(56) where now would the Soul of Man rather be at the Day of Regeneration, than in its Father, that is, in the Body which hath generated it? [Note, Christ's not being af- fended to his Father.]

(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.

(91) For when Man fell into Sin, he was removed out of the innermost Birth or Geniture, and set or put into the other two, which presently embraced him, and so mixed, qualified, or united with him and in him, as in their own Propriety, and so Man instantly received the Spirit, and all Generations or Productions of the astral Birth, and also of the outermost Birth or Geniture. [See v. 39. and ch. 21. v. 11.]

(29) Now as Man in his outward Being is corrupted, and as to his fleshly Birth or Getiture is in the Wrath of God, and is moreover also an Enemy of God, and yet is but one Man, and not two; and on the other hand, in his spiritual Birth or Geniture he is a Child and Heir of God, who rules and lives with God, and qualifies, mixes, or unites with the innermost Birth or Geniture of God; thus also is the Place of this World come to be.

(56) But thou must know this, that he sticks in a continual anxious Birth or Geniture, and would fain be rid of the Wrath and Wickedness, and yet cannot. For he is as the whole House of this World, wherein always Love and Wrath wrestle one with another, and the new Body always generates itself in the Midst or Center of the Anguish. For so it must be, if thou wilt be born anew, otherwise no Man can reach the Regeneration.