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(123) Therefore this is a very difficult Article to be understood; nay it cannot be understood at all, unless it be by Experience in this Fight. Though I should write many Books thereof, yet thou wouldst understand nothing of it, unless thy Spirit stands in such a Birth or Geniture, and that the Knowledge is generated in thyself; otherwise thou canst neither comprehend nor believe it.

(16) Again, when we read of the old man and the new man we must mark what that meaneth. The old man is Adam and disobedience, the Self, the Me, and so forth. But the new man is Christ and true obedience, a giving up and denying oneself of all temporal things, and seeking the honour of God alone in all things. And when dying and perishing and the like are spoken of, it meaneth that the old man should be destroyed, and not seek its own either in spiritual or in natural things. For where this is brought about in a true divine light, there the new man is born again. In like manner, it hath been said that man should die unto himself, that is, to earthly pleasures, consolations, joys, appetites, the I, the Self, and all that is thereof in man, to which he clingeth and on which he is yet leaning with content, and thinketh much of. Whether it be the man himself, or any other creature, whatever it be, it must depart and die, if the man is to be brought aright to another mind, according to the truth. Thereunto doth St. Paul exhort us, saying: “Put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts: . . . and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”17 Now he who liveth to himself after the old man, is called and is truly a child of Adam; and though he may give diligence to the ordering of his life, he is still the child and brother of the Evil Spirit. But he who liveth in humble obedience and in the new man which is Christ, he is, in like manner, the brother of Christ and the child of God. Behold! where the old man dieth and the new man is born, there is that second birth of which Christ saith, “Except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”18 Likewise St. Paul saith, “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”19 That is to say, all who follow Adam in pride, in lust of the flesh, and in disobedience, are dead in soul, and never will or can be made alive but in Christ.

(89) This is a short Introduction, that the Reader might the better understand the Divine Mystery; concerning the Fall of the Devil, and concerning the Creation of this World, you will find all more at large particularly described. Therefore I would have the Reader admonished, that he reads all in Order, and so he will come to the true Ground.

(14) O thou blind and foolish World! full of Devils. It is not Faith, to know that Christ died for thee, and has shed his Blood for thee, that thou mightest be saved: This in thee is but a mere History and Knowledge, the Devil also knows as much, but it profits him nothing; so thou also, thou foolish World, goest no further, but contentest thyself with the bare Knowledge, and therefore this thy Knowledge will judge thee.

(4) For it is manifest, that the first World before the Deluge or Flood, knew as little of the Qualities, and Birth or Geniture of God, as this last World wherein we now live. For the external fleshly Birth or Geniture could never apprehend or understand the Deity, otherwise somewhat more would have been written of it.

(11) This indeed is very rightly and properly described, but the true Ground sticks hidden or concealed in the Word, and has never been understood by Man. For Man since the Fall could never comprehend or apprehend the inward Birth or Geniture, to perceive how the heavenly Birth or Geniture is; but his Reason lay captivated in the outward Comprehensibility or Palpability, and could not penetrate and press through Heaven, and see the inward Birth or Geniture of God, which also is in the corrupted Earth, and every where, in all Places. [See ch. 19. v. 55, 92.]

(51) Whereupon now this Treatise, and my whole Purpose, is to describe, how it is come to be living and revived again, and how it regenerates itself again. And from thence also in the Creatures the bestial Flesh is come to be, but Sin in the Flesh is the Wrath of God. Another Question, which is chiefly treated of in this Book is this, viz. Where then shall the Wrath of God come to be? Answer.

(93) Thus the Reader is to understand this Book as concerning three Principles or Births; viz. One is the Original of the eternal Nature, in the eternal Will or Desire of God, which Desire drives itself on in great Anguish till it comes to the fourth Form, viz. to the Fire.

(14) In this sense the New Birth of man is the focus towards which all creation strives, because man is the image of God after the likeness of which the world is created. All time strives towards eternity or the timeless Now, out of which it issued at creation. The merely temporal life in itself is a negation of real being, because it depends on itself and not on the deepest foundation of life; therefore also natural love is cramped finite and defective.

It must through grace be lifted to the highest sphere of existence, and attain to freedom outside the narrow confines of the natural. Thereby love becomes real love, because only that is real which is comprehended and loved in its essence. Only by grace man comes from the temporal and transitory to be one with God. This lifting of manifoldness to unity is the supreme aim of ethics; by thus the divine birth is completed on the side of man.

(1) ALL those that read or hear the matter of this book be read or spoken, and in this reading or hearing think it a good and liking thing, be never the rather called of God to work in this work, only for this liking stirring that they feel in the time of this reading. For peradventure this stirring cometh more of a natural curiosity of wit, than of any calling of grace.

(103) Of which much were to be written; but you will find it more apprehensibly, at the Place concerning the Creation: For there are to be found living Testimonies enough, so that none need doubt whither the Things be so or no.