(6) O Covetousness, that mortals dost ingulf Beneath thee so, that no one hath the power Of drawing back his eyes from out thy waves! Full fairly blossoms in mankind the will; But the uninterrupted rain converts Into abortive wildings the true plums. Fidelity and innocence are found Only in children; afterwards they both Take flight or e'er the cheeks with down are covered. One, while he prattles still, observes the fasts, Who, when his tongue is loosed, forthwith devours Whatever food under whatever moon; Another, while he prattles, loves and listens Unto his mother, who when speech is perfect Forthwith desires to see her in her grave.

(26) And though it be clear that the Stars in the outward Birth [Geniture or Operation] alter the Essences in every one according to their Source [Quality, Influence, or Property,] yet the Element is still there, and they cannot alter that with their Power, except Man himself does it; they have only the outward Region; and besides, the Devil dares not 1 image [or imprint] himself, before the Time of the Understanding, when Man can incline himself to the Evil or to the Good. Yet none must presume upon this [Impotency of the Devil, and four Elements,] for if the Parents be wicked, God can well forsake a wicked Seed. For he willeth not that the Pearl should be cast before Swine; although he is very inclined to help all Men, yet it is [effectual] but for those that turn to him; and although the Child is in Innocence, yet the Seed is not in Innocence; and therefore it has Need of the Treader upon the Serpent [or Saviour.] Therefore, ye Parents, consider what ye do; especially you Knaves and Whores; you have a hard Lesson [to learn] here, consider it well, it is no jesting Matter, it shall be shown you in its Place, that the Heaven thunders, [and passes away with a Noise.] Truly the Time of the Rose brings it forth, and it is high Time to awake, for the Sleep is at an End, there shall a great Rent be before the Lily; therefore let every one take Heed to his Ways.

(25) Therefore, ye Fathers and Mothers, be honest and live in the Fear of God, that the Treader upon the Serpent may also be in your Fruit. For Christ says, A good Tree cannot bring forth evil Fruit, and an evil Tree cannot bring forth good Fruit. And although this indeed is meant of the Mind that is i brought up; which has its own Understanding [or Meaning] thus, that no false Mind brings forth good Fruit, nor no good Mind evil Fruit; yet it is effectually necessary for the Children, [that the Parents be honest and virtuous,] because the Child is generated from the Essences of the Parents.

(69) Whereby it is seen, how great the Anger was in Adam and Eve, in that the wrathful Kingdom sooner overcame than the Kingdom of Heaven; and the Scorner is sooner generated than the upright. But yet the Fault of this was in the Parents; had they not sinned, and let the Anger into them, then it had not been so, as at this Day.

(36) But this I say, according to my Knowledge, (and not out of any Command,) that if the Parents are wicked, and indeed in the Kingdom of the Devil, and that they have thus begotten their Fruit out of their false [or evil] Essences (in which [Parents] there is no Faith, but only a false Hypocrisy, and yet will in an apish Mockery be counted Christians; and as the Devil oftentimes changes himself into the Likeness of an Angel, so they also send their Children with the like trimmed false Angels before the Covenant of Christ;) such Doing is very dangerous, which also instantly shows itself in the Growing of the Tree; indeed the Covenant continues still, but there must be Earnestness in avoiding of the Devil. It may be, that very many are baptized in the Anger of God, because they do but contemn the Covenant; and many Times wicked drunken Priests use it, who even stick in Hell-fire over Head and Ears; and therefore the Covenant of Grace stands as a Testimony against the Congregations of the Wicked. And that which they see and know (and do not perform it with earnest Sincerity) that shall judge and condemn them.

(7) But they think [consider or imagine] only how to fill themselves and multiply, that their Life may subsist; and we also receive no more from the Spirit of the Stars and Elements. And therefore also our Children are naked and bare, with great Inability, and without Understanding; and now if the Spirit of this World had full [perfect and absolute] Power over the Essences of the Child, then he would easily put his rough Garment upon it also (viz. a rough Hide) but he must let that alone: And he must leave the Essences in the first and second Principle, to Man's own Choosing, to bind and yield himself to which [Principle] he will; which Man has (undeniably) in his full Power, which I will explain in its own Place according to its Worth, and deeply demonstrate it, in Spite of all the Gates of the Devil, and this World, which strive much against it.

(2) 'Children follow after outward pleasures, and fall into the snare of wide-spread death. Wise men only, knowing the nature of what is immortal, do not look for anything stable here among things unstable.'

(2) Therefore none should scorn or despise another, though he leads not the same Course that he does himself; or though he be not of that Way in his Mind and Will which himself is; or that another cannot learn and follow the same stately courtly Manners and Behaviour with himself. For the natural Heaven makes every one, according as its Form (in its Influences) is, at all Times; and so every Creature gets its Condition, Form [or Shape,] Inclination and Will, which cannot wholly be taken away from the outward Man, till the [natural] Heaven breaks its Beast. Therefore we ought to consider the great Strife in us; when we are regenerated out of the Eternal, then the Eternal strives against the Corruptible, against the Malice and Falshood of the Corruptible.

(492) And our philosopher follows the same analogy—he is like a plant which, having proper nurture, must necessarily grow and mature into all virtue, but, if sown and planted in an alien soil, becomes the most noxious of all weeds, unless he be preserved by some divine power. Do you really think, as people so often say, that our youth are corrupted by Sophists, or that private teachers of the art corrupt them in any degree worth speaking of? Are not the public who say these things the greatest of all Sophists? And do they not educate to perfection young and old, men and women alike, and fashion them after their own hearts? When is this accomplished? he said. When they meet together, and the world sits down at an assembly, or in a court of law, or a theatre, or a camp, or in any other popular resort, and there is a great uproar, and they praise some things which are being said or done, and blame other things, equally exaggerating both, shouting and clapping their hands, and the echo of the rocks and the place in which they are assembled redoubles the sound of the praise or blame—at such a time will not a young man’s heart, as they say, leap within him? Will any private training enable him to stand firm against the overwhelming flood of popular opinion? or will he be carried away by the stream? Will he not have the notions of good and evil which the public in general have—he will do as they do, and as they are, such will he be?

(3) For it is lamentable, that since the fall of Adam, we should be so continually cheated and befooled by the Devil, to think that we are not the Children of God, nor of his Essence. He continually puts the monstrous Shape or Form into our Thoughts, as he did into our Mother Eve, which she gazed too much upon, and by her representing it in her Imagination, she became a Child of this World, wholly naked and vain, and void of Understanding: And so he does to us also still continually; he would bring us into another Image, as he did Eve, that we might be ashamed to appear in the Presence of the Light and Power of God, as Adam and Eve were, when they hid themselves behind the Trees, (that is, behind the monstrous Shape or Form,) when the Lord appeared in the Center of the Birth of their Lives, and said, Where art thou, Adam? And he said, I am naked, and am afraid; which was nothing else, but that his Belief [or Faith] and Knowledge of the Holy God was put out; for he beheld the monstrous Shape which he had made to himself by his Imagination and Lust, by the Devil's [Instigation,] Representation, and false Persuading, to eat of the third Principle wherein Corruption was.

(10) Does not the Son see plainly what the Father does in his House? And now if the Son learns to do the same thereby, what Displeasure will the Father have towards his Son for it? Nay, will not the Father be well pleased that his Son is so apt [and forward to learn?] Then why should the heavenly Father be so displeased with his Children in this World, which depend upon him, and enquire after him, which would willingly learn to know him, willingly labour in his Works, and do his Will? Does not the Regenerator bid us come to him, and whosoever cometh to him, he will not reject? Why should any resist the Spirit of Prophesy, which is God's? Look upon Christ's Apostles, did any other teach them than God, who was in them, and they in Him? 11.0 dear Children of God in Christ, fly away from Antichrist, who has set up himself over all the Coasts of the Earth, and who sets a painted Image before you, as the Serpent did before our Mother Eve, and paints your own Image of God [as if it were] far off from God: But consider what is written, the Word is near thee, yea in thy Heart and Lips. And God himself is the Word which is in thy Heart and Lips.

(25) eln Brief, the Regimen of the Stars [or starry Region] makes not a holy Man; and although Men may converse under a holy Show, yet they are but Hypocrites, and desire to get Honour [and Esteem] thereby, their Mind sticks nevertheless in Covetousness and Pride, and in fleshly Pleasure, in mere base Lechery and Lust, and they are in the Sight of God (according to the Desire of this World) no other than mere Knaves, proud, wilful, [self-conceited] Thieves, Robbers, and Murderers. There is not one, who as to the Spirit of this World is righteous, we are altogether Children of Deceit and Falshood; and according to this Image (which we have received from the Spirit of this World) we belong to eternal Death, but not to Paradise; except it be, that we become regenerated anew, out of the Center of the precious Virgin, who with her Rays averts the Mind from the ungodly Ways of Sin and Wickedness.

(58) But that they should ascribe great Knowledge to a Soul (which scarce at the End, with great Danger, is loosed from the Band of the Devil, and which in this World did not so much as once care for the Wisdom of God, but looks after its Pleasure only, and which has not in this World been once crowned with the Holy Ghost) that is not so. Does not Christ himself say, The Children of this World are wiser in their Generation than the Children of Light?

(42) Thus we are to consider, and highly to know in the Light of Nature, the Ground of the Kingdom of Heaven, and of Hell, as also [the Ground] of the Kingdom of this World, and how Man in the Mother's Body inherits three Kingdoms, and how Man in this Life bears a threefold Image, which our first Parents by the first Sin a inherited for us; therefore we have Need of the Treader upon the Serpent, to bring us again into the angelical Image. And it is needful for Man to tame his Body and Mind, [or bring them under Subjection,] with great Earnestness [and Labour,] and to submit himself under the Cross, and not to hunt so eagerly after Pleasure, Riches, and the Bravery of this World, for therein sticks Perdition.

(4) "Is the babe born, the power is feeble in it, and the soul is feeble in it, and also the counterfeiting spirit is feeble in it; in a word, the three together are feeble, without any one of them sensing anything, whether good or evil, because of the load of forgetfulness which is very heavy. Moreover the body also is feeble. And the babe eateth of the delights of the world of the rulers; and the power draweth into itself from the portion of the power which is in the delights; and the soul draweth into itself from the portion of the soul which is in the delights; and the counterfeiting spirit draweth into itself from the portion of the evil which is in the delights and in its lusts. And on the other hand the body draweth into itself the matter which senseth not, which is in the delights. The destiny on the contrary taketh nothing from the delights, because it is not mingled with them, but it departeth again in the condition in which it cometh into the world. "And little by little the power and the soul and the counterfeiting spirit grow, and every one of them senseth according to its nature: the power senseth to seek after the light of the height; the soul on the other hand senseth to seek after the region of righteousness which is mixed, which is the region of the commixture; the counterfeiting spirit on the other hand seeketh after all evils and lusts and all sins; the body on the contrary senseth nothing unless it taketh up force out of the matter. "And straightway the three develop sense, every one according to its nature. And the retributive receivers assign the servitors to follow them and be witnesses of all the sins which they commit, with a view to the manner and method how they will chastize them in the judgments.

(21) Though now there be so many Doctrines and Opinions manifested, yet the Scorner (who is born of this World only) ought not to fall on so, and cast all down which he cannot apprehend; for all is not false, there is much that is generated by Heaven, which [Heaven] will at present make another Seculum or Age, which discovers itself highly with its Virtue [or Power,] and seeks the Pearl; it would fain open the Tincture in its Substance, that the Virtue [or Power] of God might thereby appear in it, and that it might be freed from the irksome Vanity; this was done in all Ages as Histories show, and as is well known to the Enlightened.

(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.

(39) Seeing now Man is entered into the Spirit of this World, and has all Gates in [him,] viz. the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Kingdom of Hell, and also the Kingdom of this World, and must thus live in the Press, [or narrow Chink,] between Heaven and this World, where the Devil stirs up one Mocker after another, (who are brought up by the Kingdom of Fierceness,) and continually stirs them up against the Children of God, so that the World is full of Tyrants, and bestial, bloody, incestuous Persons, also Murderers and Thieves, and because Covetousness grew up, therefore the Office of Ruling was most profitable, that the wicked P Driver might be stopped by Power [and Authority.]

(30) O no: But the Devil, who is a Cause of the Wrathfulness. Adam was made good out of the pure Element, but the Longing [Desire or Lust] of the Devil deceived him, so that he went into the Spirit of this World. 3 1. And now it cannot be otherwise, the two Kingdoms wrestle one with another in the Children of Men; the one is the Kingdom of Christ, [generated] through the new Birth into Paradise; that (in this World) is miserable and contemned, there are not many that desire it, for it has mere Scorn and Contempt from the Devil and his Followers; it consists in Righteousness and Truth, and that is not valued in this World, and therefore it must lie at the rich Man's Door with poor Lazarus, and at his Feet. If any do but let it appear that they are the Children of God, then the Devil will away with them presently, or else will put them to such Scorn and Disgrace, that they cannot be known; that so the Devil may continue to be the great Prince upon Earth, and that the World may not learn to know him.

(68) Come hither, ye contentious Shepherds of Babel, open your Eyes, and consider what his Testaments of the Baptism and his Last Supper are: I shall show you well enough, if you be but worthy; however, we write for the Children of the Lily; therefore let every one see where he harbours; it is in Earnest. We slight not the Understanding of the Ancients. It may be, it was purely generated in the Beginning, but we find how Antichrist has set up himself upon it, and made Gods of the Creature.