(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.

(64) But if any will be new born again, he must not yield himself to be a servant to covetousness, pride, state and self-power, to take delight in the will or desires of his flesh; but he must struggle and fight against himself, against the devil, and against all the lusts of the flesh; and he must think and consider that he is but a servant and pilgrim on earth, who must wander through many miserable seas of danger into another world; and there he will be a lord, and his dominion will consist in power, and in perfect delight, beauty and brightness; this I tell as the word of the spirit. Now observe:

(30) Also the new birth blossomed in the time of the creation, when man had not spoiled or corrupted it; but by him nature was still more corrupted; and so God cursed the ground. But seeing man took hold of the fruit of the old body, thereupon the fruit of the new body was hidden in its heaven, and man must now behold it with the new body, and cannot partake of it with the natural body.

(27) Therefore now we know, that we were not created to generate [that which is] earthly, but heavenly, out of the Body of the pure Element, which [Body] Adam had before his Sleep, and [before] his Eve [was,] when he was neither Man nor Woman [Male nor Female,] but one only Image of God, full of Chastity, out of the pure Element. He should have generated an Image again like himself; but because he went into the Spirit of this World, therefore his Body became earthly, and so the heavenly Birth was gone, and God must make the Woman out of him, as is before mentioned. Now if we, the Children of Eve, are to be helped, then there must come a new Virgin, and bear us a Son, who should be God with us, and in us.

(45) And that you may rightly and properly understand us; we [mean or] understand here no strange Christ, who is not our Brother; as himself said at his Resurrection, Go to my Brethren, and your Brethren, and tell them, I go to my God and to your God. As indeed the Body (which we here carry about us) is not the Image of God, which God created; for the Kingdom of this World puts its Image upon us, when Adam consented to yield to it; and we (if we be regenerated) are not at Home in this World with our new Man; as Christ said to his Disciples, / have called you out of this World, that you shall be where I am; and Saint Paul says, Our Conversation (as to the new Man) is in Heaven. Thus we understand also, that our Immanuel, [who is] the most holy of all, with his true Image of God (wherein also our true Image of God does consist) is not of this World; but as the old mortal Man (from the Kingdom of this World) hangs to us, so our mortal Man also hung to the Image of God in Christ, which he drew from his Mother Mary, as the pure Element [draws] the Kingdom of this World [to it.]