(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.

(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.

(49) For as the Tree was, so was the Fruit; and though the Tree was not wholly evil [or false,] yet as to the becoming Man, the Tincture (by the Wrestling of the two Regions) became false [or evil.] And besides, afterwards Eve (his Mother) helped him forward very much, because she sought after an earthly Lord and Treader upon the Serpent, and instructed him, [telling him,] that he was the Warrior [or Soldier to overcome] against the Devil, he must do it; and so the Wrath held him captive, and his Offering [or Sacrifice] was not acceptable to God, because (in Wrath) he built upon himself, and so his Prayer reached not the Gate of Heaven, but the Driver took it up, because it proceeded out of Self-Pride, like the proud Pharisee, out of an [evil or] false Mind.

(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.

(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.

(46) And now when Eve was impregnated, her Tincture was wholly murderous and false, for her Spirit in the Love looked not upon God with a total Trust and Confidence. Also the Wisdom of God stood hidden in the Center of the Light of her Life. Eve did not unite [or yield herself] to it with Love and Confidence, but much rather to the Lust of this World; she must bring it to pass, if any Thing was to be done; and seeing her Trust was not in God, so also God was not in her, but in his own Center [or Principle;] and the Wrath begun to flow forth [boil or work;] and this is that which Christ said, An evil Tree brings forth evil Fruit; and so out of a false Tincture grew a sour evil Root, and consequently such a Tree and Fruit. Also that which goes forth [is] as the Tincture in the Mixture was, and such a Child is generated, for the Spirit of the Life generates itself out of the Essences.

(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.

(24) Therefore we say now, according to our high Knowledge, that the Source [or active Desire] of all the three Principles does imprint itself together with the Child's Incarnation [or becoming Man,] in the Mother's Body. For after that Man is figured [or shaped] from the Stars and Elements, by the Fiat, so that the Elements have taken Possession of their Regions, [Kingdoms, or Dominions,] viz. the Heart, Liver, Lungs, Bladder, and Stomach, wherein they have their Regions, then must the there stands now the Image of God, and the Image of this World, and there also is the Image of the Devil. Now there must be Wrestling and Overcoming, and there is Need of the Treader upon the Serpent, even in the Mother's [Womb or] Body.

(103) But if nature led them, like the irrational animals, to procreation, yet they were impelled to do it more quickly than. was proper because they were still young and had been led away by deceit. Thus God's judgment against them was just, because they did not wait for his will. But birth is holy. By it were made the world, the existences, the natures, the angels, powers, souls, the commandments, the law, the gospel, the knowledge of God. And "all flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withers, the flower falls; but the word of the Lord abides" which anoints the soul and unites it with the spirit. Without the body how could the divine plan for us in the Church achieve its end? Surely the Lord himself, the head of the Church, came in the flesh, though without form and beauty, to teach us to look upon the formless and incorporeal nature of the divine Cause. "For a tree of life" says the prophet, "grows by a good desire," teaching that desires which are in the living Lord are good and pure.

(39) This Figure does not (as many judge) go into the Abyss, but as the Parents were, so is also their Figure; for this Figure is the Parent's, till the Kindling of its Life, and then it is no more the Parent's, but its own. The Mother affords but a Lodging, and the Nutriment; and therefore if she destroys it willingly in her Body, she is a Murderer, and the divine Law judges her to the temporal Death.

(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.

(80) But if Men search very deep, this [that follows they will find] is the very Ground. Eve was the Child in the Matrix of Adam, which Adam (if he had not been overcome) should have generated out of himself, in great Modesty [Purity] and Holiness; but because Adam' Matrix was impregnated from the Spirit of this World, therefore God must frame a fleshly Woman out of it, which afterwards (in her first Fruit) became lustful, and infected from the Devil, as well as the Limbus in Adam. 8 1. And therefore they also generated such a towardly Child as looked only after Covetousness; as Eve also did, who would be like God; and surely Adam had some Mind that Way, or else he should not have entered into the Spirit of this World.

(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.

(60) And the Hardening is not so wholly in the Birth, that the Soul (from the Mother' Womb) should be quite dead to God, or that God did not desire it. The Anger is in the Flowing [Working or Boiling] of the Father, and the Father is God indeed, and generates his dear Heart and Love (in the Breaking of the Gate in the Habitation) out of himself. Should he then be at odds with himself, because his Anger is under the Root of his Love? Should he be at Enmity against himself? his Anger is his Strength and Omnipotence, and consuming Fire; and his Heart in the Love is his Meekness; and so now, that which approaches and enters into his Anger, is captivated in the Anger.

(85) Thus in Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (after the biting of the Apple) there sprung up the first Fruit in the Gate of the Deep, where the Soul stands before God, and qualifies [or mixes] with the Will of the Justice of the Father, who sets his Will before him (in the Breaking of the Darkness) in the Light of the Meekness, and continually generates his beloved Heart and Son in the Virtue of the Meekness of the Will, viz. his eternal Word, from Eternity.

(4) For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes.

(100) When Jeremiah says, Cursed be the day in which I was born, and let it not be longed for," he is not saying simply that birth is accursed, but is in despair at the sins and disobedience of the people. In fact he goes on, "Why was I born to see labour and pain and my days accomplished in shame?" All those who preach the truth are persecuted and in danger because of the disobedience of their hearers. "Why did not my mother's womb become my tomb, that I might not see the distress of Jacob and the toil of the nation of Israel?" says Esdras the prophet. “No one is pure from defilement," says Job, "not even if his life last but one day." Let them tell us how the newly born child could commit fornication, or how that which has done nothing has fallen under the curse of Adam. The only consistent answer for them, it seems, is to say that birth is an evil, not only for the body, but also for the soul for the sake of which the body itself exists. And when David says: “In sin I was born and in unrighteousness my mother conceived me," he says in prophetic manner that Eve is his mother. For Eve became the mother of the living." But if he was conceived in sin, yet he was not himself in sin, nor is he himself sin.

(45) Reason saith, how might that come to pass, that the first Man born of a Woman was [so evil] a malicious Murderer? Behold, thou immodest vile whorish World, here thou shalt find the great Secrets meet us in the Light of Nature, very clearly and plainly to be understood. For Adam and Eve were entered into the Spirit of this World, and the Region of the four Stars, with the Infection of the Devil, had miserably possessed them. And although they did somewhat stick to the Word of the Promise, yet the true Longing and Love towards God was very much extinguished; and on the contrary, the Longing and Desire after this World was kindled in them; and besides, they got (from the Region of the Stars) a bestial Lust [or wanton Desire] towards one another, so that their Tincture thus became a fierce bestial [Lust or] Longing; for they had no Law but the Light of Nature, which they suppressed, and kindled themselves in wanton [Lust,] to which the Devil helped them.

(69) Yet Men cannot say, that Mary was born out of a barren Womb, although the Body of Anna was unfruitful, which was from the Council of God; in that they were honest [virtuous] People, fearing God, that their Tincture might not be defiled, because they were to generate that which the Lord would highly bless. God knew how to open it in due Time, and that in old Age, when the wanton Lust of this World from the Elements was extinguished, as in Sarah, Abraham's Wife.