Jacob unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away from you the strange gods which are among you, and cleanse yourselves, and change your garments: And let us arise, and go to Bethel; that I may there make an altar to God, who hath heard me in the time of my trouble, and hath been with me in the way which I have gone. Then they gave unto him all the strange gods which were in their hands, and their earrings; and he buried them under an oak which was by Shechem. And they went forth: and the fear of the Lord came upon the cities which lay round about them, that they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob. Thus Jacob came to Luz, in the land of Canaan, which is called Bethel, with all the people that were with him. And he built there an altar, and called the place El-Bethel:

because God there appeared to him, when he fled from his brother (Gen. xxxv. 1-7). This history once again prefigureth powerfully the future times, how it would go both with Israel and also wdth Christendom. For when Levi and Simeon had committed that murder, and slain all the males of Shechem, and taken captive all their wives and children, having plundered and spoiled all, then Jacob was afraid of the people of the land. And then God called him from thence to go to Bethel, and make an altar there.

The inward figure standeth thus: 2. When men, both the Jews and afterwards the Christians, were grown up in fleshly whoredom and unchaste life, and became wicked, then would God’s spirit depart from them, and then they began a spiritual whoredom and idolatry, and were erroneous in their opinions, and would fall together by the ears, and say one to another, He deflowereth his sister Dinah, that is, his worship and service of God. And would fall one upon another, and murder, kill, plunder, spoil and rob one another with wars, and bring their country to desolation and misery. And then when they should stick in such misery and trouble, they would attain the fear and trembling, as here Jacob, upon the murder which his children committed. For the Lord would touch their evil consciences, and call them again to repentance, as he did Jacob and his children, when he commanded them to come away from the place of this murder, and commanded Jacob to make an altar to him, viz. to the Lord, at Bethel, that is, in the lowliness of the fear of God. 3. So the spirit here signifieth, that God would then again send them prophets and teachers, who would dissuade them from their idolatry and wicked life; as here Jacob exhorted his family that they should put away the strange gods, and the pride of their earrings from them. And then, when they had thus seen the anger of the Lord, which destroyed their land, and exceedingly devoured them for their whoredom, pride, and idolatrous life, then would they follow and obey the prophets who reproved them for it;

and bring their idols and strange gods, viz. their idolatry, before God, and put it away from them; and would again seek the temple of God within them. And then would God again build up his altar in them, and they would again rightly offer sacrifice to him, viz. offer up their souls; and would cleanse their garments, that is, their hearts, as Jacob here com¬ manded his people. This also would the prophets, and among the Christians the true apostles and teachers, command and direct.

4. And we see further here a powerful figure, how Jacob took their idols and earrings, and buried them under an oak by Shechem, where the murder was done. O thou great and wonderful God! what does this signify? Nothing else but that these their errors and idolatry, together with their wars and contentions, should thus for a long time lie buried in the anger of God. 5. And seeing the spirit mentioneth an oak, under which these idols and pride are buried, the figure is clear to us. For an oak is of a magnetic attractive kind, and maketh a tenacious1 hardness in its property; moreover blackness, duskiness and darkness. This signifies that the former idolatry, sins and blasphemies, which they have com¬ mitted, shall there, in the hungry wrath of the anger of God in turba rnagna, viz. under the great oak in spiritu mundi, viz. in the hidden mystery, stand still a long while. 6. And what sin they shall commit anew, all that will this mag¬ netic oak draw to it, and bring it to the treasure of the former idolatry and pride, till they become so great that the earth under the oak can cover them no more. Then shall these their old and new whoredoms and idolatries, together, be naked before the anger and judgment of God, and their measure be full.

7. And they would stink before God for these abominations, for the sake of which the spirit of God would hide its countenance from them, and take away from them the light of his countenance; so that they would run on in vain errors, and enter again upon the way of such whoredom, and with their evil zeal for Dinah their sister, which yet is but a deflowered whore, trample all under with murder and robbery. 8. As is come to pass among the Jews and Christians, that after¬ wards, in the zeal of their idolatry and whoredom, they have slain and murdered the prophets and ministers of Jesus Christ, which are sent from God (Rom. xi. 3); that they might live in their pride and Sodomitical whoredom, till God hath given them up to a perverse mind in their hearts (Rom. i. 28), that they are become wholly evil before him. Then is their measure full, and the horrible punishment followeth. As may be seen by the castaway Jews, which for such abomina¬ tions’ sake were driven out of their country and kingdom; as also by the Christians, who in the fair country of the east were the best Christians, and now must have the Alcoran instead of Christ, and their country horribly wasted in the anger of God.

9. Thus it goes now also with thee, thou warring Babylon and titulary Christendom, full of idolatry and earrings of pride, which have lain for a long time under the oak, and the magnet of that oak hath drawn to it all thy abominations, idolatry, and proud evil life, that the earth can cover them no longer; but they now stand naked before the face of God, therefore also thy judgment is near at hand. 10. The prophets call thee and reprove thee, but thou ravest for thy sister Dinah, viz. for thy fleshly kingdom, full of pride, which thou hast built with thy idolatry and fleshly love, and murderest thy brethren for thy sister’s whoredom’s sake, viz. for the Pharisaical whoredom’s sake; and dost not discern how thou shouldst remedy thy sister’s whoredom, that she may be married; and thou takest thy sister with her bastard, which in the presence of God and all the world stand in shame, to thee again, and wilt have her called a virgin. If thou didst give her to Shechem for a wife, and let him be circum¬ cised, and wouldst live with him in peace, then would thy sister’s whoredom be covered.

11. But thy wrath, O Lord, maketh it to be thus: for the misdeed is too much, and the earth can no more cover it under the oak, in spiritu mundi , it standeth naked before thy face. Therefore, ye wise children, flee out of Babel (Jerusalem); the overthrow thereof, and the earnest judgment, draweth near, the measure is full, the anger burneth, sin hath killed the understanding, that they no more per¬ ceive or feel the understanding,1 and these children are blind concern¬ ing it, and always say, This is a golden time, it will be good for us, and not so come to pass. Thy prophets among thee are esteemed fools and madmen, till that be done unto thee, and till thou thyself doest what they have said unto thee. 12. Beware now, and leave off to war about the whore, that the Lord may call thee with Jacob, and bring thee again to his holy altar in Christ Jesus. Put away the idols, viz. the opinions, and build thine heart to be an altar in the temple of Jesus Christ; then wilt thou be brought away from the murders, and the fear of God will come upon those men who would pursue thee, as is to be seen by Jacob. But if thou wilt not leave off to make war about the whore, then wilt thou, together with the whore, come to shame and desolation.

13. But learn to know her: she giveth Shechem occasion to un¬ cleanness, for she runs out of her house, and seeketh lovers. Behold her pride, tear her earrings from her neck, wherewith she boasteth, and then she will no more thus shew her folly. Bereave her of her idols, bury them, with Jacob: build thyself an altar in thee, and bring thy children to the offering. Bid them not strive for Dinah, but leave Dinah to the man with whom she hath bedded; else it is in vain to make war for her virginity, for it is manifest to all people that she hath played the whore. 14. Mark what is told thee, it is high time, her shame can no more be covered, for she hath brought forth the bastard. Dost thou not see it? and dost thou not know the whore with her child? Then thou art blind. 15. She sitteth in high honour among men, and cries all hail to herself. This is she to whom thou prostitutest thyself, and forsakest thy God and his altar, Jesus Christ in thee. Take pity on thyself, and 1 Have no more sense or understanding. behold the misery, how this whore hath sat instead of the altar of God in thy soul, and hath taken thy body and soul in possession, and rideth upon thee as upon her beast; she leadeth thee with her reins, and thou seest it not, thou sayest likewise, It is right. O thou evil beast, full of thy whore’s pride! how will the Lord throw thee, together with the whore, to the ground, as is to be seen in the Revelations l1

16. The spirit here further setteth down an excellent fair figure, shewing how God manifested himself to Jacob, after he made the altar in Bethel, and called the place El-Bethel (Gen. xxxv. 7), viz. an angelical dwelling, where God conversed with Jacob in the form of an angel; as the high tongue renders it, that God spake with him in vision in an angel’s form, viz. in the angel’s form of the future humanity of Christ, and signified to him, that he should no more be called Jacob, but Israel (Gen. xxxv. 10-12), that is, a great tree, or company of nations. Him hath God thus blessed, that he should possess all this country; and he shall be so great that even kings should proceed out of his loins, whereby he signifieth concerning the future kingdom, oflsrael, and of Christ, how it would come to pass. 17. And when the Lord had spoken with Jacob, in that very place Jacob set up a pillar of stone (Gen. xxxv. 14); which signifieth the temple of Christ, as also the temple at Jerusalem in a type prefiguring Christ, also the true Christian Church among the Christians, that from the word of the Lord men would build a place and pillar, where they would assemble and declare the wonders of the great God, and call upon him there, and offer up the drink-offering of prayer there.

18. And the spirit saith further, So God went up from him, when he had spoken with him (Gen. xxxv. 13). That is, when he had ap¬ peared in a visible form, in the image and type of Christ, he withdrew and hid himself again in that royal place; from whence afterwards he would manifest and make himself visible in his seed in this figure in the humanity. 19. And Jacob called the place Bethel (Gen. xxxv. 15), viz. a humili¬ ation2 of the Deity in the humanity, so that the divine altar becomes manifest, where a man offers praise and thanksgiving to God. And the spirit by Jacob concerning this Bethel pointeth at the future Bethle¬ hem, where Christ should be born man; as this place, Bethel, was exceeding highly esteeemed by the patriarchs, which all pointeth at the future Bethlehem, where the true altar, Christ, should be erected 1 Apocalypse. 2 Or, condescension. and built; upon which Jacob and his fathers and children had offered in the faith and prefiguring type, and under it God led them in the visible type from thenceforth, till the appointed time that this altar was erected at Bethlehem by the birth of Christ.

20. And the spirit in Moses speaketh instantly very darkly thereof in this figure, and saith, And they went from Bethel (Gen. xxxv. 16); whereby he pointeth at the going forth from the figure of Christ, that men should go forth from this figure to the birth of Christ; and saith, And it was a field-breadth from Ephrath, where Rachel brought forth; and she was in hard labour at the birth (Gen. xxxv. 16). 21. This field-breadth signifieth the time that is between that and the altar of Christ, as Adam was gone a field-breadth from the altar of God, that is, out of the spiritual world into the earthly, where it goeth very hard with Rachel, viz. with the human nature, as to the patriarch Benjamin. That is, to bring forth a Christian even the old Adam must die and perish in this birth, as Rachel died when she bare Benjamin. 22. Which Benjamin signifieth, that when we erect God’s altar in us, so that Christ dwelleth in us, then is Benjamin, that is our last man [or second Adam], born. Then dieth the old mother who hath generated the kingdom of nature in man, and the new spiritual man is manifested.

23. This Benjamin is born after Jacob is first gone out of Mesopo¬ tamia, as the spirit hath prefigured the type of Christ’s passion and victory by Esau and Jacob in their meeting. And it was a figure of the Apostle Matthias, who was elected to be an Apostle in the stead of Judas, after Christ had first consummated his passion and ascension into heaven. 24. And it is a figure shewing how man must first enter into Christ’s passion and death, and that the altar of Christ must first be erected in him, before the human nature from Christ can be born. For Judas must first, in his falsehood and treachery in the old Adam, with sorrow for his committed sin, hang himself (Matt, xxvii. 5), and, as to his own ability, despair and die. And then will Benjamin, viz. the new creature in Christ, first be born, and Matthias, viz. the first created Adam, be elected an Apostle (Acts i. 26). 25. For Matthias was indeed born before the passion of Christ, and was with Christ; but he was then first an Apostle when Christ in him was dead from sin, and Judas had hanged himself. Thus also the Adamical man, which shall be an Apostle or Christian, is indeed born aforehand, before Christ suffereth in him; but Christ must first

arise from the dead in him, and Judas, viz. the Serpent’s will, must hang himself and die to his own evil will in the death of Christ: and then first is the Adamical man a Christian.1 It is not the historical man by an imputed grace, wherein Judas still liveth under the purple mantle of Christ, that is a Christian, as Babel playeth finely under the veil concerning the virginity of her daughter Dinah, that the fair dainty damsel may play the whore, and finely sleep with her pandour Judas, and lie with her lovers in the bed of fornication. 26. Great things are prefigured in this text, for the text saith: IVhen she was in sore labour in the birth of Benjamin, the midwife said to her, Fear not, for thou shalt have this son also. But her soul being ready to depart that she must die, she called him Benoni (Gen. xxxv. 17, 18). That is, she looked upon the inward ground, upon the new birth, what he would be in Christ, and regarded not the name of the outward creature. 27. For Benoni is altogether a spiritual name after an angelical kind and manner; for she said, in spirit (when the midwife comforted her concerning it, that she should have this son also), I have him no more in the world, the outward passeth away; and it pointeth at the angeli¬ cal new name. But his father called him Benjamin (Gen. xxxv. 18), as with the name of this world, that he should represent how a Christian must be born under the cross of Christ in smart pain, at which also his mother looked, as if she should say, Through smart pain and sor¬ row we come to life, as this son of my smart and sorrow.

28. Then saith the spirit, Thus Rachel died, and was buried in the way towards Ephrath, which is now called Bethlehem. And Jacob set up a pillar upon her grave: and that is the pillar of Rachel’s grave unto this day (Gen. xxxv. 19, 20). This is a secret mystical figure, that Rachel died and is buried at the city Bethlehem; and it signifieth that she shall there rise again through the birth of Christ, for Christ should there be born. 29. And it is signified that when we shall flee to Bethlehem to the birth of Christ, then shall Benjamin, viz. the new spiritual man be born of Rachel, viz. of the mother of the old Adamical man, in the spirit of Christ. And then presently will the mother yield up her birth¬ right to the spirit of Christ, and die to her right of nature; and then will the spiritual eternal birth begin, and Eve pass away; for there Jacob setteth up the gravestone or pillar. And the spirit saith it is her gravestone unto this day, to signify that it pointeth at the future, and 1 Adam’s man a Christ. that this gravestone should continue, and Christ be born there where Rachel died.

30. In this history of the acts of Jacob we see clearly that the spirit hath in this description a figure, under which it signifieth. For Rachel was big with Benjamin when Jacob departed from Laban, when she sat upon the idol-gods, when her father sought for them, and she said, It is with me after the manner of women, so that I cannot rise up before thee (Gen. xxxi. 34, 35). But now the text relateth how Jacob first pitched his tents before Shechem, and dwelt there, and afterwards went first to Bethel, and then Rachel brought forth. So that it appeareth that the spirit speaketh wholly in the figure, for the acts do all follow very orderly one after another in the figure of Christ, as it hath come to pass with Christ, which ought well to be observed. 31. The spirit of Moses saith further, And Israel went forth and spread his tents on the other side of the tower of Edar. And it came to pass, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and slept with Bilhah his father’s concubine: and it came before Israel (Gen. xxxv. 21, 22): What manner of figure is this, which is very deeply hidden? but the circumstances make it as clear as the sun.

32. Israel went on the other side of the great Babylonical tower, and dwelt there with the children of that people, which may well be a pretty way from Ephrath (Bethlehem); but the spirit hath here its figure under which it signifieth: that is, when Jacob had taken away the strange gods from his people, and also their earrings, and buried them, and built the altar of the Lord, converting to God, and they were sitting in rest and ease, then the natural fleshly man turned again to the lust of the children of Babel, even as the text saith : 33. Jacob went and dwelt there, and then Reuben lay with his father’s concubine, viz. with Bilhah, Rachel’s handmaid, the mother of Dan and Naphthali, and committed incest,1 which was worse than that of Shechem with Dinah. But the spirit hath thus with this action presented a figure, pointing at the future, how it would come to pass, how Israel would turn away from the divine ordinance from the altar of their God, and mix their father’s worship and service of God with natural whoredom, viz. with heathenish sacrificing to idols, as is to be seen by Jeroboam. And the spirit signifieth thereby, that the first Adamical man would have only fleshly desires and lusts.

34. For Reuben was the first son of Jacob by Leah, viz. by her of whom also sprang the line of Christ; to signify that every one that would be called Jews or Christians, and are generated out of those stocks, would forsake God, and lie with their father’s concubines, viz. commit fornication with the idolatry, human inventions, and babblings of the Pharisees and Scribes, and with their laws and canons, and forget the truth of God, and of his commandments, in their hearts, and imprint those whoredoms1 in their hearts’ lusts. 35. For Reuben was indeed Jacob’s first son, as Adam also was the first man, but the line of Christ was not manifested in Reuben, as also not in Adam, but it was manifested in Abel and in Judah. And as Adam, in spiritu. mundi , in the spirit of the world, committed adultery with God’s concubine, through whom he2 bringeth forth his fruit, and gave up himself to the woman, viz. to the mother of the outward nature, and lay with her, and committed whoredom with her, and defiled the holy heavenly marriage-bed of chastity; thus also stood this figure of Reuben with his father’s concubine portrayed before the figure of Christ; for Christ should bring this Adamical whoredom into the heavenly marriage-bed again, and cover the incest of man. And therefore it is here prefigured together with the figure of Rachel, viz. with the new regeneration.

The figure of Christendom stands thus:3 36. This concubine in Christendom signifieth nothing else but the stone churches,4 which are indeed God’s concubine, wherein his Word and Testaments are handled, in which God generateth his children, in which a man should work [together] with God, and turn his heart to God. But Reuben, viz. the Adamical man, forsaketh God, and committeth fornication and whoredom with the stone churches, and hath embraced her in his arms of love, and goeth in unto her, and playeth the hypocrite with her; and thinketh it is enough if he do but go thither and hear sermons preached, and make use of Absolution and the Sacraments, and believe that all is true which is there taught, and comforts himself with this : that he goes cheerfully, willingly, and con¬ stantly thither, and esteems that for right and good, and approveth and assenteth to all that is there performed, thus covering himself with the purple mantle of Christ; and goeth out of the Church just as he entered in, and goes twenty or thirty years together, and so to his 1 Einbilden, make to themselves images of these. 3 Or, is thus to be understood. 4 Or, temples built with materials.

very end; and committeth whoredom with the churches, and thinketh he doth God good service when he appears there among others, sitting and hearing the preachers’ sermons, and when he cometh forth knoweth nothing of what hath been done there. 37. Also in that auditory he had his heart at home, or about his trade and business, or casteth his eyes upon the beauty of fair women and men, and upon their brave clothes and fine fashions of pride; and filleth his heart with imaginations of lascivious lust, and broadly com¬ mits whoredom with these, or in these, concubines, the churches. 38. And that which is yet more: when the preacher often reproveth sins and abominations, and often indeed out of passion soweth thorns, that are caught up presently, he tickleth himself the whole week therewith, and contriveth how to find fault with and censure others, and to backbite and blemish them, how they may scoff at people, and gall them with cutting and stinging words, pricking like thistles and thorns, and holds that for the best of what he hath heard; and so setteth this Lucifer in the place of God, and constantly committeth fornication in the whoredom, viz. in the burning lust of these con¬ cubines.

39. And the greatest whoredom of all in this concubine is this : that men so quite take their hearts off from God, and set them upon the ministers of these concubines, and commit whoredom with them, and honour them with presents and gifts, so that they many times in their encomiums praise evil, malicious, proud, wicked, covetous people, who do but squeeze the miserable, and oppress them with power and authority. They make great epitaphs and eulogies, and give them high and stately titles, with high respect and reverence, ascribing to them great devotion, with the fear and love of God, and do highly advance their genealogy1 and stock, and so set up the trade of juggling for money, as a common juggler, and so reproach the concubine of God, viz. the Church, with hypocrisy and lies. Of this it is rightly said, Reuben is climbed up to his father’s concubine, and hath committed whoredom with her. For they are they that dwell by this concubine, and are her curates and bishops or overseers. But they fill this con¬ cubine full of their false fleshly seed, and generate bastards in God’s concubine, that so the false lust of the flesh may wholly bring their heart into her, and [they] think it availeth before God and is very right. Their sins are thus covered by the venom and poison of money, and this hypocrisy filleth their imagination, so that they think they

are better than others, and live thus in such proud lofty thoughts continually, in such Church whoredom. 40. And thus Reuben begets, of his father’s concubine the churches, a company of bastards, proud, stately, boasting, covetous people, which defile the poor mother of the humility and simplicity of JESUS CHRIST, viz. the line of Christ which lieth hid in this con¬ cubine, and shall be generated and manifested, and cast the whoredom upon her. And thus God’s concubine, viz. the Church, is made to be a whore; and so very much deflowered that her reproach is come before Israel, viz. before the eyes of all the children of God; who cry fie upon her, and account her for an unclean deflowered whore, wherein such whoredom, as also pomp, pride and pageantry is exercised, that the devil, with the imagination and false lust, doth more teach and govern in such lust, than the spirit of Christ; and it is more a proud whore and a dark valley [and dungeon] than a temple ofJESUS CHRIST. 41. And that which is yet more abominable: many very vain affectations, scornings and derisions are therein managed and taught, where, for an opinion’s sake, which every one frames to himself, they disgrace and persecute one another, and cry out against one another for heretics, and sow abroad such poison and venom in this concubine the Church; whereby simplicity is seduced, and such poison of defamation riseth up and groweth in their hearts, that in the churches nothing but contention, disputation, scorn and blasphemy is exercised and taught, that one brother despiseth the other, calleth him heretic, and damneth him to hell fire for an opinion’s sake, whereby all love, truth, unity and concord is vanished.

42. The grossest impudence, at which the heavens and the elements at present stand amazed, which is practised in this con¬ cubine, is this: That men take the writings of the holy children of God, viz. of the Prophets and Apostles, and their successors, and make use of them falsely, putting them on for a cloak to cover such whore¬ dom, corrupting and embittering them, and making mere sects and swarms of schisms of them; and thereby reproach, slander and persecute one another, giving thereby cause of wars and bloodshed; and so they make a mere impudent whore of the Bible, wherewith every one exerciseth and manageth their whoredom, and sucketh opinions out of it, and therewith despise the opinion of another, and scorneth and condemneth it, and yet take all their matters out of the Bible. Thus they make their father’s concubine, viz. the holy Prophets and Apostles all whores, and falsely commit whoredom with them, practise impudence, unchastity and pride with their writings, and teach the lay people their unchastity and scorn; so that one Christian learneth to scorn another out of the Holy Scripture, and trim their scorn with the writings of the saints.1 Of this it is rightly said, Reuben, thou art my first strength, but thou hast climbed up upon my bed, and defiled it with unchastity; thou hast used my concubine, viz. my formed Word, to thy whoredom, and hast made of the churches of my children a whore-house, and hast defiled my marriagebed, which I have in the churches, where I beget my children.

43. This the spirit of God signifieth clearly, by the declaration of the patriarch Jacob, where he saith thus concerning these churches and their sacrifices: Reuben, thou art my first son, thou art my first power, and my first might, the chief in the offering, and the chief in the kingdom: unstable therein as water, thou shalt not be the chief; for thou hast climbed up upon thy father’s bed, and there hast thou defiled my bed by thy climbing up (Gen. xlix. 3, 4). 44. The spirit speaketh clearly in this text: for Reuben signifieth the ordinance of the first Church, viz. the power out of which it was built, that is, the first power of the Christian Church or congregation, and is God’s concubine, by which he dwelleth. But their ministers are climbed up into God’s marriage-bed, and have gotten the concubine to themselves, and taken her into their power, and have gotten her with child, with human fictions, fleshly honour and voluptuousness. And it saith clearly, Thou art the chief in the offering, and in the kingdom : for so it must needs be, when the whoredom is not committed. But seeing Reuben exerciseth whoredom with the churches, it saith thus, Thou shalt not be the chief; for he was unstable therein as water ; and signifieth thereby that he would give himself to fleshly lust and self-love, and that in unstability : and in that regard is rejected of God.

45. Thus the spirit signifieth under this figure, how this con¬ cubine, viz. the Church, would be reproached with its first power, viz. of its own children; so that it will be said by the churches, It is a spiritual whore-house, which a man must distinguish from the temple ofJESUS CHRIST. For the spirit saith, Thou shalt not be the chief, neither in the offering, nor in the kingdom : and thus she hath lost the true divine power2 by the whoredom of her ministers, and standeth at present rightly as a deflowered one that is made a whore, which is despised of Israel for her unchastity, which is practised by her; which is cried out upon by almost every one, each party crying out against 1 Holy men. 2 Jus Divinum. the church of the other, for a whore-house, as is enough manifest; and all libraries are full of such a cry, and men at present are ready to storm and fall in upon the whore-house. 4 6. But let this be said to the children of God: that the churches hurt no man, and they were instituted out of a good meaning by the first Christian power; and were very good and profitable, and they need not be thrown down and demolished, if Reuben would but leave his whoredom, whereby he reproacheth them; that her ministers might be renewed, and not, without the unction of the Holy Ghost, give forth that they are the ministers of this concubine of God, as is now done only for temporary honour and pleasure’s sake, which are as profitable to the Church as a fifth wheel is to a wagon: unless they go with five wheels to their wagon, where the fifth moveth in the air, and entereth with their contention into the abyss of hell.

47. The stone houses of the churches have no greater holiness in them than other houses, for they are built of stone and such materials as other houses are, and God is no more powerful in them than in other houses. But the Church or congregation that entereth thereinto, and there meeteth together, and there bind themselves with their prayer into one body in Christ, whose type and resemblance the Church is, that [Church] hath the holy temple of JESUS CHRIST in it. 48. Their songs of praise and thanksgiving are the cradle of the child JESUS CHRIST, in which the child Jesus is rocked with unanimous consent in the hearts of men, and not within the bounds of the church which is a dumb and dead thing. 49. Its ministers are no more than all other men; but the power and virtue that is poured forth in the unction of the Holy Ghost hath the power in the offering, and is the key. 50. Whosoever will worthily enter into the church, must bring with him the temple of Jesus Christ within him, or at least he must fully take such a resolution and purpose that he will bring it out with him in his heart; otherwise his going in and coming out is but a com¬ mitting of spiritual seeming holy, but indeed hypocritical, whore¬ dom; and [he] is no whit the holier when he cometh out, and had as good have been standing in the market, shewing his pride in his fine clothes, for the people to see him : and then perhaps he had not caused many honest hearts to err.

51. This we had a purpose to signify by the knowing of this figure: That a Christian should not look upon the show of churches, but consider that the Church is but a type and resemblance of Christ; and that he is not a Christian that entereth into the resemblance, and approveth of that; but he is a Christian that wholly giveth himself up into Christ’s incarnation, suffering, and death, and dieth to his hypocrisy in the death of Christ, and riseth from the death of Christ in a new will and obedience, and who, according to his inward ground, is and liveth in Christ, who himself becometh the temple of Christ, wherein Christ worketh with his power and virtue, and thereby killeth sin in the flesh. Such a one is a Christian in Christ, and may rightly enter into the resemblance of Christ, and exercise his Chris¬ tianity therein. Such a one will hear God’s word, and keep and ponder it in his heart. 52. And though a cow’s lowing, in its sound, should declare the name of God, yet Christ preacheth in himself: but none that is dead can awaken another that is dead, nor one that is blind shew the way to another, but both will fall into the pit, saith Christ (Matt. xv. 14).

53. Further, the spirit of Moses sets down in its figure the death of the patriarch Isaac, and saith : And Jacob came to his father Isaac to the head city in Mamre, called Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac were strangers. And Isaac was an hundred and eighty years old, and gave up the ghost and died, and was gathered unto his people (Gen. xxxv. 27-29). This is a figure, shewing that the children of Christ in this pilgrimage are but strange children, and have nothing for their own in the world, and come all again in the end to their Father who hath created them; as Jacob came again to his father before his end. Thus also are we, in this pilgrimage in these earthly churches, but household servants and strange children, for we must in the end go into our Father’s right country, viz. into the angelical Church of Christ. Of Esau’s Genealogy: And of the very excellent and emphatical Figure, which is signified by Joseph the Son of Jacob. And what is thereby to be understood1 i . /'T'*' h E thirty-sixth chapter of Genesis is the genealogy of the potent JL and princely family of Esau, shewing how God gave him much wealth and many children, and children’s children; and the spirit setteth down a great register in describing his children, and children’s children, relating what great princes [and dukes] were descended of him, and possessed the glory of the world: whereas on the other side, when he speaketh ofjacob, he doth not mention any present worldly glory; but only speaketh in the figure of Christ concerning the king¬ dom to come.

2. Whereby we see very clearly that Esau doth stand in the figure of the kingdom of nature, and that the glory of nature fell to be his lot; and that he became a great prince, and begat many princely families. Also we see how God blessed him, and made him great, and how the Holy Spirit, with especial observation,2 hath recorded and specified his posterity; to signify that we should learn rightly to understand the figure ofjacob and Esau, and not go on so blindly as to condemn Esau into the bottomless pit of hell, as too frequently is done. For we see how his father Isaac did appoint and assign unto him a very rich and wealthy habitation upon the earth, and that to him God would give many temporal blessings. But his figure in Adam’s nature must perish; and Christ must arise in him, so that from ESAU the SAU3 might be done away, and he remain steadfast in the E,4 as (ein Engel ) an angel, whereunto Christ in Jacob’s figure would help him. 3. The spirit of Moses giveth also to Esau a name, and calleth him Edom (Gen. xxxvi. 8), who dwelt upon mount Seir, under which a very secret understanding is couched. For Edom doth signify, in the High

2 Care and diligence. 3 The swinish, bestial, earthy property. 4 The angelical eternal property. Tongue,1 one red coloured, who, in his hard, strong and rough2 nature, should be tinctured red by the red blood ofJESUSCHRIST. 4. And the spirit saith further, that the two brothers did separate them¬ selves one from another (Gen. xxxvi. 6), which signifieth the natural Adamical Esau, who must be separated with his [evil] will from Jacob, that is, from Christ; for the natural self-will shall not see God. More¬ over, it signifieth how evil and good should separate themselves in the kingdom of this world, and each possess its own Principle. 5. These names of the children of Esau do, in the Language of Nature, contain their worldly kingdom and dominions, intimating how they have divided themselves, even unto the ends of the world : whereof, in another place,3 seeing it would take up too much room, and the time also of the clear signifying of it is not yet fully at hand. Enough to those that are our schoolfellows. The Third Part of the Mysterium Magnum was published in Germany as a Complete Treatise of itself under the Name of Josephus Redivivus. But when the whole Book came to be printed together, there was only the First Part, and the Second Part, which comprehended the Third Part also as one with the Second.

Chapters of Genesis, is so excellent and entire a piece, it may well go as a Third Part of the Mysterium Magnum, as it is here distinctly divided and printed by itself, with a several Title Page, as followeth. 1 In the Hebrew. 3 Note. — Another place in other writings of his. The Cleerest Figure of the Mew-Man Regenerated out of the Earthly Old Ai Looking Cj-lasse , wherein Every one may try , examine , and. discerne what Spirits Childe himselfe is. Written by Jacob Behm, T’eutonicus. of this Mysterium Magnum , and at the 6 Verse, and ending at the L and last Chapter of Genesis , and the 78 and last Chapter of •the Mysterium Magnum. Printed by Matthew Simmons. 1 6 5 4. 6. f | 'he thirty-seventh chapter,1 concerning Joseph, is indeed the JL most pleasant and excellent figure of the new man regenerate out of the old Adam. Which [new regenerate man] is become a prince over the kingdom of nature, and also a lord over all his Adamical members, being the brethren of the little child Jesus in him; as Joseph became a prince in the whole land of Egypt, and a lord over all his brothers, and whole kindred and family (Gen. xlii. 6). And it shews us very emphatically and pregnantly in its figure in the history, how a man must become such a Joseph; also how it then goes with him, and how the world dealeth with him, before he be made a prince over the Adamical kingdom of his nature, and that the new man may obtain the govern¬ ment and power over his earthly members:

How the devil in the wrath of God doth assault the precious lily-twig in the power of God, out of which the chaste Joseph springeth, groweth, and is brought forth; and first casteth him down into the pit of darkness in flesh and blood, and there hides him, that so he might be destitute of all help, comfort and assistance, and be even forced to perish.

7. As Joseph’s brethren did to Joseph, even so the earthly members of the old Adam do likewise to this lily-twig of the new birth in the chastity of Christ’s spirit; whereat the devil is also busy, and con¬ tinually stirreth up the evil beasts, full of carnal, greedy, and burning lust in flesh and blood, so that they strive to domineer and have the upperhand. 8. Externally, or from without, the devil also bringeth Potiphar’s wife, viz. unchaste lewd people to him, who would fain defile the chaste countenance of the inward ground, and egg on the earthly flesh to feed upon the whoredom of the world, and all lascivious lewd¬ ness, wantonness and vanity, and draw the same unto it with the imagination; and bring the new Joseph to commit adultery with Potiphar’s wife. But he must so violently and resolvedly break through, and force his way from thence, that he must be fain to leave his garment, that is, his substance,2 and fly from thence nakedly, and resignedly in spirit and power, that his chaste virginity may abide steadfast before God. 9. And if Joseph doth thus wrestle, and suffers not flesh and blood nor the base world to hinder or over-master him ; then it will become his utter enemy, and betray him to death, because he will not commit lewdness and whoredom with her. And then Joseph, viz. the wrestling

2 All whatsoever he hath, or is. man,1 is cast into prison, viz. into reproach and contempt for the sake of his chastity and fear of God; and he must hide himself under Christ’s cross, under his yoke, in his suffering and death, and live as a prisoner in misery; the world rejecting him as one not at all worthy to tread upon the earth; accounting him as a prisoner, that is imprisoned and despised for whoredom’s sake; desiring to have no converse nor intercourse with him, seeing that the chief masters and great ones (viz. Potiphar’s wife) do revile him, and accuse him of unchastity. 10. Which wife doth also signify the false [Babylonish] hypocritical whore, with all her dissemblers and flatterers in the fine adorned house of Christendom; who, when they cannot catch and hold Joseph with their whoredom, but that he doth strongly get away from them, then they exclaim out against him falsely, and keep his garment for a sign, accusing him of unchastity, viz. of idolatry [and heresy],2 and call him a dreamer, a phantastical fellow,3 and a schismatic: as happened to Joseph. 11. And when the master heareth it, then he believeth this Potiphar’s wife, viz. the painted, and fine, accomplished hypocrite, in the house of hypocrisy. And so Joseph cometh to be suspected of the master, and is rejected of him, and cast into the prison of affliction, and there he must live in misery and scorn, as a guilty person : and yet not guilty.

12. But this contempt, banishment and affliction is good for him; for thereby he is drawn from the pride and whoredom of the world and all its falsehoods, which might assault his flesh and blood, and hinder the new birth. And thus the precious pearl-plant grows under Christ’s cross, in the disrespect and tribulation of the world, and becomes great and strong. 13. But in the meantime God doth send honest people to such a Joseph, who take pity and care of him, and maintain him, and acknowledge his innocency, and shew themselves friendly and kind towards him, and consider his chastity and fear of God, and do also respect him, and provide for him, till the inward prince in God’s power be fit for the government. And then God bringeth him out of prison, and giveth him the sceptre of government, to be a prince in his wonders, and to rule and govern in divine knowledge over God’s wonderful works: as Joseph over the land of Egypt. In which type and 1 The real, earnest, conflicting Christian. 2 One, of dangerous principles or opinions. 3 A whimsical fellow. figure1 this pen is likewise born, and indeed no otherwise; which yet is hidden unto reason.

14. This is now the sum of the exposition of the history of Joseph : But seeing it is so very rich and full, we will make a fundamental explanation upon the text, for a direction and manuduction to the loving Reader, who also intendeth to become a Joseph. If he shall be in earnest, and learn to observe and know himself in this figure, he will see what spirit’s child hath made these writings; for he will find this pen [engraving or writing]2 in his heart. 15. The text saith, Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, namely, in the land of Canaan. These are the generations of Jacob: Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren ; and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives: and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he had begotten him in his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak friendly to him (Gen. xxxvii. 1-4).

The inward figure is this: 16. Jacob had cast his fleshly natural love upon Rachel, seeing she was fair; and seeing that the line of Christ in the Covenant did lie in Jacob, Rachel was shut up. So that his seed was not manifested in her in the natural manner of the flesh, until Jacob and Rachel were grown old, and neither of them loved each other so any more according to fleshly love, but only desired a fruit of their seed; wherefore also Jacob and Rachel prayed unto God, that he would open her, and make her fruitful. And when this was brought to pass, out of this seed of Jacob sprang forth a line, which did set forth and represent a figure of the pure natural and right Adamical humanity. Which birth, in the figure, typifieth how Christ would again beget the Adamical humanity in3 its primitive chastity, purity, and fear of God. 17. For in Leah, viz. in the simplicity and lowliness, the line of Christ arose and sprang forth, and in Rachel the line of the first Adamical man in his innocency, viz. a figure of the same; which figure did represent how a Christian should stand at once both in Christ’s

1 In such a condition. 2 That pen of iron or point of a diamond it is that engraveth in the heart (Jer. xvii. 1). image and in Adam’s image; and what a Christian in this world should be inwardly and outwardly, and how he must become a Christian. Therefore saith the text, Jacob loved Joseph more than all his children. The cause was this: Joseph was sprung forth out of Jacob’s own natural line, of his peculiar natural love to Rachel, wherein the line in Christ’s love in the Covenant had also imprinted and manifested itself; and it was a punctual representation in the figure of a new regeneration, how a true Christian should stand, after that Christ should be revealed in the flesh of the human nature. 1 8. And therefore Joseph was so inclined in his mind that he could not conceal any falsehood, but when he heard any evil of his brethren he told the same to his father. This his brethren could not brook, and therefore they called him a betrayer, and envied him: for the spirit which reproveth wickedness and falsehood was revealed in him. For Christ should reprove the world for sin (John xvi. 8). But seeing he now did represent a Christian, he told it his father, out of whom HE should come who should reprove the world. And we see very clearly how flesh and blood [viz. Joseph’s natural brethren] in the type of Christendom became an utter enemy to the type [viz. to the true Christian Joseph], and they could not speak a friendly peaceable word unto him; for it doth sorely vex and offend the Serpent in flesh and blood, when Christ comes and will bruise its head.

19. Moreover, we see very evidently how the spirit of God did manifest itself in Joseph, and signified to him the figure of his constel¬ lation; so that he could understand dreams and visions, after the same manner as the prophets in the spirit of Christ saw visions, and could expound them: so also Joseph. 20. As it was shewn unto him in a vision how he would be a prince over his father, and all his brethren; which doth directly point out the inward man in the spirit of Christ, who becomes prince over his Father’s Adamical house. In the type and figure whereof Joseph stood outwardly, and therefore the external figure was set forth and per¬ sonated in him by the hatred of his brethren towards him; signifying how the multitude of the world would be hateful, scornful, and opposite enemies to the new child in Christ’s spirit; and also how it would be done by those who were Christians, and did boast of Christ, and were also such in the inward ground; and how the Adamical man would not know and acknowledge Christ in a true outward and manifest manner, but ignorantly despise and contemn him in his brethren and members.

21. To signify that in this world Christ hath taken on himself the reproach, in the righteousness of God; and that he would not only in his own human person suffer scorn, and bear Adam’s reproach (seeing Adam departed from the image of God), but that he would also suffer himself to be reproached in all his members and children; so that he would also bear Adam’s reproach in them, and make them like to his image (Rom. viii. 29). 22. Therefore must Jacob’s children, who also were in Christ’s line according to their natural Adamical man, reproach, revile and hate the image of a true Christian man in Joseph. To shew how one Christian would exercise, provoke [and persecute] another in zeal, and despise his fellow-Christian for a natural opinion’s sake; as it now is and ever hath been practised in Christendom [namely], that the one party hath despised, contemned and hated the other, because of natural laws [rights or privileges] and the opinions of a supposed service of God. 23. As Joseph was hated of his brethren because he had visions,1 so nowadays is the divine wisdom (which revealeth itself in God’s children) vilified and hated of the natural Adam. Which scorn and enmity doth wholly proceed and arise from the Pharisaical laws and canons, from the concubine of Christ, the stone-churches, and their ministers, which do disgrace and vilify the concubine of Christ them¬ selves, as it appears very evidently; and thereby they contemn and despise the children of Christ.

24. For by the concubine of Christ, the churches, the Babylonish tower of the high schools and universities is built; and from thence come the confused languages,2 so that Christ is not understood in his children. When they, in the simplicity of Christ, declare and expound the visions of Joseph [the Mysteries of Christ’s kingdom], then these strange languages despise it, for they have gotten upon the tower other languages, from the compaction of the sensual tongues, where every sense of the literal spirits hath brought itself into a form of a several peculiar tongue or speech. 25. And the height of the tower giveth the difference or distinction of speech to this sensual tongue, so that they do not understand one another in their understanding [or ground of their meaning]. Which height signifieth the pride of self-love, from which the five vowels do hide themselves, so that they understand not the power of God (Matt. xxii. 29) in God’s children, in the simplicity of Joseph, but call 1 Or, for the knowledge of his visions. 2 The confusion of several opinions and conceits in men’s minds. him a dreamer, an expounder of signs, a schismatic, a phantastical fellow, an enthusiast and a fool.

2 6. Thus, in the room and place of our Adamical guilt and crime, Christ is despised in his children; and thus Christ fulfilleth the righteousness of God (Matt. iii. 1 5) in his children ; and hereby the old man is also mortified. And it is well for the Christian Joseph that it goes thus with him, for otherwise he would not be thrown into the world’s pit, and be sold to the Midianites, that he might come to Pharaoh, and there become a prince. 27. Therefore a Christian must not be grieved and perplexed at the hatred of his brethren (in that they hate Joseph), but rather think with himself: O! that thou also were cast into Joseph’s pit, that thou mightest thereby be brought away from the house of sin, and come likewise into Joseph’s prison, that so thou mightest have cause to fly from the world; and that this prince (that giveth Joseph to understand the divine visions in his word of power) might be also manifest and born under the banner of Christ’s cross; that in thee also the divine chastity ofjoseph (the pure Christian virginity) might be manifested, that thou likewise mightest obtain such a godly, chaste heart. This ought to be the wish and will of a Christian, and not that he may become great by means of the tower of Babel in the strange languages; of whose difference and several variety the height [of the tower], viz. pride, is the author and cause; so that men will not understand one another in love, meekness, humility, and in the simplicity of Christ, in whom notwithstanding we live and have our being (Acts xvii. 28).

28. Therefore, O thou poor, confused and distracted Christendom, thou art bidden and entreated, by the affliction ofjoseph, to see from whence thy affliction and misery cometh : from no whither else, save only from the hatred of thy brethren, which also are in Christ’s line, as Joseph’s brethren. Observe it aright, thy wound and hurt, thy misery and affliction, doth come only from the tower of Babel, from the titles, dignities and preferments of thy brethren, who, in their pride of the confused tongues, are entered into self-love. Observe it, I beseech thee: all strife, division and contention in the world ariseth from thence. 29. But thou sayest, This tower [doth advance me to honour and esteem, and] makes me high [and rich] ; so that I, by means of the strange languages [of my literal endowments and scholastic learning], can ride over Joseph, and am able to bind him, so that he must lie in the pit; and thus I am lord in Christ’s kingdom upon the earth. 30. Hearken, and mark it. We have heard a watchman say, The Midianites come and take Joseph with them, and bring him unto Pharaoh. And there thine unfaithfulness and unrighteousness shall be discovered. How wilt thou then stand before the face of Joseph? The time is nigh at hand.

31. Or dost thou think that the affliction of Joseph shall not be avenged? Behold! in thy miserable famine and distress, when thou shalt hunger and thirst, even then thou must make thy address and supplication to him. The high tower will give thee neither comfort nor deliverance : the time is come about that Joseph’s affliction is to be avenged, and Reuben’s whoredom with Jacob’s concubine is come before Israel. 32. Why makest thou such long delay, and flatterest thyself, play¬ ing the hypocrite, and sayest: Not yet, a good while? Behold! it is come before the eyes of Israel, that thou hast committed whoredom a long time with the concubine, and defiled the line of Christ. Israel will no longer endure it; thou shalt with Reuben be cast out of the high office of sacrificing and governing: This is the voice which the watch¬ men have pronounced. 33. When Joseph had had the two dreams: the one, of his sheaf standing upright, before which the sheaves of his brethren bowed; the other of the sun, moon, and eleven stars, which had done obeisance to Joseph: envy forthwith arose amongst them, and they supposed he would be their lord (Gen. xxxvii. 5-10); and seeing that they were the elder they desired to rule over him.

34. Whereby we see how the outward man hath only sought and aimed at the kingdom of this world; which was even the bane and undoing of Adam, in that he forsook the inward and sought after the outward. 35. Joseph’s parti-coloured coat which his father made (Gen. xxxvii. 3) signifieth how the inward power of God would again be revealed through the outward man, whereby the human nature would be variously coloured (that is, mixed with God), as the inward spiritual kingdom with the outward. The spiritual figure standeth thus: 36. Joseph, with his coat of many colours, was as yet a lad, both tender and young, and had not yet the wit, craft and subtlety of the world, but spake the truth in simplicity; for his soul was not yet defiled from without with the craft of lying; and the spirit of God began to drive him forward d for his coat of many colours was a figure of the inward. 37. This figure prefigureth and representeth to us the image of a true young scholar and beginner in Christianity, how he must be when the spirit of God shall drive and act in him; namely, he must turn his heart to God his Father, and learn to love him heartily. As Joseph loved to be with his father, and told him the evil that was committed among his children, so must a beginner in Christianity daily bring before God all his own miseries, and the miseries and sins of all that belong to him; yea, of all Christendom. As Daniel confessed the sins of the people of Israel before God; and Joseph the evils of his brethren before his father; so also a true Christian doth daily confess the misery and sin of his people and nation, in hearty compassion, that God would be merciful to them and preserve them from great evils and sins.