(25) Now when God had created great potent princely Angels, and that in the Place of the fourth Form in the Matrix, where the Source of Fire has its Original, they stood not, neither did they cast their Imaginations forward into the fifth Form, wherein the sprouting forth of Paradise consists; but they cast their Imaginations back into themselves, and formed [or created] the Light of God and Paradise. For the fiery Matrix (viz. the Abyss of Hell) moved itself in the Creation so hard, that Lucifer (that great Prince) has formed his Will out of it, and is continued therein, supposing that so he should be a great and terrible Lord in his whole Place [of Dominion.]

(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.

(5) These the Fiat created to a Similitude and Image of God, and overshadowed the same in the Fiat with the overflowing Virtue of God; and the Will of God i set itself [right] against the Image and Similitude, and they now which received the Will, they became Angels, for they set their Imagination, in the Will, in the Heart of God, and they did eat of the Verbum Domini [of the Word of the Lord;] but they that set their Imagination in the dark Mind, as Lucifer [did, that he might] fly out above the Deity and Meekness in the Might of the Fire in the Flash, in the sharp Might of God, and be Lord alone, they became Devils, and they have that Name from their being thrust [or driven] out of the Light; for they were in the Light when the Fiat created them, for the Fiat which created them stood in the Light.

(9) Behold, the three Essences, (viz. [Sourness or] Harshness, Bitterness and Fire) are the Worm or Spirit [that dies not.] God's eternal Will; and in the Attracting of the [sour] Harshness is the Sting [or Prickle] of the Bitterness, which the [sour] Harshness cannot endure, but attracts continually the more forcibly to it, from whence the Prickle continually grows greater, which yet the [sour] Harshness holds Prisoner; and this together is the great Anxiety, which was there in the dark Mind of God the Father, when the Darkness was anxious [or longed] after the Light; from whence in the Anxiety (from the Glance of the Light) it attained the Twinkling Flash: Out of which the Angels were created, which afterward were enlightened from the Light of God (mby their Imagination into the Heart of God;) and the other (like Lucifer) for their Haughtiness [or Pride's] Sake, remained in the Flash of Fire and Anxiety.

(48) Now, thou dear Soul, here you see in a Glass how very near God is to us, and that he himself is the Heart of all Things, and gives to all Virtue, [Power,] and Life. Here Lucifer was very heedless, and became so very proud, that when this Brimstone- Spirit in the Will of the Mind of God was created, then he would fain have flown out above the End of Nature, and would drive the Fire out above the Meekness; he would fain have had all burn in the Fire; he would have ruled [or domineered:] The Sparks of Fire in the Brimstone-Spirit elevated themselves too high; and these Spirits pleased not the Creator, or the Spirit in the Fiat, and [therefore] were not [established] Angels, although in the first Mind (when the Center was opened to the [Creation of the] Spirits) he came to help them, and [beheld] them as well as the other Angels: But they indeed generated a fiery Will, when they should have opened their Center to the Regeneration of their Minds, and so should have generated an angelical Will.

First Eve conceived Abel from the first ruler; and she bore the rest of the sons from the seven authorities and their angels. Now, all this came to pass according to the forethought of the chief creator, so that the first mother might bear within herself every seed, mixed and joined together with the fate of the world and its configurations and justice. A plan came into being because of Eve, so that the fashioned bodies of the authorities might become fences for the light. Then the light will condemn them through their fashioned bodies. The first Adam of light is spiritual and appeared on the first day. The second Adam is a person with soul and appeared on the sixth day, called Aphrodite. The third Adam is earthly, that is, a man of law, who appeared on the eighth day, after the rest of poverty, which is called Sunday. Now, the progeny of the earthly Adam multiplied and was completed and produced within itself all the technical skill of the Adam with soul. But all were in ignorance.

(16) As we are to know, that when God would manifest the eternal Mind in the Darkness, in the third Principle nwith this World, then first all Forms in the first Principle till Fire were manifested, and that Form now which comprehended the Light, that became angelical and paradisical; but that which comprehended not the Light, that remained to be wrathful, murderous, sour and evil, every one in its own Form and Essence. For every Form desired also to be manifested, for it was the Will of the eternal Essence to manifest itself. But now one Form was not able to manifest itself alone in the eternal Birth, for the one is the Member of the other, and the one without the other would not be.

(19) Now the Cross-Birth is the Middlemost in the Essences, yet before the Fire; it stands in the anxious Death in the Fierceness of the Hell, as you may read before; for from the fierce Flash in the Brimstone- spirit, the Fire comes forth, and in the Flash the Light, and the Fierceness itself makes the Brimstone- spirit and out of that (in the Light) comes Water, as is before mentioned. Now then the Soul of Man is discovered in the Flash, as a Spirit, and held by the Fiat, and so is created or generated, and was brought in itself into the fifth Form of the Birth, as into the Love, where then it was an Angel in the Light of God.

(7) Thus now herein is understood, how the divine Essence in the divine Principle has wrought in the Root of the first Principle, which is the Begetter, Matrix, or Genetrix in the eternal Birth in the a Limbus, or in the original Water-Spirit; by which Operation at last, the Earth and Stones come forth. For in the second Principle, (viz. in the holy Birth,) there is only Spirit, Light, and Life; and the eternal Wisdom has wrought in the eternal inanimate Genetrix, which is void of Understanding (viz. in her own Property) before the Original of the Light; out of which came the dark Chaos, which in the Elevation of Lord Lucifer (when the Light of God departed from him, and the Fierceness of the Source of the Fire was kindled) became hard Matter, (viz. Stones and Earth,) whereupon followed the gathering together of the Earth, as also the spewing out of Lucifer from his Throne, and the creating of the third Principle; and thereupon it followed, that he was shut up in the third Principle as a Prisoner, expecting henceforth the [Judgment or] Sentence of God. Now whether it be not a Shame, Disgrace, and Irksomness to him to be so imprisoned between Paradise and this World, and not to be able to comprehend either of them, I propose it to be considered.

(3) For he took not one Lump after another, or many Lumps together, and made Beasts of them, that is not likely; and it is much more a bestial than a human Thought. But, as is mentioned before, after that the Devil was fallen with his Legions, (who had his Throne in the Place of this World, standing bodily after the Manner of a Spirit, in the first Principle, and thoroughly enlightened all over with the second Principle, truly dwelling in Paradise, and in the divine Virtue, [or Power,] and yet with Pride fell from the Light of God, and catched at his own Mother, the Root of the Fire, thinking to domineer over the Meekness of the Heart of God) then his Dwelling continued to be the first Principle in the fiery dark Matrix; and God created the Out-Birth of the Matrix, for a Principle; and in the eternal Matrix, in the longing Will, he opened the Center or Birth of Life; and there (after the manner of the Deity, as the Eternal Deity from Eternity has always generated,) arose [and sprung up] the third Principle, in which the Deity stands as it were hid, yet forming, imagining, or imprinting itself powerfully in all Things; which is incomprehensible and unprofitable for the Devil.

(4) For as God said to the Matrix of the Earth, Let there come forth all Kinds of Beasts, so the Fiat created Beasts out of all the Essences; and first divided the Matrix, and after that the Essences and Qualities; and then he created them out of the divided Matrix, Male and Female. But because the Creatures were material, therefore every Kind [Species or Generation] must thus propagate itself from every Essence; but with the Angels not so, but [their Propagation was] sudden and swift; as God's Thoughts are, so were they.

(6) For when the Matrix was stirred, and that Lord Lucifer would domineer in the Fire, then the dark Matrix attracted all that was wrought in the P Birth together, from whence Earth, Stones, Metals, Brimstone and Salt did proceed: Hereby the Kingdom of Prince Lucifer was shut up, and he remained in the inward Center captivated in the outward.

(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.

(22) Yet if the Soul elevates its Imagination forward into the Light, in Meekness and Comeliness or Humility, and does not (as Lucifer did) use the strong Power of its Fire, in its Qualification, [or Breathing,] then it will be fed by the Word of the Lord, and gets Virtue, Power, Life, and Strength, in the Word of the Lord, which is the Heart of God; and its own original strong [fierce wrathful] Source of the Birth of the eternal Life becomes paradisical, exceeding pleasant, friendly, humble, and sweet, wherein the Rejoicing and the Fountain of the eternal Angel and a Child of God, and it beholds the eternal Generating of the indissoluble Band; and thereof it has Ability to speak, (for it is its own Essence or Substance,) but [it is] not [able to speak] of the infinite Generating, for that has neither Beginning nor End.

(16) And therefore God [created or] generated the third Principle, that he might be i manifested by the material World: He having created the Angels and Spirits in the second Principle in the paradisical World, they could thereby understand the eternal of God, wherein they could behold themselves, and set their Imagination merely 1 upon the Heart of God, in which Form they could remain in Paradise, and continue to be Angels; which the Devils have not done, but they intended to rise up in the Matrix, and domineer in great Power over Paradise, and all angelical Regions, upon which they fell out of Paradise, and besides were driven out of their Place (or Locus) into Restraint, so that the Matrix of this World also holds them captive. Or into,

(32) Now what opposed him, or what drew him from Paradise to Disobedience, so that he passed into another Image, [Form or Condition?] Behold, thou Child of Man, there was a threefold Strife in Adam, without Adam, and in all whatsoever Adam beheld. Thou wilt say, What was it? It was the three Principles; first, the Kingdom of Hell, the Power of the Wrath; and secondly, the Kingdom of this World, with the Stars and Elements; and thirdly, the Kingdom of Paradise, that desired to have him.

(19) And thus he is in this Life threefold, and the threefold Spirit hangs on him, and he is generated therein, neither can he be rid of it, except he [corrupts or] breaks to Pieces; yet he can be rid of Paradise, whensoever his Spirit imagines in the Fierceness [or Wrath] and Falshood, and gives up himself thereto, that so he might be above Meekness and Righteousness in himself, as a Lord, like Lucifer, [and] live in Pride [and Stateliness;] and then Paradise falls [away,] and is shut up; and he loses his first Image which stands in the hidden Element in Paradise.

(7) And there the Fiat (which created the fierce [wrathful or grim] Devils, in Hope that they would of Devils become Angels, who set their Imagination therein, that thereby they might domineer over God and the Kingdom of Heaven) was infected in the Figuring of the Similitudes; and so instantly kindled the Element in the Similitude, viz. in the Out-Birth [or Procreation,] in the Speculating [or Beholding,] so that the Essence has generated to the highest Essences, from whence go forth the four Elements of this World, of the third Principle; and the sharp Fiat of God, which stood in the Out-Birth [or Procreation,] has created the Out-Birth, out of which the Earth and Stones are proceeded. A Fountain with a great many Veins, or as a Stock with many Branches.

(46) And the third Forming was together, in the same Twinkling of an Eye, with the other Formings also at once (out of the [pure] Element) produced, just as if an earthly Seed was sown, out of which a whole Child springs forth, and took its Beginning naturally; and the new Creature (in Perfection of the Element) was the masculine Seed of the earthly Man, which the earthly Matrix of the Virgin conceived in the Bosom of the Virgin Mary; yet the Earthliness defiled not the Limbus of the new Creature in the holy Element, for the- Word of the Deity (which was the Mark of the Limit of Separation) hindered that.

(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.