(17) But if any now will excuse himself for sin, by refusing to take what is evil unto himself, and laying the guilt thereof upon the Evil Spirit, and thus make himself out to be quite pure and innocent (as our first Parents Adam and Eve did while they were yet in paradise; when each laid the guilt upon the other), he hath no right at all to do this; for it is written, “There is none without sin.” Therefore I say; reproach, shame, loss, woe, and eternal damnation be to the man who is fit and ready and willing that the Evil Spirit and falsehood, lies and all untruthfulness, wickedness and other evil things should have their will and pleasure, word and work in him, and make him their house and habitation.

(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.

(12) Therefore all Objections, which fall into Reason, are nothing else but the subtle Contradictions [or Fallacies] of the Devil, who would very fain maintain, that God did will the Fall of Man, There are also Men that dare to say, that God did will it; [and say] that he fitted the Tongue of the Serpent to seduce Eve; whose Judgment is very justly upon themselves, because they [offer to] confirm the Devil's Word with Lying, and [go about to] make God a Lyar,

(36) But what can be said? The Devil will have it no otherwise. When his Kingdom begins to be stormed [battered and assaulted] at one Place, then he blows up the Storm all over, [as well in one as another,] in the Children of God; the Spirit of Punishment [Vengeance or Reproof] is stirred up; and in the worldly bestial Man, the Devil blows up mere scorning and disgracing Mockers; for they have the Kingdom of Christ in the History, and the Devil's Kingdom in themselves, as their own Possession.

(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.

(11) All malicious captivated Men (whom he has captivated) are his Hounds, which hunt the poor Soul with Haughtiness, Bravery, Covetousness, Unchastity, Anger, Cursing, and wrongful Oppression, so that the poor Soul is infected with these Things, and is very often set upon the Devil's Horse, as one of the [Devil's] Captives, and then the Devil will ride with it into Hell into the Anger of God. O how often does he rob the poor Soul of her fair Garment of the Knowledge of God! How does he rend away the Word of God from their Ears and Hearts, as Christ says clearly! Now if it will not do as he wills, and that it breaks out of his Garden, then he casts his Dirt and Filth upon it; and then he stirs up all his Bloodhounds, they must bawl at it, and cast mere Disgrace upon it; and then it stands as an Owl among the Birds, who one and other will have a Fling and a Pluck at it; and so it is also with the poor Soul, which steps through earnest Repentance (out of the Devil's Net) into the new Regeneration.

(4) But if strict accuracy must be employed in dealing with them, let them know, that that which does not prevent what we assert to have taken place in the theft, is not a cause at all; but that what prevents is involved in the accusation of being a cause. For he that protects with a shield is the cause of him whom he protects not being wounded; preventing him, as he does, from being wounded. For the demon of Socrates was a cause, not by not preventing, but by exhorting, even if (strictly speaking) he did not exhort. And neither praises nor censures, neither rewards nor punishments, are right, when the soul has not the power of inclination and disinclination, but evil is involuntary. Whence he who prevents is a cause; while he who prevents not judges justly the soul's choice. So in no respect is God the author of evil. But since free choice and inclination originate sins, and a mistaken judgment sometimes prevails, from which, since it is ignorance and stupidity, we do not take pains to recede, punishments are rightly inflicted. For to take fever is involuntary; but when one takes fever through his own fault, from excess, we blame him. Inasmuch, then, as evil is involuntary, - for no one prefers evil as evil; but induced by the pleasure that is in it, and imagining it good, considers it desirable; -such being the case, to free ourselves from ignorance, and from evil and voluptuous choice, and above all, to withhold our assent from those delusive phantasies, depends on ourselves. The devil is called "thief and robber;" having mixed false prophets with the prophets, as tares with the wheat. "All, then, that came before the Lord, were thieves and robbers;" not absolutely all men, but all the false prophets, and all who were not properly sent by Him. For the false prophets possessed the prophetic name dishonestly, being prophets, but prophets of the liar. For the Lord says, "Ye are of your father the devil; and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it."

(55) Not only the Children of Malice do thus, but the Devil many Times brings the Children of God, by his Snares, to be against it, so that in their Blindness they grow furious and raging, as Saul at Jerusalem did against Stephen. Thus the poor soul must be afflicted among Thorns and Thistles, and continually expect when the evil World shall tear away the Body. The victorious Gate of the poor Soul

(1) SOME men the fiend will deceive on this manner. Full wonderfully he will enflame their brains to maintain God’s law, and to destroy sin in all other men. He will never tempt them with a thing that is openly evil; he maketh them like busy prelates watching over all the degrees of Christian men’s living, as an abbot over his monks. ALL men will they reprove of their defaults, right as they had cure of their souls: and yet they think that they do not else for God, unless they tell them their defaults that they see. And they say that they be stirred thereto by the fire of charity, and of God’s love in their hearts: and truly they lie, for it is with the fire of hell, welling in their brains and in their imagination.

(84) Now the Devil cannot endure that a holy Church should grow up in his Dominions, he will murder Abel still, as he did then; because Cain feared not God, therefore the Devil got an Access to him, and stirred up the inbred Wrath in Cain against Abel, that he slew him. Here surely all the Devils danced at it, and thought, now is the Kingdom ours again; whereat Adam and Eve were much amazed and affrighted, when they saw that he whom they accounted for a Prince, became a Murderer; and they copulated [or knew one another] no more in seventy Years after.

(202) That you plead not compulsion, and so err (like Iblis). How long will you climb into that tree of compulsion? How long cast out of sight your own freewill? How long, like Iblis and his evil crew, Throw the blame of your own sins upon God? How were you compelled to sin when you took such pleasure And pride in engaging in those sins? Does a man feel such pleasure in acting on compulsion As he exhibits when committing wrong actions? You battle like twenty men against those

(63) Cain was not rejected in the Mother's Womb [or Body;] Isaiah 44. 4. though it is plain, that God does not love such a false [or evil] Seed, yet it stands free, it may press into the Love, or into the Anger, the one as well as the other will receive it, as Paul also saith; To whom you yield yourselves Servants in Obedience, his Servants you are whom you obey; whether it be in the Obedience of God to Righteousness, or of Sin unto Death.

(38) These folk also collect extracts from the prophets, making a selection and mischievously stringing them together. They interpret in a literal sense sayings intended to be understood allegorically. It is written, they say, "They resisted God and were saved." But they add the "shameless" God, and interpret this saying as if it gave them advice, thinking it will bring them salvation if they resist the Creator. In fact, scripture does not mention the " shameless" God. And if it did, you fools, you should have understood the word "shameless" to refer to him who is called the devil, either because he slanders men, or because he accuses sinners, or because he is an apostate. The people to whom the passage refers were unwilling to be punished for their sins, and they spoke the words quoted in a spirit of complaining and grumbling, on the ground that other nations were not punished when they transgressed, and that on every occasion they alone were humiliated, so that even Jeremiah said, "Why is the way of the ungodly easy?" Similar in sense to this is the saying in Malachi which has been quoted: "They resisted God and were saved." In uttering their oracles the prophets do not only say that they have heard some message from God; it is also evident that they take up phrases in common use among the people and reply to them, as if they were reporting certain questions raised by them. The saying under discussion is an instance of this.

(96) Then the Devil mocked the Image, and Hell opened its The Soul. Jaws wide, and had the Bridle in their Essences, and continually drew them therewith towards the hellish Fire of the fierce Wrath; and then there was Trembling and Horror in the Mind, and they could not reach the Love of God. Heaven was their Enemy, no Angel came near them, but the horrible Devils, they showed themselves, and hopped, crying, Ho, ho! we have gotten the Game, we are Princes over Men, we will torment them soundly, because they would have possessed our Throne; we should have been their Footstool, and now we are their Judges; what Care we for God, he dwells not in our Kingdom; why has he thrust us out? we will be sure to wreak our Spleen upon his Image. The most pleasant, and most lovely Gate [or Explanation] of the Promise of the Treader upon the Serpent, highly to be considered.

(39) Here comes Man, and prays before God for Forgiveness of Sins, and the Fox hangs behind his Cloak; he would be justified, and his Unrighteousness sticks in the Abyss, and that will not suffer him to enter into the new Regeneration; his Covetousness has taken too much hold of him; his wicked Babel (of Antichrist's Opinions) will not let him come to the true earnest Conversion; they bar up the Gate of Love, [and] the Spirit of this World (in the Lust of the Flesh) continues always [Predominant or] Chief.

(6) Our Divines set themselves Hand and Foot with Might and Main, with their utmost Endeavour, by Persecution and Reproach, against this, [and say,] that Men must not [dare to] search into the deep Grounds what God is; Men must not search nor curiously pry into the Deity. But if I should speak plainly what this Trick of theirs is, it is the Dung and Filth wherewith they cover and hide the Devil, and cloak the injected Malice and Wickedness of the Devil in Man, so that neither the Devil, nor the Anger of God, nor the evil Beast in Man, can be discerned.

(47) On the contrary, many a one is in great Anguish, and longs after it, and generates very painfully, he would fain have uit; but then the Devil rushes upon him, and stirs up Irksomeness [Vexation] and Discontent, and also overwhelms him with great Sins, so that he knows not himself, and then dejects him with Impatience and Doubting; and his Heart stands continually in Anguish, it would fain get out of Evil, and endeavours continually for Abstinence or Forbearance, many Times with Groans, Sighing, and Longing, but then the Devil holds his Sins before him, and bars up the Door of the Grace of God, that he might despair.

(23) And now because the Devil had so highly triumphed, and had Man in the eternal Prison, therefore it was now permitted to the Spirit of this World, that they (viz. the Pharisees, who lived only according to the Spirit of this World) all of them might do and bring to pass whatsoever the Devil had brought into the Essences, in the Garden of Eden; and there all was turned into to [show] us, that all (whatsoever we suffer to come into the Soul, and fill the Soul full of with a total Will) stands in the Figure, and must come to Light at the Judgment of God.

(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.

(27) The Mind searches, wherefore Man must be tempted, whereas God had created him perfect; and seeing God is omniscient, [and knows all Things,] the Mind therefore always lays the Blame upon God; and so do the Devils also; for the Mind says, If the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil had not sprung up, then Adam had not fallen.