(103) But if nature led them, like the irrational animals, to procreation, yet they were impelled to do it more quickly than. was proper because they were still young and had been led away by deceit. Thus God's judgment against them was just, because they did not wait for his will. But birth is holy. By it were made the world, the existences, the natures, the angels, powers, souls, the commandments, the law, the gospel, the knowledge of God. And "all flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withers, the flower falls; but the word of the Lord abides" which anoints the soul and unites it with the spirit. Without the body how could the divine plan for us in the Church achieve its end? Surely the Lord himself, the head of the Church, came in the flesh, though without form and beauty, to teach us to look upon the formless and incorporeal nature of the divine Cause. "For a tree of life" says the prophet, "grows by a good desire," teaching that desires which are in the living Lord are good and pure.

(19) First, thou hast the bestial Flesh, which is come to be through the lustful longing Bit of the Apple, for it is the House of Corruption. For when Adam was made out of the corrupted Salitter of the Earth, that is, out of the Seed, or Mass, or Lump, which the Creator extracted out of the corrupted Earth, he was not then at first such Flesh, else his Body had been created mortal, but he had an angelical powerful Body, in which he should have subsisted eternally, and should have eat angelical [Tex. Mist.] Fruit, which grew for him in Paradise before his Fall, before the LORD cursed the Earth.

(23) Thou must not understand this in an earthly Manner; for an Angel has no Entrails, neither Flesh nor Bones, but is constituted or composed by the Divine Power in the Shape, Form, and Manner of a Man, and has all Members like Man, except the Members of Generation, and the Fundament or going out of the Draught, neither has an Angel need of them.

(69) For men were created exactly like the angels, to the intent that they should continue pure and righteous, and death, which destroys everything, could not have taken hold of them, but through this their knowledge they are perishing, and through this power it is consuming me†.

(130) For Man is made out of all the Powers of God, out of all the seven Spirits of God, as the Angels also are. But now seeing Man is corrupted, therefore the divine Birth does not always spring, qualify, or operate in him; no, nor in all Men neither: And though indeed it springs in him, yet the high Light does not presently shine in all Men; and though indeed it shines, yet it is incomprehensible to the corrupted Nature. [* See v. 69.]

(24) For Man got his Members of Generation and Fundament first in his doleful and lamentable Fall. An Angel sendeth forth Nothing but the Divine Power, which he takes in at his Mouth, wherewith he kindles his Heart, and the Heart kindles all the Members, and that he sends forth from himself again at the Mouth, when he speaks and praises God.