(67) But those waters shall in those days serve for the kings and the mighty and the exalted, and those who dwell on the earth, for the healing of the body, but for the punishment of the spirit; now their spirit is full of lust, that they may be punished in their body, for they have denied the Lord of Spirits and see their punishment daily, and yet believe not in His name.

(16) If, then, in the deluge all sinful flesh perished, punishment having been inflicted on them for correction, we must first believe that the will of God, which is disciplinary and beneficent, saves those who turn to Him. Then, too, the more subtle substance, the soul, could never receive any injury from the grosser element of water, its subtle and simple nature rendering it impalpable, called as it is incorporeal. But whatever is gross, made so in consequence of sin, this is cast away along with the carnal spirit which lusts against the soul.

(21) When they are swept aside, the water is seen; But when God unlooses not the hands of reason, The weeds on our water grow thick through carnal lust; Yea, they cover up your water more and more, When fear of God binds the hands of lust, Then the powerful senses are subdued by you, When you submit to reason as your commander Then your sleepless sense is lulled into sleep, You behold visions when broad awake, And the gates of heaven are open before you."

(41) Therefore in this World all Things are given into Man's Power, because he is an eternal Spirit, and all other Creatures [are] no other than a Figure in the Wonders of God; and therefore Man ought well to consider himself, what he speaks, does, and purposes, in this World; for all his Works follow after him, and he has them eternally before his Eyes, and lives in them. Except it be, that he is again new regenerated out of Evil and Falshood, through the Blood and Death of Christ, in the Water and the Holy Spirit, and then he breaks forth out of the hellish and earthly Image, into an angelical [Image,] and comes into another Kingdom, into which its Untowardness [or Vices] cannot follow, and that [Untowardness, Contrariety, or Vice] is drowned in the Blood of Christ, and the Image of God is renewed out of the earthly and hellish.

(33) But seeing all is corrupted, therefore must the upper water in the wrath of God come to help the astringent, bitter and hot quality of the earth, and soften the quality and quench its fire, so that the life may always be generated, and that the holy birth, between death and the wrath of God, may be generated also.

(84) And so instead of the paradisical Joy and Refreshment, there has been a mere Brimstone-Spirit, which stands in Anguish and Trembling, of Corruption [or Fragility,] which kindles the Tincture of the Blood, wherein Tearing, Stinging, and Tormenting is wrought; and if the Fire in the Brimstone-Spirit be too much kindled, then it burns the Tincture up, and the Light of Life goes out, and then the Body falls away to be a dead-Carcase; and if the tart Sourness be kindled too much by the hard Attracting and Holding, then also the Light of Life goes out, and the Body perishes; so also of the Water; if the Tincture kindles itself in the Meekness, then it becomes windy, gross, swelled, wholly dark, also infectious.and corrupt, wherein the Flash of the Life is as a pricking Thorn. And so Man's Life is every where begirt with Enemies, and the poor Soul is always in a close Prison fettered with many Chains, and is continually in Fear that (when the Body shall [die or] break) it may fall into the Kingdom of the Executioner, the Devil.

(38) The Soul is washed in the holy Water, and the Word is presented to it, and the Soul stands in the Covenant. And now it may reach after the Pearl; although the Soul be tied backward in the Kingdom of this World, yet it stands in the Covenant notwithstanding. And if, in the unfeigned Faith of the Parents, of the Priest, and of the Standers by, it be thus washed in the Laver of Regeneration, and so passes into the Covenant, then the Devil may not touch it, till [the Time] that it understands what Evil and Good are, and enters into one of them in a free Will.

(6) The water which thou seest springs not from vein Restored by vapour that the cold condenses, Like to a stream that gains or loses breath; But issues from a fountain safe and certain, Which by the will of God as much regains As it discharges, open on two sides. Upon this side with virtue it descends, Which takes away all memory of sin; On that, of every good deed done restores it. Here Lethe, as upon the other side Eunoe, it is called; and worketh not If first on either side it be not tasted. This every other savour doth transcend; And notwithstanding slaked so far may be Thy thirst, that I reveal to thee no more,

(86) But when the sweet water can defend itself no longer, then anguish riseth up in it; just as in man, when he is dying, when the spirit is departing from the body, and so the body yieldeth itself captive as a prisoner to death; just so the water also yieldeth itself captive as a prisoner.

(108) For it is written, And it was dark on the deep, and the spirit of God moved on the water. The deep signifieth the innermost birth or geniture; and the darkness signifieth the outermost corrupt birth or geniture, in which the wrath burned. The water signifieth the allaying or mitigation of the spirit.

(1) IF we consider ourselves in our right Reason, and behold the Kingdom of this World, in which we stand with our Flesh and Blood, also with our Reason and Senses, then we find very well, that we have the Substance and Stirring of it in us; for we are its very proper own. Now all whatsoever we think, do, and purpose in the outward Man, that the Spirit of this World does in us Men; for the Body is nothing else but the Instrument thereof, wherewith it performs its Work; and we find, that as all other Instruments (which are generated from the Spirit of this World) decay, corrupt, and turn to Dust, so also our earthly Body, wherein the Spirit of this World works [and acts] for a While.

(78) But now the Salitter of the earth and of the water is no more able to change or alter itself in its dead being, and shew forth itself infinitely, as it did in the heavenly place or seat; but when the qualifying or fountain spirits form the body, then it riseth up in the power and virtue of the light.

A thirsty man discovered a tank of water, but could not drink of it because it was surrounded by a high wall. He took some of the bricks off the top of the wall and cast them over it into the water. The water cried out, "What advantage do you gain by doing this?" He made answer, "The first advantage is this, that I hear your voice; and the second, that the more bricks I pull off the wall, the nearer I approach to you." The moral is, that so long as the wall of the body intervenes, we cannot reach the water of life. The abasement of the body brings men nearer to union with the Deity. Destroy, therefore, the fleshly lusts which war against the soul. Then follows another parable to illustrate the folly of procrastination in this important matter.

(80) But that the spirit layeth hold on the power and virtue of the word, and goeth another way through the nostrils into the brain before the throne of the senses or thoughts, signifieth that God will extract the heart of the earth from the wrath of wickedness; and use it to his eternal royal praise. Observe:

(5) Now we cannot say, that the Spirit of this World alone consents to, and does that which is evil and wrathful; for the whole Man oftentimes runs with all his Thoughts, and his whole Will after it. And here we find our great Misery, for the poor Soul (which lies yet tied in the Bands of Anger) is often kindled, that is burns like a Fire, and runs after [Evil;] for it is in the Band of Eternity, in the Father, and reaches (in its most inward Root) the Anger of God; and that is even the Birth of its Life, and its Originality; and the noble Grain of Mustard- seed (that was the new Garment of the Soul, which was new put upon it in its Repentance) is many Times destroyed; therefore none should be secure, though he does once attain the Garland of Pearl, he may lose it again; for when the Soul consents to sin, then it goes forth from Christ into Falsehood, and into the Anger of God.

(2) The greatest indication, however, of the truth of this is the following. Many, through divine inspiration, are not burned when fire is introduced to them, the inspiring influence preventing the fire from touching them. Many, also, though burned, do not apprehend that they are so, because they do not then live an animal life. And some, indeed, though transfixed with spits, do not perceive it; but others that are struck on the shoulders with axes, and others that have their arms cut with knives, are by no means conscious of what is done to them. Their energies, likewise, are not at all human. For inaccessible places become accessible to those that are divinely inspired; they are thrown into fire, and pass through fire, and over rivers, like the priest in Castabalis, without being injured. But from these things it is demonstrated, that those who energize enthusiastically are not conscious of the state they are in, and that they neither live a human nor an animal life, according to sense or impulse, but that they exchange this for a certain more divine life, by which they are inspired and perfectly possessed.

(22) Water also springeth in every living and moving creature in this world. In the water consisteth the body of everything, as the spirit consisteth in the air, be it in animals [or in flesh] or in vegetables.

(87) For the thin water seeketh for the valley, and is a humility of the life, which did not exalt itself, as the astringent and the bitter qualities, and the fire's quality, have done in those creatures the devils.

(98) The meaning is not that the water dieth quite; no, that cannot be, but the astringent spirit taketh captive in its cold fire the sweetness or the unctuosity and fatness of the water, and qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth therewith, and makes use thereof for its spirit: Its own spirit being wholly benumbed, and in death, therefore it makes use of the water for its life, and draweth out the water's unctuosity or fatness to itself, and bereaveth the water of its power.

(65) For nature will not suffer itself to be juggled with at all times and hours, as the spirits would have it, but all must be done according to that spirit which then at that present time is lord and chief or predominant.