(7) And thus Noah was saved with his sons. For if indeed the ark had not been meant for man to enter, then the water of the flood would not have come. In this way he intended (and) planned to save the gods and the angels, and the powers, the greatness of all of these, and the and the way of life. And he moves them from the aeon (and) nourishes them in the permanent places. And the judgment of the flesh was unleashed. Only the work of the Power stood up.

(6) This is the work that came into being. See what it is like, that before it comes into being it does not see, because the aeon of the flesh came to be in the great bodies. And there were apportioned to them long days in the creation. For when they had polluted themselves and had entered into the flesh, the father of the flesh, the water, avenged himself. For when he had found that Noah was pious (and) worthy - and it is the father of the flesh who holds the angels in subjection. And he (Noah) preached piety for one hundred and twenty years. And no one listened to him. And he made a wooden ark, and whom he had found entered it. And the flood took place.

(26) Then God sent the Deluge [or Flood] upon the whole World, and drowned all Flesh, except Noah, who cleaved to the Word of God; he and his Sons and their Wives were preserved; and so the World was tried, whether it would be afraid of the horrible Judgment, and cleave to the Word, but it was all in vain. Then God chose to himself the Generation of Shem, (which cleaved to the Word,) that so he might erect a Light and Office of Preaching, that the World might learn from them. But all availed nothing; the Stars ruled Men according to their Source [or Quality,] in mere Covetousness, Unchastity, and Pride; which was indeed so very great, that they purposed to build a Tower, whose Top should reach to Heaven. Such blind People they were as to the Kingdom of God.

(54) Therefore, O Man, consider what thou sowest here, that thou shalt reap; take an Example in Cain. Or dost thou suppose, that it is an invented Fable, [which I here write?] Do but ask thy own Mind, that will convince thee, except thou art too much captivated by the Devil. Behold the horrible Punishments from the Anger of God, since the Beginning of the World; the Flood [or Deluge] was a Punishment for the Unchastity, [or Uncleanness,] whereby God would drown the Matrix of the burning Lust of Lechery; and therefore he punished the World with Water; for the Water is the Matrix of all Things.

(4) That water extinguishes fire and fire consumes other things should not astonish us. The thing destroyed derived its being from outside itself: this is no case of a self-originating substance being annihilated by an external; it rose on the ruin of something else, and thus in its own ruin it suffers nothing strange; and for every fire quenched, another is kindled.

In the immaterial heaven every member is unchangeably itself for ever; in the heavens of our universe, while the whole has life eternally and so too all the nobler and lordlier components, the Souls pass from body to body entering into varied forms- and, when it may, a Soul will rise outside of the realm of birth and dwell with the one Soul of all. For the embodied lives by virtue of a Form or Idea: individual or partial things exist by virtue of Universals; from these priors they derive their life and maintenance, for life here is a thing of change; only in that prior realm is it unmoving. From that unchangingness, change had to emerge, and from that self-cloistered Life its derivative, this which breathes and stirs, the respiration of the still life of the divine.

The conflict and destruction that reign among living beings are inevitable, since things here are derived, brought into existence because the Divine Reason which contains all of them in the upper Heavens- how could they come here unless they were There?- must outflow over the whole extent of Matter.

Similarly, the very wronging of man by man may be derived from an effort towards the Good; foiled, in their weakness, of their true desire, they turn against each other: still, when they do wrong, they pay the penalty- that of having hurt their Souls by their evil conduct and of degradation to a lower place- for nothing can ever escape what stands decreed in the law of the Universe.

This is not to accept the idea, sometimes urged, that order is an outcome of disorder and law of lawlessness, as if evil were a necessary preliminary to their existence or their manifestation: on the contrary order is the original and enters this sphere as imposed from without: it is because order, law and reason exist that there can be disorder; breach of law and unreason exist because Reason exists- not that these better things are directly the causes of the bad but simply that what ought to absorb the Best is prevented by its own nature, or by some accident, or by foreign interference. An entity which must look outside itself for a law, may be foiled of its purpose by either an internal or an external cause; there will be some flaw in its own nature, or it will be hurt by some alien influence, for often harm follows, unintended, upon the action of others in the pursuit of quite unrelated aims. Such living beings, on the other hand, as have freedom of motion under their own will sometimes take the right turn, sometimes the wrong.

Why the wrong course is followed is scarcely worth enquiring: a slight deviation at the beginning develops with every advance into a continuously wider and graver error- especially since there is the attached body with its inevitable concomitant of desire- and the first step, the hasty movement not previously considered and not immediately corrected, ends by establishing a set habit where there was at first only a fall.

Punishment naturally follows: there is no injustice in a man suffering what belongs to the condition in which he is; nor can we ask to be happy when our actions have not earned us happiness; the good, only, are happy; divine beings are happy only because they are good.

(19) The soul in man, however - not every soul, but one that pious is - is a daimonic something and divine. And such a soul when from the body freed, if it have fought the fight of piety - the fight of piety is to know God and to do wrong to no man - such a soul becomes entirely mind. Whereas the impious soul remains in its own essence, chastised by its own self, and seeking for an earthly body where to enter, if only it be human. For that no other body can contain a human soul; nor is it right that any human soul should fall into the body of a thing that doth possess no reason. For that the law of God is this: to guard the human soul from such tremendous outrage.

(24) Understand it thus, that Water is the Water of the eternal Life in the mLimbus of God in the Holy Ternary; and that is the Water which baptizes the Soul, when we keep the Use of his As by an Example. Testament, for the Soul in his Covenant is dipped and washed in that Water, it is rightly the Bath [or Laver] of Regeneration, for by its dipping in the holy Water, it is received and quickened by the holy Water, and comes (in the Covenant of Christ) into the Soul of Christ; indeed not fully into his Soul, but into his Body, and becomes the Brother of the Soul of Christ; for Christ's Soul is a Creature, (as our Souls are,) and is in the Body of the Mercifulness in the Trinity, being surrounded therewith, and has the same in it for Food and Strength [or Refreshment.] So also our Souls in the Covenant, if they be faithful and continue in God, they are the Brethren of Christ's Soul.

(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.

(1) For rain showers of god almighty will pour down so that he can destroy all flesh from the earth, using what is around them, along with people from the seed of those who received the life of knowledge. That life of knowledge came from your mother Eve and me. They were strangers to him. Afterward great angels come on high clouds, who take those people where the spirit of life lives. . . . The whole multitude of flesh will be left behind in the waters.

(4) Besides, he should have been subject to the Source, for Heat and Cold should have ruled over him; which we may see plainly in Moses, that God first after the Fall (by the Spirit or Angel of the Counsel of this World) made Clothes of Skins, and put them [then first] upon them; as the Vail of Moses does cover it, that Men cannot see his Face, as is to be seen by [the People of] Israel. Besides, if he had been merely of Earth, and of the four Elements, then he might have been burnt in the Fire, or drowned in the Water, and be stifled in the Air; also Wood and Stone could have bruised him and destroyed him, and yet it is written, that he [the Adamical Man] at the Day of the Restitution shall pass through the Fire, and be approved, and the Fire shall not hurt him.

(2) Now, amongst the profane, some illogically think to go to a non-existence; others that the bodily blending with their proper souls will be severed once for all, as unsuitable to them in a Divine life and blessed lots, not considering nor being sufficiently instructed in Divine science, that our most Godlike life in Christ has already begun. But others assign to souls union with other bodies, committing, as I think, this injustice to them, that, after (bodies) have laboured together with the godly souls, and have reached the goal of their most Divine course, they relentlessly deprive them of their righteous retributions. And others (I do not know how they have strayed to conceptions of such earthly tendency) say, that the most holy and blessed repose promised to the devout is similar to our life in this world, and unlawfully reject, for those who are equal to the Angels, nourishments appropriate to another kind of life. None of the most religious men, however, will ever fall into such errors as these; but, knowing that their whole selves will receive the Christ-like inheritance, when they have come to the goal of this present life, they see more clearly their road to incorruption already become nearer, and extol the gifts of the Godhead, and are filled with a Divine satisfaction, no longer fearing the fall to a worse condition, but knowing well that they will hold firmly and everlastingly the good things already acquired. Those, however, who are full of blemishes, and unholy stains, even though they have attained to some initiation, yet, of their own accord, have, to their own destruction, rejected this from their mind, and have rashly followed their destructive lusts, to them when they have come to the end of their life here, the Divine regulation of the Oracles will no longer appear as before, a subject of scorn, but, when they have looked with different eyes upon the pleasures of their passions destroyed, and when they have pronounced blessed the holy life from which they thoughtlessly fell away, they are, piteously and against their will, separated from this present life, conducted to no holy hope, by reason of their shameful life.

(1) "And many who wear erring flesh will go down to the harmful waters through the winds and the demons. And they are bound by the water. And the water will heal with a futile remedy. It will lead astray, and it will bind the world. And those who do the will of nature . . . two times in the day of the water and the forms of nature. And it will not be granted them, when faith disturbs them to take to herself the righteous one.

(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.

(37) If we will be still so very earthly minded, as to think that God made all the Beasts of a Lump of Earth, of what then is their Spirit made? Seeing that Earth is not very Flesh, and the Blood is not mere Water. Besides, the Earth and the Water is not Life; and though the a Air comes in it, yet it still remains such an Essence as springs only in the Fiat, and the Tincture which rises up in the Fire, and from whence the noble Life is stirred is hidden.

(33) But seeing all is corrupted, therefore must the upper water in the wrath of God come to help the astringent, bitter and hot quality of the earth, and soften the quality and quench its fire, so that the life may always be generated, and that the holy birth, between death and the wrath of God, may be generated also.

(64) And this Source of the Spirit of the Soul is eternal, and its Tincture is also eternal; and as the Source is [in it] at all Times of this World, (while it sticks in the elementary House of Flesh,) so is the Tincture also, and the Dwelling-house of the Soul; and in which Source the Mind inclines itself, whether it be in the divine, or hellish, in that [Source] the Worm lives, and of that Principle it eats, and is either an Angel or a Devil; although its Judgment is not in this [Life's] Time, for it stands in both the Gates, so long as it lives in the Flesh, except it dives [or plunges itself] wholly into the Abyss, whereof (when I write of the Sin of Man) I shall treat deeply and exactly. Read of it concerning Cain.

(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.

(12) But if Soul is sinless, how come the expiations? Here surely is a contradiction; on the one side the Soul is above all guilt; on the other, we hear of its sin, its purification, its expiation; it is doomed to the lower world, it passes from body to body.

We may take either view at will: they are easily reconciled.

When we tell of the sinless Soul, we make Soul and Essential-Soul one and the same: it is the simple unbroken Unity.

By the Soul subject to sin we indicate a groupment, we include that other, that phase of the Soul which knows all the states and passions: the Soul in this sense is compound, all-inclusive: it falls under the conditions of the entire living experience: this compound it is that sins; it is this, and not the other, that pays penalty.

It is in this sense that we read of the Soul: "We saw it as those others saw the sea-god Glaukos." "And," reading on, "if we mean to discern the nature of the Soul we must strip it free of all that has gathered about it, must see into the philosophy of it, examine with what Existences it has touch and by kinship to what Existences it is what it is."

Thus the Life is one thing, the Act is another and the Expiator yet another. The retreat and sundering, then, must be not from this body only, but from every alien accruement. Such accruement takes place at birth; or rather birth is the coming-into-being of that other phase of the Soul. For the meaning of birth has been indicated elsewhere; it is brought about by a descent of the Soul, something being given off by the Soul other than that actually coming down in the declension.

Then the Soul has let this image fall? And this declension is it not certainly sin?

If the declension is no more than the illuminating of an object beneath, it constitutes no sin: the shadow is to be attributed not to the luminary but to the object illuminated; if the object were not there, the light could cause no shadow.

And the Soul is said to go down, to decline, only in that the object it illuminates lives by its life. And it lets the image fall only if there be nothing near to take it up; and it lets it fall, not as a thing cut off, but as a thing that ceases to be: the image has no further being when the whole Soul is looking toward the Supreme.

The poet, too, in the story of Hercules, seems to give this image separate existence; he puts the shade of Hercules in the lower world and Hercules himself among the gods: treating the hero as existing in the two realms at once, he gives us a twofold Hercules.

It is not difficult to explain this distinction. Hercules was a hero of practical virtue. By his noble serviceableness he was worthy to be a God. On the other hand, his merit was action and not the Contemplation which would place him unreservedly in the higher realm. Therefore while he has place above, something of him remains below.

(82) For before the times of the world the water was very thin or rarified, like air, and then the life was generated therein also, which water is now so mortal, corrupted, perished and spoiled, and so rolleth and runneth to and fro.

(84) But now Baptism was not instituted in respect of the earthly corruptible [Man,] which belongs to the Earth, nor for the heavenly [Man's] Sake, which was pure and spotless without that, but for the poor Soul's Sake. Seeing the heavenly Man in Christ took our natural Soul (in the Body of the Virgin Mary) to his heavenly Man, and that also the earthly Man hung to the Soul, therefore the holy Trinity [by the Hand of Man] took the Water of the eternal Life in the pure Element, and dipt the Soul therein, as I may so speak.