(16) Now this King was promised of God, that he should possess the Gates of his Enemies, and should lead his Enemies captive; and the Devils are these Enemies. Now dost thou conceive, that when this Creature bound the Devils at Jerusalem, and as a confined Creature that did reach no further, did lead them captive, who then bound them at Rome? Thou sayest; his Deity. O no! that was not its Office; the Devils are however in the Father's most internal Root; in his Anger. A Creature must only do it, who was so great as could be every where with the Devils.

(36) But what can be said? The Devil will have it no otherwise. When his Kingdom begins to be stormed [battered and assaulted] at one Place, then he blows up the Storm all over, [as well in one as another,] in the Children of God; the Spirit of Punishment [Vengeance or Reproof] is stirred up; and in the worldly bestial Man, the Devil blows up mere scorning and disgracing Mockers; for they have the Kingdom of Christ in the History, and the Devil's Kingdom in themselves, as their own Possession.

(108) Now when this horrible Lucifer, as a tyrant and raging spoiler of all that is good, shewed himself thus terribly, as if he would kindle and destroy all, and bring all under his jurisdiction, then all the heavenly hosts and armies were against him, and he also against them all; there now the fight began, for all stood most terribly, one party against another.

(77) But now, seeing he is a sworn archenemy of God, and though indeed the disputants and helpers of the devil will needs force it so in arguments (that God willeth the good and also the evil, and that he has created some men to damnation), therefore and thereupon the spirit of God citeth them, upon pain of eternal enmity, to come before this looking-glass, wherein their heart shall be laid open; and they shall see what God is, and who the devil is, or how he is become a devil.

(12) And in his pride he struck and smote himself with darkness and blindness, and made himself a devil, and that he must be, and abide so eternally. ["In God he knew only the Majesty, and not the Word in the centre, which has the fan or casting shovel: He blinded himself with the astringent darkness; for he would needs in flame himself, and rule in the fire over the light, and over the meekness."]

(34) But now the Scripture says, The Devil was a holy Angel. And further, it says, You are not a God that wills Evil. And in Ezekiel, As sure as I live, I will not the Death of a Sinner. This is testified by God's earnest severe punishing of the Devils, and all Sinners, that he is not pleased with Death.

(66) It is not without a Cause, that Christ calls the Devil a Prince of this World, for he is so, according to the first Principle, according to the Kingdom of Wrath, and continues so to Eternity. But he is not so according to the Kingdom of the four Elements and Stars; for if he had full Power in that, then there would be no vegetative [Fruit] nor living Creature upon the Earth. He cannot master the P Exit of the four Elements; for he is in the Originality, and there is a [whole] Principle between; only when the Constellations awaken the fierce Wrath of the Fire, in the Elements, as in a tempestuous Storm, then he is Master- Juggler [in Mischief,] and rejoices himself [therein.] Though indeed he has no Power there neither, except it be permitted him from the Anger of God, then he is the Hangman [or Executioner,] and executes the Right as a Servant [Minister or Officer;] but not as a Judge, but as an Executioner.

(8) Though they did miracles and wonders, and shewed great signs, yet the world gazed on high things alone, and the Holy Ghost must be as the dust under their feet: For the proud devil always endeavoured to be king in this world.

(64) Now if thou understandest and apprehendest this aright, then thou wilt not make of God a devil, as some do, who say, God has created the evil, and that his will is that some men should be lost; which men, that say so, help to increase the devil's lies, and bring upon themselves the severe judgment, by their perverting God's truths, and so turning them into lies. Now observe:

(7) Which they themselves shall suddenly be sure to see, with great terror, anguish and eternal despair, as also to their shame and scorn: of which the devils are a terrible example, who were once the fairest and brightest angels in heaven, as I shall reveal, write and manifest here following. I will suffer God's impulse, I am not able to withstand it. Of the Divine Quality.

(8) 1 tell thee for certain, and it is in Earnest; when I was at Jericho, there my beloved Companion opened my Eyes for me, that I saw; and behold, a great Generation of Men and Multitudes of People and Nations were together, one Part were like Beasts, and one Part like Men, and there was Strife between them; and beneath there was the Abyss of Hell, and the Beasts saw not that, but the Men were afraid and would be gone; to which the Devil would not consent, because his Garden had no Doors [open;] Or of the World. but they broke open his Garden, and so he must watch at the Door that they do not run away from him; but the Beasts (which were Men also) they did eat of his Food, and drank of his Drink, and he did nothing to them, because he fattened them for his Slaughter, and there was a continual Enmity between the right Men and the bestial Men.

(58) He suffered himself to be accounted one that had a Devil, and a Sorcerer, Seducer, and Deceiver, as if he would have set up an imperial Crown for himself, as the High-Priests laid to his Charge; he suffered himself to be mocked, scourged, spit upon, and smitten on the Face; he suffered a false Crown of Thorns to be set upon his Head; and as we proceed against one another, and vex one another with Falshood and Malice upon Earth, where the Potent does what he lists, to satisfy his Anger; and as we revile, deride, mock, vilify, and send one another to the Devil, to deprive one another of their Credit and Reputation through Falshood, so must Christ therefore take all this upon him,

(18) Then the demons shouted out of the darkness thus: 'You are man; worship the demon! so that your demon of malice may repose.'

(93) Therefore it is not good to tattle with the Devil, he is a Liar and Murderer from the Beginning of his Kingdom, and a Thief also; he comes only to murder and to steal, as here [with Eve.] And the Devil is the highest Cause of the Fall; for he strewed Sugar upon Adam, so that he imagined [or lusted] Adam and Eve. after the Kingdom of this World; though Adam indeed did not see him, yet he slipt into the Essences of the [fierce, sour] Sternness; and did there throw Hell's paradisical Sugar before him, so that Adam lusted.

(8) Now when this spirit in the animated or soulish spirit, out of or from the heart of Lucifer and his legions, roved (or speculated) into the Deity; ["that is, brought its will thereinto, as into the genitrix;"] then it was no other than a tearing, breaking, stinging, murdering and poisonous burning: Concerning which Christ said,[John viii. 44] The devil is a liar and murderer from the beginning; and has not continued in the truth.

(1) Then they [i.e. the gods] said to the Mind: ' Sing for us the Udgltha/ c So be it/ said the Mind, and sang for them. Whatever pleasure there is in the mind, that it sang for the gods, what- ever good one imagines, that for itself. They [i.e. the devils] knew: 'Verily, by this singer they will overcome us/ They rushed upon him and pierced him with evil. That evil was the improper thing that one imagines. This, truly, was that evil. And thus they let out upon these divinities with evil, they pierced them with evil.

(96) O dear blind man! it was not a man nor a beast that stood here before God. But it was God against God; one strong one against another: Besides, how should God withstand him? With the friendly love? That could not avail, for Lucifer did but scorn and despise that, and would himself be God.

(18) But God came at the time of evening, walking in the midst of Paradise. When Adam saw him, he hid himself. And he said, "Adam, where are you?" He answered (and) said, "I have come under the fig tree." And at that very moment, God knew that he had eaten from the tree of which he had commanded him, "Do not eat of it." And he said to him, "Who is it who has instructed you?" And Adam answered, "The woman whom you have given me." And the woman said, "It is the serpent who instructed me." And he (God) cursed the serpent, and called him "devil." And he said, "Behold, Adam has become like one of us, knowing evil and good." Then he said, "Let us cast him out of paradise, lest he take from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever."

(97) Now when no Counsel [or Remedy] was found, and Man was sunk down into Hell, to the great Triumph of the Devils, then said God to the Serpent (the Devil;) Because thou hast done thus, be thou cursed; and the Seed of the Woman shall tread upon [or break] thy Head, and thou shalt bruise [or wound] his Heel; at which the Abyss of Hell did quake and tremble, but the Devil understood not wholly what that should be; only he saw that the Word imagined [or represented itself] in Adam and in Eve, in the Center of Life, and that it opposed the Fierceness of the Kingdom of Hell, of which he stood in Fear, and his Jollity was lessened, for he did not relish that.

(21) Therefore none should be so presumptuous, as to mock and despise the Children of God, who are in the Combat against the Devil. But think that it will come to thy Turn also; if thou wilt not go about it when thou art well and in Health, thou must come to it at thy Death; when the poor Soul comes to part from the Body, then it must enter into the Combat, there is no Remedy; for it must depart from the Body out of the Spirit of this World, and then two Gates stand open, viz. Heaven and Hell, it must go in at one of them, there is no other Place out of this World.