(4) For no such Earth or Flesh as we carry about us can subsist in the Light of God: Therefore also Christ said; None goes to Heaven, but the Son of Man who is come from Heaven, and who is in Heaven. Thus our Flesh before the Fall was heavenly, out of the heavenly Limbus. But when Disobedience came, in the Lust of this World, to generate itself in another Center, then it [the Flesh] became earthly; for by the Biting of the earthly Apple in the Garden of Eden, the earthly Dominion [or Kingdom] took its Beginning: And the Mother of the great World instantly took the little World into its Power [or Virtue,] and made it to be of a bestial P Kind, both in Form and in Substance.

(17) Now Man being thus fallen out of the Holy into the Unholy, out of the Image of God into the earthly Corruptibility, therefore his Body stood in the corruptible Death, and his Soul in the eternal Will of the Father, yet turned away from the Heart of God, into the Spirit of this World, captivated by the eternal Darkness; for whatsoever goes out from God, goes into the eternal Darkness, and without the Heart of God there is no Light.

(28) But the gross Body cannot see into it, because it belongs not to [Paradise,] it belongs to the Earth, and must putrify, or rot, and rise in a new Virtue [or Power,] (which is like Paradise) in Christ, at the End of Days; and then it also may dwell in Paradise, and not before: It must lay off the third Principle; [viz.] this Skin, [Fleece or Covering,] which Father Adam and Mother Eve are got into, in which they supposed they should be wise when they should wear all the three Principles manifested in them; if they had rather worn two hidden in them, and had stayed in the cone, it had been good for us, of which further about the Fall.

(6) But that God said, Thou shalt turn to Earth from whence thou wast taken, that is also very true; but the Understanding is [hidden] in the Word, and the earthly Vail hangs before it, we must look under the Vail. For Adam was taken out of the Earth, not out of the four Productions of the Elements, [but he was] an Extract out of the Element, which qualified [or mingled] with the Earth. But when he fell into the four Elements, then he became Earth, as also Fire, Air, and Water. And now what should the bestial Man do [with] the heavenly paradisical Fruit? He could not a eat of it; and therefore God does not cast his heavenly Kingdom to Beasts and Swine, but it belongs to Angels.

(40) Therefore I say, a Beast is better than such a Man, who gives himself up into the hellish Images; for a Beast has no eternal Spirit, its Spirit is from the Spirit of this World, out of the Corruptibility, and passes away with the Body, till [it comes] to the Figure without Spirit, that [Figure] remains standing; seeing that the eternal Mind has by the Virgin of the eternal Wisdom of God discovered itself in the Out-Birth, for the manifesting of the great Wonders of God, therefore those [creaturely Figures,] and also the figured Wonders, must stand before zhim eternally; although no bestial Figure or Shadow suffers or does any Thing, but is as a Shadow or painted Figure, [or limned Picture.]

(16) And now as we understand, that Man (with the Similitude wherein God dwells) is not merely at Home in this World, much Hurts, or moves. less in the stinking Carcase, so it is manifest (in that we are so very blind as to Paradise) that our first Parents (with their Spirit) are gone out of the heavenly Paradise into the Spirit of this World, where then the Spirit of this World instantly captivated their Body, and made it earthly, so that Body and Soul are perished; and now we have the pure Element no more for our Body, but the Out-Birth, (viz. the four Elements, with the Dominion of the Stars) and the Sun only is the Light of the Body; also this Body does not belong to the Deity. God does not discover himself in the stinking Carcase [or Corpse,] but in the holy Man, in the pure Image which he created in the Beginning.

(17) God intended that the Body which he should get from the Infection of the four Elements, must die; and it did also presently (in his tender 1 virgin Mind) die to the Paradise, and got the Mind of this World, wherein sticks nothing but patching and piecing, as also Frailty, and at last Death.

(43) And for this Cause God became Man, that he might in himself new generate the Soul of Man again, and might redeem it new the Chains of the Fierceness of Anger, and not at all [for the bestial Body's Sake] which must melt again into the four Elements, and come to nothing; of which nothing will remain, but the Shadow in the Figure of all his Works, and Matters, which he has wrought at any Time.

(48) And thither the second Adam (with his becoming Man) brought it in again, and [there] as a loving Child it was bound up with the Word of God, in Love and Righteousness; and there the new Creature (out of the Element) came to be the Body of the Soul. For in the new Creature of the Limbus of God, the Soul was holy, and the earthly Essence (out of Flesh and Blood) clave to it, in the Time of the earthly Body; which [Essences] Christ (when his Soul with the new Creature went into Death) left in Death, and with the new Body in the natural Soul he arose from Death, and triumphed over Death; as hereafter you shall see the Wonders concerning the Death and Resurrection of Christ.

(39) Now then if the Beast's [or Animal's Nature] was merely out of a Lump of Earth, then they would eat Earth; but feeling fit is proceeded out of the Matrix of the Earth by the Fiat, therefore it desires also such Food as the Matrix affords out of its own Essence; and that is not Earth, but Flesh. Yet this Flesh now is a Mass whence the hBody comes, and the Spirit of the Constellation makes the i Tincture therein; which [Spirit] rules over all as in one Mother, and in every Life it makes the Understanding. For the Spirit of the Constellation rules in all Things, in the Earth, Stones, Metals, Elements and Creatures.

(3) Also we see that the Kingdom of this World dies to Man, and [passes away or] breaks. Seeing then, that Adam did bear the Image of the Kingdom of God (which was eternal and uncorruptible, and stood in Paradise) therefore we can with no Ground say, that he P did bear the Image of the Kingdom of this World. For this World is transitory and corruptible: But the Image in Adam was not transitory, or corruptible. Also if we will say, that Adam (before his Fall) lived in the Source [or Property] of the four Elements, then we can no Way maintain, that Adam was not a corruptible Image. For at the End, the four Elements must pass away, and go into the eternal Element.