(4) God fashioned man in such a way as to render it manifest, that he is not through the want of power, or of deliberate choice, incapable of being impelled to what is beautiful in conduct. For he implanted in him a principle of such a kind as to comprehend at one and the same time the possible and the pre-eligible; so that man might be the cause of power, and the possession of good, but God of impulse and incitation according to right reason. On this account also, he made him tend to heaven, gave him an intellective power, and implanted in him a sight called intellect, which is capable of beholding God. For it is not possible without God to discover that which is best and most beautiful, nor without intellect to see God, since every mortal nature is established in conjunction with a kindred privation of intellect. This however is not imparted to it by God, but by the essence of generation, and by that impulse of the soul which is without deliberate choice.

(12) Now that this is demonstratively and certainly thus, [appears] in that it is written; And God breathed into him the a living Breath, whereby Man became a living Soul. All other Creatures which were produced out of the corruptible Limbus by the Fiat, in all those the Will in the Fiat had awakened the Spirit in their Center, and every Creature's Spirit went forth out of the Essence and Property of its own self, and mixed afterwards with the Spirit of the great World, of the Stars and Elements, and that ought not to have been in Man, his Spirit ought not to have mixed itself [or been united] with the Spirit of the Stars and Elements. The two Principles (viz. the Darkness and the Spirit of the Air) ought to have stood still in such a Substance [as should be the Image of God;] and therefore he breathed into him the diving Breath; understand God's Breath, that is, the paradisical Breath or Spirit, [viz.] the Holy Spirit; that should be the Breath of the Soul, in the Center of the Soul. And the Spirit which went forth out of the Limbus, or out of the Quinta Essentia (which is of the a Condition of the Stars) that was to have Power over the fifth Essence of this World. For Man was in one only Essence [or Substance,] and there was also but one only Man that God thus created, and he could have lived for ever. And although God had brought the Stars again into their Ether, and also had withdrawn the Matrix of the Elements, and the Elements also back into nothing, yet Man would have continued still. Besides, he had the paradisical Center in him, and he could have generated again out of himself, out of his Will, and have awakened the Center; and so should have been able in Paradise to generate an angelical Host, without Misery or Anguish, also without tearing [rending or dividing in himself;] and such a Man he ought to have been, if he must continue in Paradise, and be eternal without Decay; for Paradise is holy, and in that Respect Man also ought to have been holy, for the Virtue [and Power] of God and Paradise consists in Holiness. The deep Gate of the Soul.

(11) But that we may, in a brief Sum, give the Reader to understand what our Knowledge and high Sense in the Light of Nature has highly apprehended, we therefore set it down thus, according to our Knowledge. Adam was the Image of God, according to the Similitude of God, which God (the holy Trinity in one only divine Substance) through the Virgin of his eternal Wisdom, in the Wisdom had [manifested or discovered, [or purposed,] in the eternal Element to have in the Room of the fallen Devil. For his Counsel (in the eternal Will) must stand; there should and must be a Throne and Princely Region in this Place, which should manifest the eternal Wonders.

(12) Seeing then God is all in all, and has created Man to his Image and Similitude, to live with him eternally in his Love, Light, Joy and Glory, therefore we cannot say, that he was merely created out of the Corruptibility of this World, for therein is no eternal perfect Life, but Death, and Perplexity, Anguish, and Necessity; but as God dwells in himself, and goes through all his Works incomprehensibly to them, and is hindered by nothing, so was the Similitude before him out of the pure Element; it was indeed created in this World, yet the Kingdom of this World should not comprehend that [Image,] but the Similitude (Man) should mightily, and in perfect [Power or] Virtue, rule through the Essences (with the Essences out of the pure Element of the paradisical holy Limbus) through the Dominion of this World.

(102) But the difference lies in this, that man is made by God himself out of the best kernel or pith of nature, to be his angel and similitude, and God ruleth in man with his holy spirit; so that man can speak, discourse, distinguish and understand all things.

(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 either: And though indeed it springeth in him, yet the high light does not presently shine in all men; and though indeed it does shine, yet it is incomprehen- sible to the corrupted nature.

(3) Therefore hath He made man of soul and body,—that is, of an eternal and a mortal nature; so that an animal thus blended can content his dual origin,—admire and worship things in heaven, and cultivate and govern things on earth. By mortal things I do not mean the water or the earth [themselves], for these are two of the [immortal] elements that nature hath made subject unto men,—but [either] things that are by men, or [that are] in or from them ; such as the cultivation of the earth itself, pastures, [and] buildings, harbours, voyagings, intercommunications, mutual services, which are the firmest bonds of men between themselves and that part of the Cosmos which consists [indeed] of water and of earth, [but is] the Cosmos’ terrene part,—which is preserved by knowledge and the use of arts and sciences; without which [things] God willeth not Cosmos should be complete. In that necessity doth follow what seems good to God; performance waits upon His will. Nor is it credible that that which once hath pleased Him, will become unpleasing unto God; since He hath known both what will be, and what will please Him, long before.

(10) For Adam was the Heart of every Thing in this World, created out of the Originality of all Things; his Soul was out of the first Principle, thoroughly illustrated with the second [Principle;] and his Body was out of the [one] Element, out of the eBarm, or Birth, out of the divine Virtue [which is] before God, which [Body] was entered into the Out-Birth of the [one] Element, viz. into the four Elements, and wholly gone into the Spirit of this World, viz. into the third Principle. And therefore he had the Tincture of every Thing in him, by which he reached into all Essences, and proved [or searched] all Things in the Heaven, Earth, Fire, Air, and Water, and all whatsoever is generated from thence. 1 1. And so one Tincture took hold of the other, and the Stronger has proved [or tried] the Weaker, and given Names to all Things, according to their Essences; and that is the true Ground of Adam's Fall, that he went out of the eternal [Being] into the Out-birth of the corruptible [Being,] and has put on the corruptible Image which God forbade him.

(89) Therefore the Providence of God, when Adam fell into Longing [Desire or Lust,] environed that Virtue and Strength with the Might of the first Principle (viz. with the Might of the Stars and Sharpness of God) that the Source [or Quality] of the first and third Principle might not so easily touch it; and this was done in Adam's Sleep, when God built Adam to [or for] this World, from whence Saint Paul also says, That the natural Man was created in the corruptible Life of this World; which was done at the Temptation of Adam, at that Time when God made his natural Wife out of him. But he was a holy Image before, and a he must be the same again in his Restoration at the last Day.

(39) Thus, because man is created according to the qualifying or fountain spirits of God, and also out of the divine essence, therefore has man's life such a beginning and rising up as that of the planets and stars has been.

(2) Accordingly, in that He was so mighty and so fair, He willed that some one else should have the power to contemplate the One He had made from Himself. And thereon He made man,—the imitator of His Reason and His Love. The Will of God is in itself complete accomplishment; inasmuch as together with His having willed, in one and the same time He hath brought it to full accomplishment. And so, when He perceived that the “essential” [man] could not be lover of all things, unless He clothed him in a cosmic carapace, He shut him in within a house of body,—and ordered it that all [men] should be so,—from either nature making him a single blend and fair-proportioned mixture.

(38) Thus, my beloved Reason, I have set a Gloss before you, and thus it was with Adam. God had created his Work wisely and good, and extracted the one out of the other. The first Ground was himself, out of which he created the World, and out of the World [he created] Man, to whom he gave his Spirit, and intimated to him, that without Wavering, or any other Desire, he should live in him most perfectly.

(39) But now Man had also the Spirit of this World, for he was [come] out of this World, and lived in the World: and Adam (understand the Spirit which was breathed into him from God) was the chaste Virgin; and the Spirit which he had inherited out of Nature, from the World, was the young Man. These were now both together, and rested in one Arm.

(2) He is in his own Essence and Substance a twofold Man. For his Soul (in its own Substance) is out of the first Principle, which from Eternity has no Ground nor Beginning; and in the Time of the Creation of Man in Paradise, or the Kingdom of Heaven, the Soul was truly corporized by the Fiat in a spiritual Manner; but with the first Virtue [or Power] which is from Eternity, in its own first Virtue or Power it has remained inseparably in its first Root, and was illustrated [or made shining bright] by the second Principle, viz. by the Heart of God; and therewith standing in Paradise, was there, by the moving Spirit of God, breathed into the Matrix of the third Principle, into the starry and elementary Man. And now therefore he may understand the Ground of Heaven, as also of the Elements and of Hell, as far as the Light of God shines in him; for if that Light be in him, he is born in all the three Principles; but yet he is only a Spark risen from thence, and not the great Source, or Fountain, which is God himself.

(41) Therefore in this World all Things are given into Man's Power, because he is an eternal Spirit, and all other Creatures [are] no other than a Figure in the Wonders of God; and therefore Man ought well to consider himself, what he speaks, does, and purposes, in this World; for all his Works follow after him, and he has them eternally before his Eyes, and lives in them. Except it be, that he is again new regenerated out of Evil and Falshood, through the Blood and Death of Christ, in the Water and the Holy Spirit, and then he breaks forth out of the hellish and earthly Image, into an angelical [Image,] and comes into another Kingdom, into which its Untowardness [or Vices] cannot follow, and that [Untowardness, Contrariety, or Vice] is drowned in the Blood of Christ, and the Image of God is renewed out of the earthly and hellish.

(3) For, even though the I is sovereign in choosing, yet by the fact of the choice the thing done takes its place in the ordered total. Your personality does not come from outside into the universal scheme; you are a part of it, you and your personal disposition.

But what is the cause of this initial personality?

This question resolves itself into two: are we to make the Creator, if Creator there is, the cause of the moral quality of the individual or does the responsibility lie with the creature?

Or is there, perhaps, no responsibility? After all, none is charged in the case of plants brought into being without the perceptive faculties; no one is blamed because animals are not all that men are- which would be like complaining that men are not all that gods are. Reason acquits plant and animal and, their maker; how can it complain because men do not stand above humanity?

If the reproach simply means that Man might improve by bringing from his own stock something towards his betterment we must allow that the man failing in this is answerable for his own inferiority: but if the betterment must come not from within the man but from without, from his Author, it is folly to ask more than has been given, as foolish in the case of man as in plant and animal.

The question is not whether a thing is inferior to something else but whether in its own Kind it suffices to its own part; universal equality there cannot be.

Then the Reason-Principle has measured things out with the set purpose of inequality?

Certainly not: the inequality is inevitable by the nature of things: the Reason-Principle of this Universe follows upon a phase of the Soul; the Soul itself follows upon an Intellectual Principle, and this Intellectual Principle is not one among the things of the Universe but is all things; in all things, there is implied variety of things; where there is variety and not identity there must be primals, secondaries, tertiaries and every grade downward. Forms of life, then, there must be that are not pure Soul but the dwindling of Souls enfeebled stage by stage of the process. There is, of course, a Soul in the Reason-Principle constituting a living being, but it is another Soul , not that from which the Reason-Principle itself derives; and this combined vehicle of life weakens as it proceeds towards matter, and what it engenders is still more deficient. Consider how far the engendered stands from its origin and yet, what a marvel!

In sum nothing can secure to a thing of process the quality of the prior order, loftier than all that is product and amenable to no charge in regard to it: the wonder is, only, that it reaches and gives to the lower at all, and that the traces of its presence should be so noble. And if its outgiving is greater than the lower can appropriate, the debt is the heavier; all the blame must fall upon the unreceptive creature, and Providence be the more exalted.

(81) Here we see clearly, yes we feel, that God (in the Beginning) created no such Image with bestial Members for Propagation, for that which God created for Eternity, that has no Shame before it. Yet also they then first perceived that they were naked; the Elements had taken Possession of them, and yet put no earthly Garment [like the Beasts hairy Skin] upon them; for the Spirit of Man was not from the Essences and Properties of the Elements, [as the Spirit of the Beasts,] but [Man] was out of the Eternal.

(5) 3. “Man was generated and constituted, for the purpose of contemplating the reason of the whole of nature, and in order that, being himself the work of wisdom, he might survey the wisdom of the things which exist.—For if the reason of man is contemplative of the reason of the whole of nature, and the wisdom also of man perceives and contemplates the wisdom of the things in existence,—this being acknowledged, it is at the same time demonstrated, that man is a part of universal reason, and of the whole of the intellectual nature.

(40) Besides, he was created by the Word, or Heart of God, that he should be his Image and Similitude, very powerfully in all the three Principles, [and be] as great as a Prince or Throne- Angel. But this Tree standing thus in the Garden, and of all the Trees that only did bear Fruit, therefore Adam looked so often upon it, because he knew that it was the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Virtue of the Tree pressed him to it so very hard (which Virtue was also in him) that the one Lust infected [poisoned or mingled with] the other: And the Spirit of the great World pressed Adam so very hard, that he became infected, and his Virtue [or Power] was overcome. Here the paradisical Man was undone, and then said the Heart of God, It is not good that Man [should] be alone, we will make him a Help [or Consort] to be with him.

(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.