(59) And in this Tincture of the first Principle, the Devil tempted Man; for it is his Source, [Well-spring, or Property,] wherein he also lives. Herein he reaches into the Heart of Man, into his Soul's Essences, and leads him away from God, into the Desire to live in the sharp (viz. in the fiery) Essences, that it might be elevated above the Humility and the Meekness of the Heart of God, and above the Love and Meekness of the Creatures, [on Purpose to seem] to be the only fair and glistering Worm in the Fire-flash, and to domineer over the second Principle. And [thus] he makes the Soul of Man so extremely proud, as not to vouchsafe himself to be in the least like any Meekness, but to be like all whatsoever lives in a Quality [or Property] contrary to it.

(45) Therefore, if you do not understand this Writing, then do 'not as Lucifer did in taking the Spirit of Pride presently, and fall a mocking, and deriding, and ascribe it to the Devil; but seek the humble lowly Heart of God, and that will bring a small Grain of Mustard- seed (from the Tree of Paradise) into your Soul; and if you abide in Patience, then a great Tree will grow out of that [Seed,] as you may well think, that the like has come to pass with this Author. For he is to be esteemed a very simple Person, in Comparison of the great learned Men: But Christ saith; My Power is strong in the Weak: Yea Father, it hath so pleased thee, to hide these Things from the Wise and Prudent, and thou hast revealed them to Babes and Sucklings; and that the Wisdom of this World is Foolishness in thy Sight. And although now the Children of the World are wiser in their Generation than the Children of Light; yet their Wisdom is but a corruptible Substance, [Essence or Thing,] and this Wisdom continues eternally.

(22) The Pride of Nature indeed inclines one Man more strongly than another, but it forces [or compels] none that they must be proud; and if there be a Force [or strong Compulsion upon any,] then it is when Man willingly for temporal Honour and Pleasure Sake lets the Devil into his eternal Essences; and then he [the Devil] sees presently how that Man is inclined [or led] by the Spirit of this World, and in that Way tempts him accordingly; if Man lets him but in, he is then a Guest very hardly to be driven out again; yet it is very possible, if that Man entirely and sincerely purposes to turn, and to live according to the Will of God, then the Virgin is always ready [before-hand] in the Way to help him.

(24) And thus there goes forth out of the earthly a Senses and Mind, Lies and Folly, Deceit and Falsehood, [also] mere Subtilty, [with Lust and Desire] to be elevated; many [to be elevated] in the Might of the Fire, as by Force and Anger; and many by human Art and Policy of this World, which is but a Knave in the Sight of God, yet wrestles [or holds fast] till it has prevailed; many in the Form of a tame and gentle Beast, very cunningly alluring, and drawing to itself, under a fair Pretence; many in Pride, and Stateliness of Body [in Carriage] and Manners, which is a right diabolical Beast, who contemns all that does not please him, and elevates himself above all Meekness and Humility, and over the Image of God; yea, there is so very much of false Untowardness, that I may not mention it; every one follows the Region [Rule or Dominion] of the Stars, even that which serves most to the Voluptuousness of the earthly Life.

(23) But it availed not, Pride would erect its Throne, and set it above Christ, the Devil would be God; and they made Glosses, that they might bring it to pass in such a Way, that the simple People might not take Notice of it; there the Keys of Peter must govern the City, and they drew together with the Keys P divine Authority to them, and so could use the divine Power in Deeds Such as apishly teach the Words of holy Men, without the Understanding they had. and Wonders no more; for they desired to be rich and wealthy upon Earth, and not to be poor with Christ, who in this World (as himself witnesses) had not whereon to lay his Head; they would not be such Christians in Power and Wonders; as Adam, who would not live in the Power, but in a great Heap [of Earth,] that he might have something to take hold of. And here may be rightly seen our Misery which Adam brought us into, that our Essences always reach after the Spirit of this World, and desire only to fill themselves with a great Heap, from whence Adam and we all have got such a swelled, gross, untoward Body, full of Sickness, Contrariety, and contentious Desires.

(17) Now when the Devil had thus thrown it down, then it was silent, and desired not only to write no more, but the Devil rushed in upon it, and beat it along, and would have broken it. He came forth with his sour Apples, and held them before the Soul of this Pen, and would have it eat of his Dainties; also he strewed Sugar upon them [as he did for Eve.] If he had got the Soul again into his Chains, how would he have been revenged on it! as was afterwards known in the Storm, where his Mind was known very well. Now when it was thus, the Lily faded and lost its fragrant Smell, the Pearl hid itself, and the Virgin of the Pearl stood mourning, and the noble Mind sunk down in great Unquietness.

(5) But when we will speak of the Source [or Fountain,] and Joy of Paradise, and of its highest Substance, what it is, we have no Similitude of it in this World, we stand in Need of angelical Tongues and Knowledge to express it; and though we had them, yet we could not express it with this Tongue. It is well understood in the Mind, when the Soul rides in the Chariot of the Bride, but we cannot express it with the Tongue; yet we will not cast away the A, B, C, but prattle [or stammer] with the Children, till another Mouth be given us to speak with.

(40) Do not behold thyself, thou blind Mind, and consider thyself, where is thy angelical Form in thee? Why art thou so angry, stern, [fierce, froward,] and malicious? Wherefore dost thou elevate thyself still in thy Wickedness, in Pride, in Might [or Authority,] and Pomp, and boasteth thyself for a brave and potent Beast? What is it that thou dost? Wherefore hast thou High and Low. let the Spirit of this World into thee, which seduces thee (as it lists) into High-mindedness, into [proud] Stoutness, into P Potency and Pomp, into Covetousness and Lying, into Falshood and Treachery, as also into Sickness and Corruption, [or Frailty?]

(42) Now therefore in the anguishing Mind of the Darkness, is the inexpressible [or unutterable] Source, [or rising Property,] from whence the Name Quality exists as from many [Sources, or Wells,] into one Source, and out of these many Sources [running] into one Source, springs forth the Plurality of Skill, so that there is a Multiplicity, [or Variety of it.] And the Spirit of God out of the Light comes to help every Skill, [or Science, or Knowledge,] and in every Skill of the Sources in the Quality (by its kind infecting of the Love) it makes again again, as a Twig out of a Tree, where again there springs forth [or infusing] of Kindness, makes all, every Thought in the Will, and [that] essentially.

(19) And thus he dwells in two [Properties,] both which draw him, and desire to have him; viz. one fierce [Property,] or Source, whose Original is the Darkness of the Abyss; and the other is the divine [Power or] Virtue, whose Source [or active Property] is the Light and the divine Joy in the broken Gate of Heaven; as the Word Himmel [Heaven] in the Language of Nature has its proper acute Understanding, from the Pressing through, and Entering in, and then with its Root continuing to fit in the Stock of Eternity, wherein the Omnipotence is rightly understood; which my Master in Arts will scarce give any Credit to, for he has no Knowledge therein; it belongs to the Lily.

(47) And we must further a consider, that when the Shriek [or Crack] makes its Dwelling-house, in its strong Breaking-through, out of the Gate of the anxious Darkness, viz. the Tongue, that the Shriek [or Crack] has not then yet seen the Virgin; but when it reflected [or shined] back again into the Heart, into the opened Darkness, and found her so habitable, there then first sprung up its Joy, and Pleasantness, and it became paradisical, and desired not [to go] into the Tongue again, but into the Head, and [desired] there to have its Region out of the Source of the Heart. Therefore the Tongue ought not in all [or altogether] to be believed, for it sits not in the heavenly Region, as the friendly pleasant Virtue [does;] but it has its Region in the Crack and Flash, and the Flash is as near the hellish Region, as the Crack is, for they are both generated in the Sharpness of the Stars, in the Essences, and the Tongue speaks both Lyes and Truth; in which of the two the Spirit arms itself, according to that it speaks: Also it many Times speaks Lies in great Men; when it is armed from the Essences, then it speaks in the Crack, like a Rider in his [haughty, surly, vaunting State,] or high Mindedness. The Life of the Soul. The Gate.

(21) And if it elevates itself back into the Anguish of the four Forms of the Original, and will horribly breathe forth out of Pride in the Original of the Fire, knowing itself [shall] so [become] powerful; it so becomes a Devil: For the Devils also with their Legions had this Original, and they out of Pride would live in the i fierce Wrath of the Fire, and so they perished, and remained Devils.

(16) At length she comes with a subtle Snare, and says, through the Spirit of the great World in the Mind, in himself; O! The Heavens have caused thee to be born to it, that thou dost such foolish Tricks, and would play juggling Feats in thee; thy Gifts are not from God; God has never spoken with thee. And what canst thou know then? Leave off, let it alone, thou mayest be a Christian well enough, and be quiet; let the Priests teach, they have their Wages for it. What hast thou to do with it? Beloved Reader, with these Blows this Pen was once thrown to the Ground, and the Driver would have broken it, but the Breath of God took it up again; therefore it shall write what happened to it, to be an Example for all Well-wishers; and it is an exceedingly precious one.

(21) For these three Births are [inbred or] generated together with every one in the Mother's [Womb or] Body, and none ought to say, I am not elected; for it is a Lie, [and he] belies the Element, wherein Man also lives; and besides [he] belies the Virgin of Wisdom, which God gives to every one which seeks her with Earnestness and Humility. So [likewise] the Possibility of Seeking is also in every one, and it is inbred [or generated] in him with the all-possible hidden Element, [to which all Things are possible,] and there is no other Cause of Perdition in Man, than [was in or] with Lucifer, whose Will stood free; he must either reach into God in Humility, Chastity, and Meekness, or into the dark Mind, in the Climbing up of Malice and Fierceness [or Grimness,] which yet (cin its Flowing forth) desires not to lift itself up above God, but it inclines itself only above the Meekness, in the Fire-flash, in the stern [or fierce] Regeneration: But the Devils would (as Creatures) be above all, and be Lords wholly [of themselves,] and so it is also with Man here.

(90) Though the Devil and this World rage and rave against this, yet it is nevertheless the Ground of Truth, highly known in the Wonders of God, and not from the Fables or Suppositions, such as the proud seeming holy or hypocritical World now ground their Babble upon, about the Cup of Jesus Christ, for the advancing of their Pomp and Haughtiness, their own Honour and supposed Wisdom, for their Pleasure, and the filling of their Bellies, like the proud Bride in Babylon, who rides upon the evil Beast, which devours the Miserable; therefore thus saith the Spirit against Babel in the Confusion, / have spewed thee out; in the Time of the Wrath, thou shalt drink of the Cup of thy Pride, and thy Source [or Torment] shall rise up in Eternity. Of the Voice of God in the Garden of Eden, and the Conference between God and those two, about Sin.

(2) And on this manner may this deceit befall. A young man or a woman new set to the school of devotion heareth this sorrow and this desire be read and spoken: how that a man shall lift up his heart unto God, and unceasingly desire for to feel the love of his God. And as fast in a curiosity of wit they conceive these words not ghostly as they be meant, but fleshly and bodily; and travail their fleshly hearts outrageously in their breasts. And what for lacking of grace and pride and curiosity in themselves, they strain their veins and their bodily powers so beastly and so rudely, that within short time they fall either into frenzies, weariness, and a manner of unlisty feebleness in body and in soul, the which maketh them to wend out of themselves and seek some false and some vain fleshly and bodily comfort without, as it were for recreation of body and of spirit: or else, if they fall not in this, else they merit for ghostly blindness, and for fleshly chafing of their nature in their bodily breasts in the time of this feigned beastly and not ghostly working, for to have their breasts either enflamed with an unkindly heat of nature caused of misruling of their bodies or of this feigned working, or else they conceive a false heat wrought by the Fiend, their ghostly enemy, caused of their pride and of their fleshliness and their curiosity of wit. And yet peradventure they ween it be the fire of love, gotten and kindled by the grace and the goodness of the Holy Ghost. Truly, of this deceit, and of the branches thereof, spring many mischiefs: much hypocrisy, much heresy, and much error. For as fast after such a false feeling cometh a false knowing in the Fiend’s school, right as after a true feeling cometh a true knowing in God’s school. For I tell thee truly, that the devil hath his contemplatives as God hath His.

(26) For Man is not fallen out of strong [fierce, angry] Pride, like the Devil; but his earthly Essences have overcome his paradisical Essences, and brought them into the earthly Lust, and in that Regard he has Grace again bestowed upon him. The highest, strongest, and the mightiest Gate of the Temptation in Adam.

(3) But now that the Wrath devours all, and wholly darkens the Mysteria, [Mysteries or hidden Secrets,] and makes the Source [or Quality] of the eternal Birth [to be] a Darkness, only that it may exalt its Wrath, and sees nothing in the Birth of Eternity, but brings all Things that are therein to nothing; that is a very great Babel, for it not only devours itself, but makes itself stark blind in Nature; and it makes of Man's Image mere evil wolfish Beasts, which think that they are gone out from Babel, and yet are begotten in Babel, and are in the Body of the evil devouring Beast, and so devour the House of their Mother, and manifest it to be a vile stinking Lake; and yet themselves will not go out from it, and it is altogether a Kingdom, which continually generates itself, in its own Voluptuousness and Pride, and also continually manifests its own Shame, and devours itself in the Wrath of its own Sins, and is rightly called Babel.

(71) For he is always shut up in the first Principle (as in the eternal Death,) and yet he raises himself up continually, thinking to reach the Heart of God, and to domineer over it; for his bitter Sting in the Birth climbs up thus eternally in the Source of the Fire, and affords him a proud Will to have all [at his Pleasure,] but he attains nothing; his Food is the Source of Water, viz. the Brimstone-Spirit, which is the most aking Mother, from which the indissoluble Band is fed and nourished; his Refreshing is the eternal Fire, and eternal Freezing in the harsh Mother, an eternal Hunger in the Bitterness, an eternal Thirst in the Source of the Fire; his climbing up is his Fall, the more he climbs up in his Will, the greater is his Fall; like one that standing upon a high Clift, would cast himself down into a bottomless Pit, he looks still further, and he falls in further and further, and yet can find no Ground.

(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.