(90) Now when Cain had murdered his Brother, then he went securely as a Lord, and thought, now thou art sole Prince on Earth; but the Voice of the fierce Anger of God came, and said; Where is thy Brother Abel? and he answered, / know not, Shall I be my Brother's Keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? Behold, the Voice of thy Brother's Blood cries to me from the Earth; and now thou art cursed upon the Earth, which has opened its Mouth to receive thy Brother's Blood from thy Hands. When thou shalt till the Ground, it shall not yield its Strength to thee henceforth; thou shalt be a Vagabond and Fugitive upon Earth.

(6) But when it was allayed again by the Voice of God, then Cain did not know how that came to pass, and set his Murder at Rest, like one who has a secret gnawing Dog sitting in the Dark; yet he proceeded and built his powerful earthly Kingdom, and did not wholly put his Trust in God. For when he saw, that he must seek for his Bread out of the Earth, and must take his Clothing from the Children of the Earth, therefore all his Business lay in the Art of seeking how and which Way he might find, and how possess the Treasure of that which was found, that he might always have enough; because he saw God no more, therefore he did like Israel, who were brought out of Egypt by Moses, and when they saw him not (because he was on the Mount) then they began their Dancing and false Worship of God, and asked after Moses no more.

(82) And such also now was their Son Cain; he supposed that he was Lord on Earth; and therefore he grudged that his Brother should have any Thing; especially when he saw that he was accepted before God, that vexed him, and he thought that Abel should come to be Lord on Earth; in his Sacrifice, he regarded not the Fear of God, though he, as a seeming holy Man [or Hypocrite,] sacrificed also; but he regarded only the Region.

(104) His Anger against Abel came from hence, because Abel stood not in his Birth, and his Spirit would not endure the Kingdom of Abei in his Kingdom; for he would rule (as by his own Power) in the i two Principles wherein he stood; and therefore he slew Abel.

(97) But it was miserable, and all in vain, for Cain (in his tender Humanity) cried. Woe, woe is me. His Sins were greater than he, he could not in his own Power press into God; he trembled, and at length stood amazed before the Abyss of Hell, which had captivated him, and held him in it; he severed himself now also from [the Company of] Men, and said, Now whosoever shall find me will slay me, for I must fly from thy Face.

(91) And now when the Anger of God stirred the Sin in Cain, then it became awakened, and he was perplexed [or troubled,] and then his false Faith was seen; for he despaired, and said, My Sins are greater than that they can be forgiven me; behold thou drivest me away from the Lord this Day, and I must bide myself 'c from thy Countenance, and I must be a Fugitive and Vagabond upon the Earth; and it shall so befall me, that whosoever dfindeth me will slay me.

(101) O Cain! look but upon thy Kingdom, and consider what befell thy great [grand] Father Cain, who built this Kingdom, who cried out, Woe is me! my Sins are greater than can be forgiven me, when he saw himself (with his Kingdom) to be without God, in the Abyss of Hell. And if the loving Word of God had not recalled it, (when it said, No; Whosoever killeth Cain, it shall be avenged sevenfold; and God made a Mark upon him, that none that met with him should kill him) he had been quite lost. Those are wonderful Words, Moses's Face is so very much under the Vail; for the Vail is rightly the Cainish Church, which covers the Kingdom of Christ.

(94) Thus also God withdrew, that is, Cain went out from God, from the Kingdom of God into the Kingdom of the Fierceness of the Driver; therefore also his Affairs (which he further [managed, held forth, and] pretended) were not of God, but from the Kingdom of the fierce Wrath; that [Fierceness] led him, and generated or awakened its Wonders through him, that the [Kingdom of the Fierceness] might be also manifested, even as it was a great Wonder, i how the noble Image in Abel, by the Fierceness of Hell, and of this World, could be separated in the Breaking of the Body; whereas the Kingdom of Hell would fain have found [or felt] it; and therefore the first Death must be hastily [or suddenly,] where then the Treader upon the Serpent showed his first Master-piece, when the Kingdom of this World parted from Abel, when the Cherubim did this first Time cut off the four Elements from the holy Element.

(4) But Cain had Flesh and Blood, and understood not the Meaning of the eternal Death; yet when he was assured from God that none should slay him, he became cheerful again; for the P Essences of his Soul were refreshed again by God's Recalling [him,] for the Door of Grace stood open towards him, he should return, for God would not the Death of a Sinner.

(84) Now the Devil cannot endure that a holy Church should grow up in his Dominions, he will murder Abel still, as he did then; because Cain feared not God, therefore the Devil got an Access to him, and stirred up the inbred Wrath in Cain against Abel, that he slew him. Here surely all the Devils danced at it, and thought, now is the Kingdom ours again; whereat Adam and Eve were much amazed and affrighted, when they saw that he whom they accounted for a Prince, became a Murderer; and they copulated [or knew one another] no more in seventy Years after.

(5) And here may be seen very exactly, who was the accuser of Cain, viz. the Blood of Abel, which cried to God from the Earth, and awakened the fierce Anger against Cain; where the Essences of the Soul of Abel, through the deep Gate of Anger, pressed into God, through the Treader upon the Serpent, and so stirred the Root of the Fire in Cain, whereby the Anger was awakened. Here consider what the Sighings of the Righteous, and their Pressing into God (in their being unequally oppressed) can do, how it kindles the Anger of God, as in Cain; whereas then fiery Coals are heaped upon the Driver's [or Oppressor's] Head.

(79) We are especially to observe in Cain and Abel, what their Purpose was. Cain was a Plowman [or Tiller of the Ground,] and Abel was a Shepherd [or Keeper of Sheep.] Abel relied upon the Blessing of God towards his Flock, to maintain himself by the Blessing of God. Cain relied upon his own Labour, to maintain himself by his own Skill and Industry. Eve took Part with Cain, and Adam with Abel; for Eve counted him to be the Prince on Earth, to whom the Kingdom did belong, and supposed that he (as a Champion) would chase and hunt away the Devil; although she knew him not.

(2) Therefore now we can speak or write of nothing else but of his Wonders; for we have a great Example of them in Cain, when the Kingdom of the fierce Wrath (after his Murder) awaked in him, and would have devoured him, that God came to help him; when the divine Justice (in his Conscience) sentenced him to Death, then the divine Answer spoke against it, [saying] No: Whosoever slayeth Cain, it shall be avenged sevenfold; by which Speech the fierce Vengeance of the Abyss of Hell was driven away from him, so that Cain did not despair; and As the Thoughts in the Mind flow or spring up. though he was gone forth from God, yet the Kingdom of Heaven stood towards him, he might turn, and enter into Repentance. God had not yet quite rejected him; but his malicious, murderous, and false Confidence he accursed, and would not nbe therein.

(102) Here is the clear and plain Ground and Root of the false Cainish Church; for Cain had made himself a Lord of this World, and built [or relied] upon himself. Yet now he had in fin Self. himself nothing for a Propriety, but the first and the third Principles; for as to his Soul, he was in the first Principle, as all Men [are,] and as to the Body, he was in the third Principle in the Kingdom of this World. And now he should with his Soul go out of the Kingdom of this World, and press into the second Principle, (viz. into the Trust in God, into the Word of the Promise) to God, as Abel did, and labour with his Hands in this World, and plant and build; but his Mind should be directed to God in Confidence, and should commend the Kingdom of this World to God, and carry himself therein as a travelling Stranger, which only with this strange Body is in his Propriety, as to the Body, and a Stranger only as to the Soul, and besides as an ashamed Guest like a Prisoner in it, whose only Study should be, to get again into his true native Country, out of which he is gone forth with his Father Adam; but he let the second Principle, the Kingdom of Heaven go, and yielded himself wholly with his Soul into the Kingdom of this World, where he would be Lord; and so the Anger took hold on him, for he went out from the Word, the Promise of Grace.

(22) And he answered me saying: 'This is the spirit which went forth from Abel, whom his brother Cain slew, and he makes his suit against him till his seed is destroyed from the face of the earth, and his seed is annihilated from amongst the seed of men.'

(96) Secondly, also the terrible Work of the Entering into the Fierceness [or Anger] was proved in Cain, for each Kingdom proved its own. And now when Cain went into the Anger, then the Love of God stood in the Center before him, wholly hidden; there Cain (as a Champion) should have broken the Serpent's Head, which he before supposed, that he was the Man that should do it, and would do it in his own Power and Might; and here it Dissolution. was rightly tried, whether it was possible in one's own Self -power (through the Luster of the Father in the Fire) to possess the Kingdom of God.

(44) Now when Adam and Eve went out of the Garden, they kept together, as now married People do, and now would make Trial of their bestial Condition, [to try] what Wonders might proceed from them; and the Spirit of the great World did well enough to teach them, in their Reason, what they were to do. And Adam knew his Wife Eve, and she conceived and bore a Son, and called him Cain; for she said, I have a Man from the Lord. These are sealed Words which Moses writes, that she said, / have a Man from the Lord. [For] then said the Major Mundus, I have the Lord of this World. Eve spoke no otherwise, than as the Apostles thought, that Christ was to erect a worldly Kingdom; so Eve thought that her Son (as a strong Champion) should break the Head of the Devil, and set up a glorious Kingdom; from whence instantly a twofold Understanding [or different Condition] followed, and two Sorts of Churches; the one [built or relying] upon the Mercy of God; and the other, upon their own Might, Authority or Power.] And therefore Cain could not endure his Brother, because Abel pressed hard upon the Mercy of God, and Cain [relied] upon his own Power [Might and Authority.] He thought himself to be the Lord of the whole World, as his Mother had instructed him; and therefore now he would break the Head of the Serpent in his own Might as a Warrior [or Soldier,] and began with his Brother Abel, for his Faith relied not on God, but on his own Power; and here the Serpent stung the Treader upon the Serpent in the Heel the first Time. The Gate of the Mysteries, [or the Explanation of the hidden Secrets.]

Now, afterward she bore Cain, their son, and Cain cultivated the land. Thereupon he knew his wife. Again becoming pregnant, she bore Abel, and Abel was a herdsman of sheep. Cain brought in from the crops of his field, but Abel brought in an offering from among his lambs. God looked upon the votive offerings of Abel, but he did not accept the votive offerings of Cain. And fleshly Cain pursued Abel his brother. God said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He answered, saying, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” And Adam knew his partner Eve, and she became pregnant and bore Seth to Adam. And she said, “I have borne another man through god, in place of Abel.” Again Eve became pregnant, and she bore Norea. And she said, “He has produced for me a virgin as an assistance for many generations of human beings.” She is the virgin whom the forces did not defile. Then humankind began to multiply and improve.

(99) Thou hast been a clear Glass (in him) of Men's own Conceits [or Opinions,] what one's own good Meaning (without the Spirit of God) is. Cain went not into the Sheepfold at the Door (which God made for Adam and Eve, with the Word, and Treader upon the Serpent,) but climbed into it another Way, by his strong lionish Mind, and would be a Lord over the Sheep, and became a Thief and Murderer of the Sheep, and the Sheep followed him not, but they went (with Abel) through the Sword of the Angel [or] Cherubim (out of this frail and corruptible Life) with the Treader upon the Serpent, into their resting Sheepfold, where there is not one Wolf; for the Cherubim will let none of them in. And if any of them come, then he cuts their Wolf's Heart of the Fierceness of the Kingdom of this World quite away, and then they also become Sheep, and lay themselves patiently among the Sheep, and seek no more after the Wolf, for he is beyond Eden, in the Land of Nod; but they are gone through the Sword of the Cherubim into Paradise, where no Wolf enters in; there is a Wall of a Principle and whole a Birth before it.

(112) Thus thou continually murderest poor Abel two Manner of Ways, and givest him great Occasion of stumbling; by thy Pomp and Power thou drawest him away from God into the Spirit of this World, where he then grows stark blind, and so he will continually ride after thee; he will still sit upon thy Beast, and be Lord also, and ride over the bended Knees; and thus the Kingdom of this World is a right Den of Thieves, and in the Presence of God a Lake of Abominations. 1 13. The Spirit of thy stout Beast is the hellish Worm; the crowned Bride that sits upon it is the false Woman [or Whore] of Babel: She drinks only out of the Cup of Whoredom and Abominations, her Drink in that Cup is the Fierceness of the Anger of God, of which the People [or Nations] drink, and become drunk, and so in their Drunkenness they become Murderers, Robbers, Thieves, false perfidious Mockers, Jesters, Scorners, proud, high-minded, Self-honourers, stern malicious People, there is no End of the Number of those that hate one another; every one supposes his Way is right, and that he walks in the right Path; if his Brother and Sister go not in the same Way with him, he scorns them, and calls them Heretics; and so one Wolf bites another; his Way is in his own Opinion, as his Master teaches him, who yet never regards any Thing but his a Belly- God, that his Esteem and Glory may be great among Men; thus one Hypocrite deceives the other, and they are Scorners and Persecutors one of another among themselves; and one is a Wolf as well as another; and the poor Abel (who stands in true Resignation, and relies upon God) must continually be their Footstool, he is continually murdered in a two-fold Manner. 1 14. One is, that he is deceived, and goes along into Babel, and is murdered, as to the Kingdom of Heaven. The other is, that if he remains constant, then the Devil (with Cain) will not endure him, but murders him outwardly, as to the Body, or takes away his good Name and Credit, and covers him so that he may not be known, that so the Kingdom of Cain and the Antichrist may remain in Babel; of which we know well how to speak by our own Experience, if Wrath and Anger did please us. But it fares very well with our Abel, and our being scorned springs up in the Blossoming of the Lily, whereat we will rejoice well enough, when we return again from Jericho to Jerusalem to our Father Abel.