(38) Since thou now possesseth a slender supernormal power of foreknowledge, all the places [of birth] will be known to thee, one after another. Choose accordingly.

(5) If I had not considered the Scripture, which plainly says, Whatsoever is born of Flesh is Flesh; also, Flesh and Blood shall not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven; also, None goeth into Heaven, but the Son of Man, (viz. the pure Virgin) which came from Heaven, and which is in Heaven; which was very helpful to me [to think] that the Child of the Virgin was the Angel, which has restored again all that which was lost in Adam, for God brought again in the Woman (in her virgin-like Body) the virgin Child, which Adam should generate; and now if I had not considered the Text in Moses, (where God says, It is not good that Man should be alone, we will make a Help for him,) I should yet have stuck in the Will of the Woman.

(44) And thy worldly Bravery, Glory, Beauty, and Riches, will not exalt thee before God, as thou supposest, nor yet thy Office which thou didst bear here, be it the kingly or priestly Office; if thou desirest to be in Heaven, then thou must (through thy Saviour) be new born; thou must endeavour to bring thy Subjects to Righteousness, and then thou wilt shine (with thy Office) as bright as the Luster of Heaven, and thy Works will follow thee. O Man! consider thyself in this.

(2) So the best thing on earth is the most pious man; and the best thing in heaven, the nearer in place and purer, is an angel, the partaker of the eternal and blessed life. But the nature of the Son, which is nearest to Him who is alone the Almighty One, is the most perfect, and most holy, and most potent, and most princely, and most kingly, and most beneficent. This is the highest excellence, which orders all things in accordance with the Father's will, and holds the helm of the universe in the best way, with unwearied and tireless power, working all things in which it operates, keeping in view its hidden designs. For from His own point of view the Son of God is never displaced; not being divided, not severed, not passing from place to place; being always everywhere, and being contained nowhere; complete mind, the complete paternal light; all eyes, seeing all things, hearing all things, knowing all things, by His power scrutinizing the powers. To Him is placed in subjection all the host of angels and gods; He, the paternal Word, exhibiting a the holy administration for Him who put [all] in subjection to Him.

(7) So that when the Heaven, and the Birth of the Elements are spoken of, it is not a Thing afar off, or that is distant from us, that is spoken of; but we speak of Things that are done in our Body and Soul; and there is nothing nearer us than this Birth, for we live and move therein, as in the House of our Mother; and when we speak of Heaven, we speak of our native Country, which the enlightened Soul can well see, though indeed such Things are hidden from the Body.

(10) Behold, God the Father is every where, and his Heart and Light is every where in the Father, for it is always from Eternity begotten every where of the Father, and his Birth has neither Beginning nor End, he is even at this very Day continually generated of the Father; and then also when he was in the Body of Mary, yet he stood in the Father's Birth, and was continually begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeded continually from Eternity, from the Father through his Heart; for the whole Generation of the Deity is no otherwise, neither can it be otherwise.

(44) If you be born of God, then you [may] thus understand God, Paradise, the Kingdom of Heaven and Hell, and the Entrance in, and End of the Creatures, [and] the Creation of this World; but if not, then the Vail is as well before your Eyes, as it was upon Moses. Therefore saith Christ; Seek, and you shall find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you: No Son asketh his Father for an Egg, that he should give him a Scorpion: Also my Father will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask it.

(47) Therefore it can only be done here in this Life (while thy Soul sticks in the Will of the Mind) so that thou breakest open the Gate of the Deep, and pressest in to God through a New Birth; for here thou hast the highly worthy noble Virgin of the divine Love for thy Assistance, who leads thee in through the Gate of the noble Bridegroom, who stands in the Center in the parting Mark, between the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Kingdom of Hell, and generates thee in the Water and Life of his Blood and Death, and therein drowns and washes away thy false [or evil] Works, so that they follow thee not [in such a Source and Property,] that thy Soul be not infected therein, but according to the first Image in Man before the Fall, as a new, chaste, and pure noble Virgin's Image, without any Knowledge of thy untowardness [or Vices,] which thou hadst here.

(9) O nobly-born, these realms are not come from somewhere outside [thyself]. They come from within the four divisions of thy heart, which, including its centre, make the five directions. They issue from within there, and whine upon thee. The deities, too, are not come from somewhere else: they exist from eternity within the faculties of thine own intellect. Know them to be of that nature.

(14) Now the fact that even children, not yet able to understand the things Divine, become recipients of the holy Birth in God, and of the most holy symbols of the supremely Divine Communion, seems, as you say, to the profane, a fit subject for reasonable laughter, if the Hierarchs teach things Divine to those not able to hear, and vainly transmit the sacred traditions to those who do not understand. And this is still more laughable--that others, on their behalf, repeat the abjurations and the sacred compacts. But thy Hierarchical judgment must not be too hard upon those who are led astray, but, persuasively, and for the purpose of leading them to the light, reply affectionately to the objections alleged by them, bringing forward this fact, in accordance with sacred rule, that not all things Divine are comprehended in our knowledge, but many of the things, unknown by us, have causes beseeming God, unknown to us indeed, but well known to the Ranks above us. Many things also escape even the most exalted Beings, and are known distinctly by the All-Wise and Wise-making Godhead alone. Further, also, concerning this, we affirm the same things which our Godlike initiators conveyed to us, after initiations from the early tradition. For they say, what is also a fact, that infants, being brought up according to a Divine institution, will attain a religious disposition, exempt from every error, and inexperienced in an unholy-life. When our Divine leaders came to this conclusion, it was determined to admit infants upon the following conditions, viz.: that the natural parents of the child presented, should transfer the child to some one of the initiated,--a good teacher of children in Divine things,--and that the child should lead the rest of his life under him, as under a godfather and sponsor, for his religious safe-keeping. The Hierarch then requires him, when he has promised to bring up the child according to the religious life, to pronounce the renunciations and the religious professions, not, as they would jokingly say, by instructing one instead of another in Divine things; for he does not say this, "that on behalf of this child I make, myself, the renunciations and the sacred professions," but, that the child is set apart and enlisted; i.e. I promise to persuade the child, when he has come to a religious mind, through my godly instructions, to bid adieu wholly to things contrary, and to profess and perform the Divine professions. There is here, then, nothing absurd, in my judgment, provided the child is brought up as beseems a godlike training, in having a guide and religious surety, who implants in him a disposition for Divine things, and keeps him inexperienced in things contrary. The Hierarch imparts to the child the sacred, symbols, in order that he may be nourished by them, and may not have any other life but that which always contemplates Divine things; and in religious progress become partaker of them and have a religious disposition in these matters, and be devoutly brought up by his Godlike surety. So great, my son, and so beautiful, are the uniform visions of our Hierarchy, which have been presented to my view; and from others, perhaps, more contemplative minds, these things have been viewed, not only more clearly, but also more divinely. And to thee, as I fancy, more brilliant and more divine beauties will shine forth, by using the foregoing stepping-stones to a higher ray. Impart then, my friend, thyself also, to me, more perfect enlightenment, and shew to mine eyes the more comely and uniform beauties that thou mayst have been able to see, for I am confident that, by what has been said, I shall strike the sparks of the Divine Fire stored up in thee. Thanks be to God. JOHN PARKER.

(15) And therefore I have not appointed wives for you; for as for the spiritual ones of the heaven, in heaven is their dwelling.

(7) Men must not think, that Man before his Fall had bestial Members to propagate with, but heavenly [Members,] nor any as Man has in his Body, does not belong to the Holy Trinity in Paradise, but to the Earth; it must go again into its Ether. But Man was created immortal, and also holy, like the Angels; and seeing he was created out of the Limbus, therefore he was pure. Now in what manner he is, and out of what he was made, it follows further.

(1) AND on the same manner, where another man would bid thee gather thy powers and thy wits wholly within thyself, and worship God there—although he say full well and full truly, yea! and no man trulier, an he be well conceived—yet for fear of deceit and bodily conceiving of his words, me list not bid thee do so. But thus will I bid thee. Look on nowise that thou be within thyself. And shortly, without thyself will I not that thou be, nor yet above, nor behind, nor on one side, nor on other.

(62) Therefore now if we will speak of our native Country, out of which we are wandered with Adam; and will tell of the Resting- Place of the Souls; we need not to scast our Minds far off; for far off and near is all one and the same Thing with God; the Place of the Holy Trinity is all over. Heaven and Hell is [every where] all over in this World, and the Man (Christ) dwells all over, for he has laid off the Corruptibility, and has swallowed up Death, as also that which is [fragile or] temporal, and he lives in God; his Body is the substance of the Element, which out of the Word of the Mercifulness, is from Eternity generated out of the Gates of the Deep; it is the Habitation, where the Sharpness of God breaks open the Darkness, where the eternal Virtue [or Power] appears in Wonders; and it is the Tincture of the Deity, which is before God, out of which the heavenly Virtues are generated; its name is wonderful; the earthly Tongue cannot express it.

(42) Wisdom found no place where she might dwell; Then a dwelling-place was assigned her in the heavens.

(33) But thou must not omit Baptism notwithstanding; for when the Child is born into the World, then it is severed from its Tree, and is in this World, and then itself must pass into the Covenant, and thou must with thy Faith present it, and with thy Prayer give Or in. it to God, in his Covenant; there needs no Pomp about it, that does dishonour the Covenant; it is an earnest Thing.

(2) When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled. And when he had gathered the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. They said, In Bethlehem of Judea.

(61) Although we may be hard to be understood, in our high Knowledge; (because a Soul that desires to see it, must enter into the new Birth, or else it stands behind the Vail [of Moses,] and asks continually, Where is the Place?) Therefore we will set it down for the Sake of the Lily-Rose, where then the Holy Ghost will open many Doors in the Wonders, which Men now hold for impossible P; and in the World none is therein, but they are rin Babel

(38) And when the Righteous One shall appear before the eyes of the righteous, Whose elect works hang upon the Lord of Spirits, And light shall appear to the righteous and the elect who dwell on the earth, Where then will be the dwelling of the sinners, And where the resting-place of those who have denied the Lord of Spirits? It had been good for them if they had not been born.

(42) The holy Spirit of God built the Formation in the Wisdom of the Virgin, in the [holy] Element, in its Center of the Heaven, even the highly worthy princely and angelical Formation; and Or with, the Regimen of the Stars and Elements of this World formed the outward Man wholly, with all Essences of our human Bodies, with a natural Body and Soul (wholly like us) in one only Person.