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(10) Seeing then that the eternal Wisdom of God (viz. in the chaste Virgin of the divine Virtue) had discovered itself in the Principle of this World, in which Place the great Prince Lucifer stood in the Heaven, in the second Principle, therefore the same Discovering was eternal, and God desired to shed forth the Similitude out of the Essences, which the Fiat created according to the Kind of every Essence, that they should (after the Breaking [or Dissolution] of the outward Substance) be a Figure and Image in Paradise, and a Shadow of this Substance. 1 1. And that there should go nothing in Vain out of the Substance of God, therefore God created Beasts, Fowls, Fishes, Worms, Trees and Herbs out of all Essences; and besides [created] also figured Spirits out of the Quinta Essentia, in the Elements, that so, after the completing of the Time (when the Out-Birth [shall] go into the Ether) they should appear before him, and that his eternal Wisdom in his Works of Wonder might he known.

(11) Seeing Adam was created an Image and whole Similitude of God, and had all three Principles in him like God himself, therefore also his Mind and Imagination should merely have looked into the Heart of God, and should have set his Lust and [Desire, or] Will thereon; and as he was a Lord over all, and that his Mind was a threefold Spirit, in three Principles in one only Essence, so his Spirit also, and the Will in the Spirit, should have stood open [or free] in one only Essence, viz. in the paradisical heavenly [Essence.] And his Mind and Soul should have eaten of the Heart of God, and his Body [should have eaten] of the heavenly Limbus.

(25) In this [Garden] now the Image of God stood altogether free. It might embrace [and take] what it would, only the Tree of Temptation, that was forbidden. There he was forty Days in the paradisical Knowledge, Joy, and Habitation, where yet there was neither Day nor Night to him, but only the Eternity; he saw with his Eyes [from or] out of the divine Power [and Virtue.] There was in him no Shutting of his Eyes; he had no Need of the Sun at all, yet all Things must serve and be subject to him. The Out-Birth [or Production] of the four Elements did not touch him; there was no Sleep in him, nor Pain, nor Fear. A thousand Years were to him but as a Day; he was such an Image as shall rise at the last Day; there will rise no other Image than that which God created in the Beginning, therefore consider it well.

(40) Besides, he was created by the Word, or Heart of God, that he should be his Image and Similitude, very powerfully in all the three Principles, [and be] as great as a Prince or Throne- Angel. But this Tree standing thus in the Garden, and of all the Trees that only did bear Fruit, therefore Adam looked so often upon it, because he knew that it was the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Virtue of the Tree pressed him to it so very hard (which Virtue was also in him) that the one Lust infected [poisoned or mingled with] the other: And the Spirit of the great World pressed Adam so very hard, that he became infected, and his Virtue [or Power] was overcome. Here the paradisical Man was undone, and then said the Heart of God, It is not good that Man [should] be alone, we will make him a Help [or Consort] to be with him.

(17) When God had created Adam thus, he was then in Paradise in the Joyfulness; and this clarified [or 1 brightened] Man was wholly beautiful, and full of all Manner of Knowledge; and there God brought all the Beasts to him, (as to the great Lord in this World) that he should look upon them, and give to every one their Name, according to their Essence and Virtue, as the Spirit of every one was figured in them. And Adam knew all what every Creature was, and he gave every one their Name, according to the Quality [or working Property] of their Spirit. As God can see into the Heart of all Things, so could Adam also do, in which his Perfection may very well be observed.

(49) The first Will, out of which they were created, that was God's, and that made them good; and the second Will, which they as obedient [Children] should have generated out of their Center in Meekness, that was evil: And therefore the Father, for generating such a Child, was thrust out from the Virtue of God, and so he spoiled the angelical Kingdom, and remained in the Source of the Fire: And because the evil Child of their Mind did turn away from the Meekness, therefore they attained what they desired. For the Mind is the God and the Creator of the Will; that is free from the eternal Nature, and therefore what it generates to itself, that it has.

(3) Now when God was to create the World, and all things therein, he had no other a Matter to make it of, but his own which has neither Beginning nor End, and his Greatness and Depth is all. Yet a Spirit does nothing but ascend, flow, move, and continually generate itself, and in itself has chiefly a threefold Manner of Form in its Generating or Birth, vis. Bitterness, Harshness, and cHeat, and these three Manner of Forms are neither of them the first, second, nor third; for all these three are but one, and each of them generates the second and third. For between Harshness and Bitterness, Fire is generated: and the Wrath of the Fire is the Bitterness or Sting itself, and the Harshness is the Stock or Father of both these, and yet is generated of them both; for a Spirit is like a Will, Sense, [or Thought,] which rises up, and in its Rising beholds,perfects, and generates itself.

(33) Now these three Kingdoms were in Adam, and also without him; and in the Essences there was a mighty Strife, all drew as well in Adam as without Adam, and would fain have him; for he was a great Lord [come] out of all the [Powers or] Virtues of Nature. The Heart of God desired to have him in Paradise, and [would] dwell in him; for it said, it is my Image and Similitude. And the Kingdom of Wrath [and of the fierce Tartness] would also have him; for it said, he is mine, and he is [proceeded] out of my Fountain, out of the eternal Mind of the Darkness; I will be in him, and he shall live in my Might, for he is generated out of [that which is] mine, I will, through him, shew great and strong Power. The Kingdom of this World said, he is mine; for he bears my Image, and he lives in [that which is] mine, and I in him; he must be obedient to me, I will tame him and compel him, I have all my Members in him, and he in me; I am greater than he, he must be my Householder, I will show my fair Wonders and Virtues in him, he must manifest my Wonders and Virtues, he shall keep and manage my Herds, I will cloathe him with my fair Glory; as now it is to be seen.

(66) Thus it is with those Angels that continued in the Kingdom of Heaven in the true Paradise, they stand in the first Principle in the indissoluble Band, and their Food is the divine Power, in their Imagination (or Imagining) [in their Thoughts and Mind] is the Will of the Holy Trinity in the Deity; the Confirmation [or Establishing] of their Life, Will, and Doings, is the Power of the Holy Ghost; whatsoever that does in the generating of Paradise, the Angels rejoice at, and they sing the joyful Songs of Paradise, concerning the pleasant saving Fruit, and eternal Birth. All they do is an Increasing of the heavenly Joy, and a Delight and Pleasure to the Heart of God, a holy Sport in Paradise, a [satisfying of the Desire or] Will of the eternal Father; to this End their God created them, that he might be manifested, and rejoice in his Creatures, and the Creatures in him, so that there might be an eternal Sport of Love, in the Center of the Multiplying (or eternal Nature) in the indissoluble eternal Band.

(12) Seeing then God is all in all, and has created Man to his Image and Similitude, to live with him eternally in his Love, Light, Joy and Glory, therefore we cannot say, that he was merely created out of the Corruptibility of this World, for therein is no eternal perfect Life, but Death, and Perplexity, Anguish, and Necessity; but as God dwells in himself, and goes through all his Works incomprehensibly to them, and is hindered by nothing, so was the Similitude before him out of the pure Element; it was indeed created in this World, yet the Kingdom of this World should not comprehend that [Image,] but the Similitude (Man) should mightily, and in perfect [Power or] Virtue, rule through the Essences (with the Essences out of the pure Element of the paradisical holy Limbus) through the Dominion of this World.

(51) To conclude, God will have no fiery Spirit in Paradise, they must remain in the first Principle, in the eternal Darkness; if they had continued as God had created them (when the Meekness shined [or appeared] to them) and had put the Center of their Minds into the Meekness, then the Light of God should for ever have shined through them, and they should have eaten of the Verbum Domini [the Word of the Lord;] and they should with the Root of their Original have stood in the first Principle, like God the Father himself, and with the Will in the Mind [they should have stood] in the second Principle: Thus they should have had a paradisical Source, [Quality or Property,] and an angelical Will; and they should have been friendly in the Limbus of Heaven, and in the Love of God.

(10) God could well have created Creatures which should have managed the Beasts, [so] that Man might well have staid in Paradise in the angelical Form; and besides that, there are already, in all the four Elements, Creatures without a Soul; God would well have laid the Labour [or Charge] of Managing the Beasts upon another Generation, which were also 1 earthly. But he saw well that Man would not stand, therefore instantly the Burthen was laid upon him, as Moses also writes of it. Or of the four Elements. 1 1. But if God would have had bestial Men, then he would have created them so in the Beginning, and given them no Commandment, neither should they have been tempted; as indeed the Beasts have no Law.

(2) Therefore now I direct the Reader to the Creatures, that he may search into them, and so he shall find all Things, and that more wonderfully than any Man can write or speak, if we be born of God. We must not a think with our Understanding and Skill, of God's making or creating, as of a Man that makes something, as a Potter makes a Vessel of a Lump of Clay, or a Stone-Cutter or Carver makes an Image after his Pleasure; and if it does not please him, then he breaks it again: No, the Works of God, in the Creation of the World, were altogether fixt and stedfast, good and perfect, as Moses writes: And God saw all that he had made, and behold it was very good.

(8) Behold, when God had created the third Principle, after the Fall of the Devils, when they fell from their Glory (for they had been Angels, standing in the Place of this World) yet nevertheless he would that his Will and Purpose should stand; and therefore he would give to the Place of this World an angelical he having created the Creatures, whose Shadows after the Changing of the World should continue for ever, yet there was no Creature found that could have any Joy therein [in the Shadows,] neither was there any Creature found that might manage the Beasts in this World; therefore God said, Let us make Man an Image like unto us, which may rule over all the Beasts, and Creatures upon the Earth; and God created Man to be his Image, after the Image of God created he him.

(34) When God had finished this on the fourth Day, he saw it, and considered it, and it was good, as Moses writes. Then God desired in his external Will, that this Kingdom or Principle [of this World] should also be creaturely, like the perfect paradisical Kingdom, that there should be living Creatures therein. And the Will set the Virtue (that is, the Word) in the Fiat; and then the Matrix generated all manner of [living] Creatures on the fifth Day, every one after its Kind. You must understand by the word Kind, as many various [Forms] as the Matrix is [of;] as you may observe it in the Constellation.

(11) For although many thousand several Herbs stand one by another in one and the same Meadow, and one of them is fairer and has more Virtue than another, yet one of them does not grudge at the Form of another, but there is a pleasant Refreshment in one Mother: So also there is a distinct Variety in Paradise, where every Creature has its greatest Joy in the Virtue and Beauty of another; and the eternal Virtue and Wisdom of God is without Number and End; as you found before in the third Chapter concerning the Opening of the Centers of the eternal Life. You shall find no Book wherein the divine Wisdom may be more searched into, and found, than when you walk in a flowery fresh springing Meadow, there you shall see, smell, and taste the wonderful Power and Virtue of God; though this be but material; and God has manifested himself in a Similitude. But [this Similitude] is a loving Schoolmaster to him that seeks, he shall there find many of them.