(24) And thus there goes forth out of the earthly a Senses and Mind, Lies and Folly, Deceit and Falsehood, [also] mere Subtilty, [with Lust and Desire] to be elevated; many [to be elevated] in the Might of the Fire, as by Force and Anger; and many by human Art and Policy of this World, which is but a Knave in the Sight of God, yet wrestles [or holds fast] till it has prevailed; many in the Form of a tame and gentle Beast, very cunningly alluring, and drawing to itself, under a fair Pretence; many in Pride, and Stateliness of Body [in Carriage] and Manners, which is a right diabolical Beast, who contemns all that does not please him, and elevates himself above all Meekness and Humility, and over the Image of God; yea, there is so very much of false Untowardness, that I may not mention it; every one follows the Region [Rule or Dominion] of the Stars, even that which serves most to the Voluptuousness of the earthly Life.

(17) Now all such things the adversary prepares beautifully and spreads out before the body, wishing to make the mind of the soul incline her toward one of them and overwhelm her, like a hook, drawing her by force in ignorance, deceiving her until she conceives evil, and bears fruit of matter, and conducts herself in uncleanness, pursuing many desires, covetousnesses, while fleshly pleasure draws her in ignorance.

(76) The Lust [or longing Desire] is the introducing ointo a Thing, and out of the Lust comes the Form [or Image] of the Lust, viz. a Body, and the Source [or active Quality] of Sins sticks therein; and you may more easily hinder the Lust, than break the Body, which is very hard; therefore it is good to turn away the Eyes, and then the P Tincture goes not into the Essences by which the Spirit is impregnated; for the Lust indeed is not the Mind wholly, but they are Sisters; for when the Lust impregnates the Mind, then it is already a half Substance, and there must necessarily follow a Breaking, or there comes to be a whole Substance, and an Essence of a Thing.

(21) It goes not out at the Mouth like a Bodily Substance; it is raw [or naked] without a Body, and instantly passes (at the Departure of the four Elements) into the Center, into the Gate of the Deep, [in the hidden Eternity;] and that which it is clothed with, that it comprehends, and keeps it: If its Treasure be Voluptuousness, Might, [or Power,] Honour, Riches, Malice, Wrath, Lying, or the Falshood of the World, then the fierce Might of the Essences out of the first Principle comprehends these Things, through the syderial Spirit, and keeps them, and works therewith according to the Region of the Stars; yet the [starry Region] cannot bring the Spirit of the Soul into its own Form, but it practises its juggling therewith, and so there is no Rest in its Worm, and its Worm of the Soul hangs to its Treasure; as Christ said, Where thy Treasure is, there is thy Heart also.

(3) [...] he [dwelt...] having [...] sons. The sons [...] truly, those who have come from his seed, call the sons of the woman "our brothers". In this very way, when the spiritual soul was cast into the body, it became a brother to lust and hatred and envy, and a material soul. So therefore the body came from lust, and lust came from material substance. For this reason the soul became a brother to them.

(74) If it stretches to God, then the Devil holds it on one Side with one Band, and the World with another Band; and they set upon it; the Devil handles it in Fierceness, [Sternness, Frowardness, or Wrath, which is a Source [or Quality] and Sin, which cannot attain to the Kingdom of God; and the World leads it into Pride, Covetousness, and fleshly Lust, so that the Essences of the Soul grow full [or impregnated] with the fleshly Will; for the Will of the Mind draws these Things into the Soul, and so the Soul (from that which is attracted) becomes wholly unclean, a swelled and dark, and cannot attain the Light of God; its Essences, that should give up themselves to God, cannot: For they are too rough, and cannot get into the Light, that kindles not itself in its Essences. The Gates of the Deep must be broken open first, and then the Essences [of the Soul may] press into the Liberty, without the Darkness; but if the Mind be filled, then it cannot [come into the Liberty,] and then begins Horror, Fear, Distress, and Despair of the Kingdom of God, and this makes mere Torment, [Woe, Pain, and Smart,] in the Soul.

(21) And not hearts only but very hills would bleed." Evil deeds give men's prayers an ill savour in Gods nostrils. Thou art asleep, and the smell of that forbidden fruit Ascends to the azure skies, Ascends along with thy foul breath, Till it overpowers heaven with stench; Stench of pride, stench of lust, stench of greed. Though thou swearest, saying, "When have I eaten? Have I not abstained from onions and garlic?" The very breath of that oath tells tales,

(12) But despite its fall, the whole earth cannot satisfy the lust of the flesh; who can do its will? To him who longs for the impossible come guilt and bafflement of desire; but he who is utterly without desire has a happiness that ages not. Then give no room for the lust of the flesh to swell; blessed indeed is the thing that is not imagined for the sake of its pleasant- ness. The body is a motionless thing stirred by something without, and ending in ashes, a loathsome frame of foulness; why do I cling to it? What have I to do with this machine, alive or dead? What distinguishes it from such things as clods of earth? Alas, O thought of self, thou wilt not die! Through complicity with the flesh I win sorrow, all to no purpose; it is no better than a thing of wood, and what should avail its hatred or its kindness? It feels no love when I guard it, no hate when vultures devour it; then why do I love it? I am angered when it is treated with scorn, delighted when it is honoured; but if it has no knowledge, to what end is my toil? My friends, forsooth, are they who wish well to this body; but all men wish well to their own flesh, and why are not they also my friends? So I have surrendered my body indifferently for the weal of the world; it is but as an instrument of work that I still bear it, with all its guilt. Enough then of worldly ways! I follow in the path of the Wise, remembering the Discourse upon Heedfulness and putting away sloth. To overcome the power of darkness I concentre my thought, drawing the spirit away from vain paths and fixing it straightly upon its stay.

(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.

(77) Or if it would by the smelling get a longing or lusting after that which is none of its own. As lord Lucifer did also, who longed after the holy savour or sweet smell of the Son of God, and intended in his elevation and kindling to smell and savour yet more pleasantly.

(78) While it is but glimmering it is only a gentle, soft, longing delight or pleasing lust in thee, and does not consume thee; but if thou exhaltest thy heart still more, and thou kindlest the sweet quality or fountain, so that it becomes a burning flame, then thou kindlest all the qualifying or fountain spirits, and then the whole body bumeth, and so mouth and hands fall on to work.

(59) Also, I receive it from before the seat of his throne, where all holy souls of men stand before him, and rejoice before him; [and I tell thee] that the desire of the flesh in soft pleasingness, to be rich, to be handsome, beautiful and fair, or to be mighty or potent, is a very bath or lake of hellish wrath, into which thou crowdest and runnest, as if thou wert drawn in with cartropes; for there is very great danger therein.

(19) First, thou hast the bestial flesh, which is come to be so through the lustful longing bite 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 powerbody, in which he should have subsisted eternally, and should have eaten angelical fruit, which did grow for him in Paradise before his fall, before the LORD cursed the earth.

(87) But when he set his Imagination in the Kingdom of this World, then the bright and clear Will of his Soul drew the swelled Kingdom of the Out-Birth to the Soul in its Will; and so the pure paradisical Soul became dark, and the Element of the Body got the xMesch or Massa, which the Will of the Soul of the Mind attracted into the Element [of the Body;] and then he was a fleshly Man, and got the Fierceness of the first Principle, which the strong Breaking-through to God, in the Gate of the Deep, made to be hard Gristles and Bones.

(78) Therefore beware of the Longing [Lust or Desire;] and say not in thyself, I stand in the Dark, the Lord sees me not, [nor] what I think and do. He stands in the Gate of the Mind, where the Soul stands (before the clear Face of God) in the opened Gate; and all thy Abominations are known before God, and thou makest the Element of God blush [or change Colour] with them; thou grievest the chaste Virgin (which dwells in her own Center, and is given to be a Companion to thee in thy Mind) and makest her sad; she warns thee of the Way of the Ungodly; if thou followest [her Counsel,] and turnest, and breakest in unto her, by earnest Repentance, then she crowns thee in thy Mind with Wisdom and Understanding, that thou mayest then very well avoid the Devil; but if they doest not, then thou fallest out of one Sin and Abomination into another, and makest thy Measure full and running over, and then the Devil helps thee into his Kingdom, and thou art very serviceable to him; for thou art a true Scourge to the Children of God, not only with Reproaching, but also in Deeds [or in the Work of thy Hands,] which the Devil dares not do; thou doest him acceptable service. He amuses thee finely with the Name [i of God,] so that thou bringest forth from thy Lips, and teachest it; but thy Heart is a Thief and

(34) But now this Lust [or Longing] must be thus, or else no good Creature could be, and this World would be a mere Hell and Wrathfulness. And now seeing the Virgin stands in the second Principle, so that the Spirit of this World cannot possibly reach to her, and yet that the Virgin does continually behold herself [or appear] in the Spirit of this World, to [satisfy] the Lust and Longing in the Fruit and Growing of every Thing, therefore mhe is so very longing, and seeks the Virgin continually. He exalts many a Creature in great Skill and cunning Subtlety, and he brings it into the highest Degree that he can; and continually supposes that so the Virgin shall again be generated for him, which he saw in Adam before his Fall; which also brought Adam to fall, in that mhe would dwell in his Virgin, and with his great Lust so pressed Adam, that he fell asleep; that is, he set himself by Force in Adam's Tincture close to the Virgin, and would fain have qualified in her, and [mingled] with her, and so live eternally, whereby the Tincture grew weary, and the Virgin withdrew.

(124) As this has a being or substance, form or condition in angels, so it has also a being, substance, form or condition in man. Therefore bethink and consider yourselves, you that are proud, covetous, thievish, extorting usurers, calumniating, blasphemous, envious, and whorish or lascivious, what manner of little son or spirit you send into God. ["The soul was originally comprehended in the eternal nature with the Word Fiat, which is God's nature according to the first Principle and eternal original of nature; and if it kindleth itself in the original, then it kindleth God's wrath in the eternal nature."] Objection. Thou wilt say, We do not send this into God, but only into our neighbour, or into his work which we like and have a mind to. [or meddle with in our minds.] Answer.

(21) Now, all thoughtful folk, mark me! no one can be truly happy, except he who abides in the strictest sanctification. No bodily and fleshly delight can ever take place with out spiritual loss, for the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. Therefore, the more a man fleeth from the created, the more the Creator hastens to him. And consider this: if the pleasure we take in the outward image of our Lord Jesus Christ diminishes our capacity for receiving the Holy Spirit, how much more must our unbridled desire for earthly comforts diminish it!

(146) So it goes also in the soul, when it presseth or breaks quite through in its flight or combat, then it beholdeth the Deity, as a flash of lightning; but the source, quality or fountain of sins covereth it suddenly again: For the Old Adam belongeth to the earth, and does not, with this flesh, belong to the Deity.

(2) Because the condition and inclination of the corrupted nature is to gaze on high things alone, like a proud, wild, wanton and whorish woman, who always gazeth in her heat or burning lust after handsome men, to act wantonness with them.