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(15) But Lord Lucifer would (in the Creation) have fain been above the Meekness of the Heart of God, above the End of Nature; therefore he would fain also have persuaded the Son of the Virgin to fly without Wings, above the End of Nature, in Pride; of which shall be handled in its due Place at large. I have brought this in thus, but in brief, that my Writing may be the better understood, and how it stands with [or upon] the Ground, [or Foundation] of the Scripture, and is not any new Thing, neither shall there be any Thing new [in them,] but only the true Knowledge, in the Holy Ghost, of the Essence of all Essences. Of Adam 's Sleep.

(5) But the favourable Love, (that is, the only begotten Son of God, or that I may set it down so that it may be understood, the lovely Fountain where the Light of God is 1 generated,) sprung up, and grew again in Adam in the Center of the Birth of his Life, in the fifth Form of his Birth; whereby Adam perceived that he was not broken off from the divine Root, but that he was still the Child of God, and repented him of his first evil Lust: And thereupon the Lord showed him the Treader upon the Serpent, who should destroy his monstrous Birth; and so he should from the monstrous Birth be regenerated anew, in the Shape, Form, Power and Virtue of the Treader upon the Serpent, and be brought with Power again into Paradise, into the holy Birth, and eat of the mWord of the Lord again, and live eternally, in Spite of all the Gates of the Wrathfulness, wherein the Devil lives; concerning which there shall be farther mention made in its due Place.

(60) This therefore in Brief is the Ground of what can be spoken of the Fall of Adam, in the highest Depth. Adam has lost the which is a ecagastrish Person, and the Virgin waits still continually for him [to see] whether he will step again into the new Birth, and then she will receive him again with great Glory. Therefore, thou Child of Man, consider thyself; I write here what I certainly know, and he that has seen it witnesses it; or else I also should not have known it.

(21) This must be Adam's Condition; and thus he was a true and right Image and Similitude of God. He had no such hard Bones in his Flesh [as we now have,] but they were Strength, and such [a Kind of] Virtue; also his Blood was not of the Tincture of the aquitrish Matrix, but it was out of the heavenly Matrix. In brief, it was altogether heavenly, as we shall appear [and be] at the Day of the Resurrection. For the Purpose of God standeth, the first Image must return and come again and continue in Paradise; and seeing it could be done in no other Form, [Way, or Manner,] nor [that which was lost] be restored again, therefore God would rather spend his own Heart; his eternal Will is unchangeable, that must stand.

(23) Thus know (my beloved Reader) that our Father Adam is gone out of this Glory into the Out-Birth of the Substance of this World; and now if he is to be helped, then the Barmhertzigkeit, or Mercifulness of God (as above-mentioned) must new regenerate him; and in this Mercifulness of God Man was foreseen (before the Foundation of the World was laid) to live eternally therein, for (as to his Soul) he is out of the eternal Will of God the Father, out of which this Mercifulness is generated. The Gate of Immanuel.

(37) Behold, I give you a true Similitude: Suppose that thou wast a young Man, or young Maid, [or Virgin,] (as Adam was both of them in one [only] Person,) how dost thou think thou shouldst stand? Suppose thus, set a young Man of good Complexion, beautiful, and virtuous; and also a fair chaste modest Virgin, [or young Maid,] curiously featured, and put them together; and let them not only come to speak together, and converse lovingly one with another, but so that they may also embrace one another; and command them not to fall in love together, not so much as in the least Thought, also not to have any Inclination to it, much less any Infection in the Will; and let these two be thus together forty Days and forty Nights, and converse with one another in mere Joy; and command them further, that they keep their Will and Mind steadfast, and never conceive one Thought to desire one another, and not to infect [themselves] with any Essence or Property at all, but that their Will and Inclination be most steadfast and firm to the Command; and that the young Man shall will [and purpose] never to copulate with this, or no other Maid [or Virgin;] and in like Manner, the Maid, [or Virgin] be enjoined the same. Now, thou Reason, full of Misery, Defects, and Infirmities, how do you think you should possibly stand here? Would you not promise fair with Adam? But you would not be able to perform it.

(16) O that I had but the Pen of Man, and were able therewith to write down the Spirit of Knowledge. I can but stammer of the great Mysteries like a Child that is beginning to speak; so very little can the earthly Tongue express what the Spirit comprehends and understands; yet I will venture to try, whether I may procure some to go about to seek the Pearl, whereby also I might a labour in the Works of God in my paradisical Garden of Roses; for the Longing of the eternal Matrix drives me on to write and exercise myself in this my Knowledge.

(8) Yet this first Will in the Mind ought not to stay behind in the Abyss of the sour Fierceness, (in which the fierce Malice is,) but ought to go forward in the Center of the Breaking forth out of the Darkness into the Light, for in the Light there is mere Meekness, Lowliness, Humility, Good- Will, and friendly Desires, that it might with its re-conceived Will go out of itself, and to Or earnest Will. open itself in its precious Treasury. For in the re-conceived Will to the Birth of the Light, there is no Source of Anxiety, but only mere friendly Desires; for the Glimpse rises up out of the Darkness in itself, and desires the Light; and the Desiring draws the Light into itself, and there the Anguish becomes an exulting Joy in itself, an humble Chearfulness, a pleasant Habitation. For the re-conceived Will in the Light is impregnated, and its Fruit in the Body is Virtue [or Power,] which the Will desires to generate, and to live therein; and this Desiring brings the Fruit out of the impregnated Will, [and presents it] before the Will, and the Will discovers itself [glimmers or shines] in the Fruit in an infinite pleasant Number; and there goes forth, in the pleasant Number, in the discovered [or manifested] Will, the high Benediction [or Blessing,] Favour, loving Kindness, pleasant Inclination [or yielding Pliableness,] the Taste of Joy, the Well-doing of Meekness [or Affability,] and [further] what my Pen cannot express. The Mind would much rather be freed from Vanity, and live therein without Molestation or Disturbance.

(3) This sorrow, if it be truly conceived, is full of holy desire: and else might never man in this life abide it nor bear it. For were it not that a soul were somewhat fed with a manner of comfort of his right working, else should he not be able to bear the pain that he hath of the witting and feeling of his being. For as oft as he would have a true witting and a feeling of his God in purity of spirit, as it may be here, and sithen feeleth that he may not—for he findeth evermore his witting and his feeling as it were occupied and filled with a foul stinking lump of himself, the which behoveth always be hated and be despised and forsaken, if he shall be God’s perfect disciple learned of Himself in the mount of perfection—so oft, he goeth nigh mad for sorrow. Insomuch, that he weepeth and waileth, striveth, curseth, and banneth; and shortly to say, him thinketh that he beareth so heavy a burthen of himself that he careth never what betides him, so that God were pleased. And yet in all this sorrow he desireth not to unbe: for that were devil’s madness and despite unto God. But him listeth right well to be; and he intendeth full heartily thanking to God, for the worthiness and the gift of his being, for all that he desire unceasingly for to lack the witting and the feeling of his being.

(1) I HAVE perused many Master- Pieces of Writing, hoping to find the Pearl of the Ground of Man; but I could find nothing of that which my Soul lusted after. I have also found very many contrary Opinions. And partly I have found some who forbid me to search, [or seek,] but I cannot know with what Ground or Understanding, except it be that the Blind grudge at the Eyes of them that see. With all this my Soul is become very disquiet within, and has been as full of [Pain and] Anguish as a Woman at her Travail, and yet nothing was found in it, till I followed the Words of Christ, when he said; You must be born anew, if you will see the Kingdom of God: Which at first stopped up my Heart, and I supposed that such a Thing could not be done in this World, but [that it should first be done] at my Departure out of this World. And then my Soul first was in Anguish to the Birth, and would very willingly have tasted the Pearl; and gave itself up in this Way more vehemently to the Birth, till at last it obtained a Jewel. According to which [received Jewel] I will write, for a Memorial to myself, and for a Light to them that seek. For Christ said; None lights a Candle and puts it under a Bushel, but sets it upon a Table, that all that are in the House may see by the Light of it. And to this End he gives the Pearl to them that seek, that they should impart it to the Poor for their Health, as he has very earnestly commanded.

(24) And because Adam was drawn forth out of the strong [stern, sour] Essences, therefore he must be tempted, [to try] whether his Essences (out of which his Imagination and Lust proceeded) could stand in the heavenly Quality, or whether he would eat of the Verbum Domini, [the Word of the Lord;] and [to try] which Essence, (whether the paradisical, or the strong, [fierce, wrathful,] would overcome in Adam.

(2) Seeing we poor Adamical Men are, with our Father Adam and Mother Eve, gone forth out of the incorruptible, and unchangeable Inheritance, out from our true native Country, into a strange Inn, where we are not at Home, but are merely Guests and where we must in so great Misery continually expect, when our strange Host will thrust us out, and bereave us of all our Ability, and take away from us all we have, so that we are truly swimming in a Deep Sea of Misery, and swelter in a strange Bath of Thorns and Thistles; and we know for certain, and see it also daily before our Eyes, that we are no other than Pilgrims in this Inn, which must continually expect when the Breaker [or Destroyer] will come, and take our Heart, Senses, and Mind, also our Flesh and Blood, and Goods; therefore it is indeed most necessary for us, to learn to know and find the Way to our true native Country, that we may avoid the great Misery and Calamity, and enter into an eternal Inn, which is our own, whence none may drive us out.

(2) And therefore, an I might get a waking and a busy beholding to this ghostly work within in my soul, I would then have a heedlessness in eating and in drinking, in sleeping and in speaking, and in all mine outward doings. For surely I trow I should rather come to discretion in them by such a heedlessness, than by any busy beholding to the same things, as I would by that beholding set a mark and a measure by them. Truly I should never bring it so about, for ought that I could do or say. Say what men say will, and let the proof witness. And therefore lift up thine heart with a blind stirring of love; and mean now sin, and now God. God wouldest thou have, and sin wouldest thou lack. God wanteth thee; and sin art thou sure of. Now good God help thee, for now hast thou need!

(2) I say not that thou shalt continue ever therein alike fresh, for that may not be. For sometime sickness and other unordained dispositions in body and in soul, with many other needfulness to nature, will let thee full much, and ofttimes draw thee down from the height of this working. But I say that thou shouldest evermore have it either in earnest or in game; that is to say, either in work or in will. And therefore for God’s love be wary with sickness as much as thou mayest goodly, so that thou be not the cause of thy feebleness, as far as thou mayest. For I tell thee truly, that this work asketh a full great restfulness, and a full whole and clean disposition, as well in body as in soul.

(4) The more conformed thereto, the more it pleases; For the blest ardour that irradiates all things In that most like itself is most vivacious. With all of these things has advantaged been The human creature; and if one be wanting, From his nobility he needs must fall. 'Tis sin alone which doth disfranchise him, And render him unlike the Good Supreme, So that he little with its light is blanched, And to his dignity no more returns, Unless he fill up where transgression empties With righteous pains for criminal delights. Your nature when it sinned so utterly In its own seed, out of these dignities Even as out of Paradise was driven, Nor could itself recover, if thou notest With nicest subtilty, by any way, Except by passing one of these two fords: Either that God through clemency alone Had pardon granted, or that man himself Had satisfaction for his folly made. Fix now thine eye deep into the abyss Of the eternal counsel, to my speech As far as may be fastened steadfastly!

(63) Then thou has great Honour for thy Shame. And therefore why art thou so sad? Lift up thyself out of thy wild Beast, Hunter, or Persecutor, as a fair Flower springs out of the Earth. O dost thou suppose, thou wild Beast, that my Spirit is mad, that it so little esteemed thee? Thou sayest I am indeed thy Beast, yet thou art born out of me; if I had not grown forth, thou hadst not been neither. Hearken thou my Beast, I am greater than thou; when thou wast to be, there I was thy Master- framer; my Essences are out of the Root of the Eternity, but thou art from this World, and thou breakest [or corruptest,] but I live in my Source [or Quality] eternally; therefore am I much nobler than thou; thou livest in the fierce [wrathful] Source, but I will put strong fierce Property into the Light, into the eternal Joy; my Works stand in Power, and thine remain in the Figure; when I shall once be released from thee, then I shall take thee no more to be my Beast again, but [I will take] my new Body which I brought forth in thee, in thy deepest Root of the holy Element. I will no more have thy rough Productions of the four Elements, Death swallows thee up. But I spring and grow out of thee, with my new Body, as a Flower out of the Root; I will forget thee. For the Glory of God (which cursed thee together with the Earth) has grafted my Root again in his Son, and my Body grows in the holy Element before God. Therefore thou art but my wild Beast, which dost plague me, and make me sick here, upon which the Devil rides, as upon his accursed Horse; and although the World scorn thee, I regard not that, it does that for my Sake; and yet it cannot see me, neither can it know me. And why then is it so mad? It cannot murder me, for I am not in it.

(3) And although I write now, as if there was a Beginning in the eternal Birth, yet it is not so; but the eternal Nature thus begets [or generates] itself without Beginning. My Writings must be understood in a creaturely Manner, as the Birth of Man is, who is a Similitude of God. Although it be just so in the eternal Being, [Essence or Substance,] yet that is both without Beginning and without End; and my Writing is only to this End, that Man might learn to know what he is, what he was in the Beginning, how he was a very glorious eternal holy Man, that should never have known the Gate of the strong [or austere] Birth in the Eternity, if he had not suffered himself to lust after it through the Infection of the Devil, and had not eaten of that naked and vain Man in a bestial Form, and lost the heavenly Garment of the divine Power, and lives now in the Kingdom of the Devil, in the i infected Salnitre, and feeds upon the infected Food. Therefore it is necessary for us to learn to know ourselves, what we are, and how we might be redeemed from the anguishing austere Birth, and be regenerated or born anew, and live in the new Man, (which is like the first Man before the Fall,) in Christ our Regenerator.

(5) And if the Soul had not been within it, then Adam should have continued to be an unreasonable Beast; but seeing the Soul out of the Limbus had been breathed into Adam by the Holy Ghost, therefore now the Mercifulness (viz. the Heart of God) must do its best again, and bring again the Center out of the heavenly Limbus, and himself become Flesh, and by the Fiat generate the new Man in the Soul, which is hidden in the old. For the old belongs only to the Corruptibility, and goes into its Ether, and the new remains for ever. But how this came to pass, you have the following fundamental Information of it, wherein if you be regenerated from God, you may see the old and new Man into the very Heart, because you have the Pearl; but if not, then you shall scarce see here the old Adam, and you shall not so much as look upon the new.

(34) But now this Lust [or Longing] must be thus, or else no good Creature could be, and this World would be a mere Hell and Wrathfulness. And now seeing the Virgin stands in the second Principle, so that the Spirit of this World cannot possibly reach to her, and yet that the Virgin does continually behold herself [or appear] in the Spirit of this World, to [satisfy] the Lust and Longing in the Fruit and Growing of every Thing, therefore mhe is so very longing, and seeks the Virgin continually. He exalts many a Creature in great Skill and cunning Subtlety, and he brings it into the highest Degree that he can; and continually supposes that so the Virgin shall again be generated for him, which he saw in Adam before his Fall; which also brought Adam to fall, in that mhe would dwell in his Virgin, and with his great Lust so pressed Adam, that he fell asleep; that is, he set himself by Force in Adam's Tincture close to the Virgin, and would fain have qualified in her, and [mingled] with her, and so live eternally, whereby the Tincture grew weary, and the Virgin withdrew.

(38) Besides, I hear a great Howling and Lamentation, that all thy Servants cry Woe over thee, because thou plaguest them; and moreover, thou hast shed my noble Seed, and not sown it, but [thou hast sown] thy wild [Seed] for [the promoting of] thy great Devouring and Pomp. Behold, I have spewed thee out towards Babel in the Press of my fierce Wrath, and there I will press thee; and I will plant my Lily-Branch in my Garden of Roses, which brings me forth Fruit, after which my Soul lusts, of which my sick Adam shall eat, that he may be strong, and may go into Paradise. Of the Thrusting Adam and Eve out of the Paradise of the Garden in Eden.