(53) And the second Birth of the Soul of Christ stood in the natural Propagation, like [the Souls of] all Men; for he also as well [as other Men] was in the six Months wholly figured [framed or formed] with a natural Body and Soul, with all the Gates of the Mind and Senses; the Soul in the first Principle, and the Body in the third Principle; and then Christ (the true Breaker through) continued standing in the second Principle, in the Kingdom of God, and after nine Months was born a Man, out of the Body [or Womb] of the Virgin Mary, and we saw his Glory as the Glory of the only begotten Son of God the Father.

(9) For it is written, you must be born anew through the Water and the Spirit, or else you shall not see the Kingdom of God. This Birth must be done within you: The Heart, or the Son of God must arise in the Birth of your Life; and then the Saviour Christ is your faithful Shepherd, and you are in Him, and He in you, and all that He and his Father have is yours, and none shall pluck you out of his Hands; and as the Son (viz. the Heart of the Father) is one [with the Father,] so also the new Man is one in the Father and the Son, one Virtue or Power, one Light, one Life, one eternal Paradise, one eternal heavenly Birth, one Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and thou his Child.

(26) And as the Prophets have written of it, so the new Man, (which is born to us of God) is the Son of the Virgin, not of earthly Flesh and Blood, also not of the Seed of Man, but conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of a pure divine chaste Virgin, and (in this World) revealed [or manifested] in our Flesh and Blood, and is entered with his holy Body into Death, and has separated the earthly [Body,] together with the Might of the Anger, from the holy Element, and has restored the Soul again, and has opened the Gate to the Light of God again, so that the averted Soul can (with the Essences of the Father in the holy Will) reach the Light of God again.

(56) For behold, the Father is the original Essence of all Essences. And if now the second Principle did not break forth and spring up in the Birth of the Son, then the Father would be a dark Valley. And thus you see, that the Son (who is the Heart, the Love, the Brightness and the mild Rejoicing of the Father,) [in whom he is well-pleased,] opens another Principle in his Birth, and makes the angry and wrathful Father (as I may say, as to the Originality of the first Principle) reconciled, pleased, loving, and as I may say, merciful; and he is another [Manner of] Person than the Father; for in his a Center there is nothing else but mere Joy, Love, and Pleasure. And yet you may see that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, for when the Heart or Light of God is generated in the Father, then there springs up (in the Kindling of the Light in the fifth Form) out of the Water-Source in the Light, a very pleasant sweet smelling and sweet tasted Spirit; and this is that Spirit which in the Original was the bitter Sting or Prickle in the Harshness [or Tartness;] and that makes now in this Water-Source many thousand of the Water.

(53) And there begins the unfathomable [or unsearchable] Multiplication; for the flowing and springing Spirit, that proceeds from the first and second Principle, confirms, fixes and establishes all; and in the whole Birth it is as a Growing or Multiplying uin one Will; and the Birth attains here the seventh Form, vis. the Multiplication into an Essence of Love. And in this Form consists Paradise, or the Kingdom of God, or the numberless divine Birth, out of one only Essence xinto all Essences.

(17) As we have, in the Beginning of this Book, mentioned the eternal Birth in the Originality, so we have mentioned the Birth of the Essences, and the seven Spirits of the eternal Nature; and therein we showed how there is a Cross-Birth in the eternal Birth in the fourth Form, where the Essences in the turning Wheel make a Cross-Birth, because they cannot go out from themselves, but that the eternal Birth is every where so in all Things, in the Essence of all Essences.

(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.

(4) But the Soul of Man, which is enlightened with the holy Spirit of God, (which in the second Principle proceeds from the Father and the Son in the holy Heaven, that is, in the true divine Nature which is called God;) this Soul sees even into the Light of God, into the same second Principle of the holy divine Birth, into the heavenly Essence: But the syderial Spirit wherewith the Soul is clothed, and also the elementary [Spirit] which i rules the Source, or Springing and Impulsion of the Blood, they see no further than into their Mother, whence they are, and wherein they live.

(12) And the Soul here in this World uses the Light of the third Principle, after which the Soul of Adam lusted, and thereupon was captivated by the Spirit of the great World. But if the Soul be regenerated in the Holy Ghost, so that its Center to the Regeneration springs forth o., then it sees with two Lights, and lives in two Principles. And the most inward [Principle] (viz. the first) is shut up fast, and hangs but to it, in which the Soul is tempted and afflicted by the Devil; and on the contrary, the P Virgin (which belongs to [and is in] the Tincture of the Regeneration, and in the Departure of the Body from the Soul, shall dwell [in the same Tincture,]) is in continual Strife and Combat with the Devil, and tramples upon his Head in the Virtue [and Power] of the [Sours] Prince and Champion, (viz. the Son of the Virgin,) when a new Body (out of the Virtue [or Power] of the Soul) shall spring forth in the Tincture of the Soul.

(58) But the Holy Ghost is not dknown in the Original of the Father before the Light [breaks forth;] but when the soft Fountain springs up in the Light, then he goes forth as a strong Almighty Spirit in great Joy, from the pleasant Source of Water, and [from] the Light, and he is the Power and Virtue of the Source of Water, and of the Light; and he makes now the Forming, [Shaping, Figuring,] and Images, [or Species;] and he is the Center in all Essences; in which [Center] the Light of Life, in the Light of the Sun, or Heart of the Father, takes its Original. And the Holy Ghost is a several Person, because he proceeds (as a living Power and Virtue) from the Father and the Son, and confirms the Birth of the Trinity. forth in the Original of the Fire before the Light is kindled.

(44) But in the new Man (which we attract onto our Souls in the Bosom of the Virgin) we shall spring and flourish again; and therein is no Necessity nor Death, for the Kingdom of this World passes away. Therefore he that has not this Image in the new Birth, shall, in the Restoration of the Spirit of the eternal Nature, have the Image of what his Heart and Confidence has been set upon here [put upon him;] for every Kingdom images [or figures] its Creatures, according to the Essences which were grown here in their Will.

(10) This Birth [or active Property] with the indissoluble Band, is generated in every Soul; and there is no Soul before the Kindling of the Light in the Child in the Mother's Body. For with the Kindling, the eternal Band is knit [or tied,] so that it stands eternally, and this Worm of the three Essences does not die, nor separate itself; for it is not possible, [because] they are all three generated out of one [only] Fountain, and have three Qualities, and yet are but one Being [or Substance;] as the Holy Trinity is but in one only Essence [or Substance;] and yet they have three Originalities in one Mother, and they are one [only] Being [or Substance] in one another. Thus also (and not a whit less) is the Soul of Man, but only one Degree in the first Going forth; for it is generated out of the Father's eternal Will (and not out of the Heart of God) yet the Heart of God is the nearest to it of all.

(18) I am the second outcome of the sky, and the third of him who makes his light. I have come out of the womb; I have been an infant like my father; there are no perverse actions of mine in the various events of my lot

(33) Now in this pleasant Source, the moving Spirit (which in the Original, in the Kindling, was the bitter aching Spirit) springs forth very joyfully without removing, and it is the Holy Ghost; and the sweet Source [or Fountain,] which is generated in the Center from the Light, is the Word or Heart of God; and in this Joy is the Paradise, and the Birth is the eternal Trinity: In this you must dwell, if you will be in Paradise; and the same must be born [or generated] in you, if you will be the Child of God, and your Soul must be in it, or else you cannot enjoy nor see the Kingdom of God.

(9) At the time of birth the conscious spirit draws in the power of the air and thus becomes the dwelling of the new-born. It lives in the heart. From that time on the heart is master, and the primordial spirit loses its place while the conscious spirit has power.

(14) But if any would attain Salvation, he must be born again, through the Water in the Center of the Birth of Life, which springs up in the Center of the Light of God; for which End God the Father has by his Son commanded Baptism, that so we might have a Law, and a remarkable Sign of Remembrance, signifying how a Child void of Understanding receives an outward Sign, and the inward Man the Power and the new Birth in the Center of the Birth of Life; and that there arises the Confirmation, which the Light of God brought into Adam, when the Light of God the Father, in the Center of the fifth Form of the Birth of the Life of Adam, broke forth or sprung up. Thus it is both in the Baptism of an Infant or Child, and also in the repenting Convert, that in Christ returns again to the Father.

(61) Although we may be hard to be understood, in our high Knowledge; (because a Soul that desires to see it, must enter into the new Birth, or else it stands behind the Vail [of Moses,] and asks continually, Where is the Place?) Therefore we will set it down for the Sake of the Lily-Rose, where then the Holy Ghost will open many Doors in the Wonders, which Men now hold for impossible P; and in the World none is therein, but they are rin Babel

(10) Man's Image born of a Woman, here in this Life, is in a threefold Form, and stands in three Principles [or Beginnings;] viz. the Soul, that has its Original out of the first Principle, out of the strong and sour Might of the Eternity; and it swims [or moves] between two Principles, begirt with the third [Principle;] it reaches with its original Root into the Depth of the Eternity, in the Source [or Quality] where God the Father from Eternity enters (through the Gates of the Breaking through, and Opening) in himself, into the Light of Joy; and it is in the Band, where God calls himself a jealous, angry and austere God, and is a Sparkle out of the Omnipotence, appearing in the great Wonders of the Wisdom of God, through the dear Virgin of Chastity; and with the Form of the first Principle [it stands] in the Gate of the Sourness of Eternity [mingled, united, or] qualified with the Region of the Sun and Stars, and begirt with the four Elements; and the holy Element (viz. the Root of the four Elements) that is the Body of the Soul, in the second Principle, in the Gate [before or] towards God; and according to the Spirit of this World, the Region of the Stars is the Body of the Soul; and the Production of the four Elements is the Source-house, [or House of Operation,] or the Spirit of this World, which kindles the Region, so that it [springs forth or] operates. 1 1. And thus the Soul lives in such a threefold Source [or working Quality,] being bound with three Cords, and is drawn of all three. The first Cord is the Band of Eternity, generated in the Rising up of the Anxiety, and reaches the Abyss of Hell. The second Cord is the Kingdom of Heaven, generated through the Gates of the Deep in the Father, and regenerated out of the Birth of Sins, through the Humanity of Christ, and there the Soul also (in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ the Son of God) is tied up, and is drawn by the dear Virgin, in the Word of God. The third Cord is the Kingdom of the Stars, qualifying [or mingling] with the Soul, and it is hard drawn and held by the four Elements, and carried and led by them.

(2) But if the Reader be tborn of God, there is no nearer Way for him to come to the Knowledge of the third Principle, than by considering the new Birth, how the Soul is new born by the Love of God in the Light, and how it is translated out of the Prison or Dungeon of Darkness into the Light by a second Birth. And now if you consider that Darkness wherein it must be without the new Birth; and consider what the Scripture says, and what every one finds by Experience, that falls into the Wrath of God, and whereof there are terrible Examples; that the Soul must endure irksome Torment in itself, in the Birth of the Life of its own self, so long as it is in the Wrath of God; and then that if it be born again, exulting great Joy arises in it; and thus you find very clearly and plainly two Principles, as also God, Paradise, and the Kingdom of Heaven.

(6) Those who absolutely have no ear for these sacred initiations do not even recognize the images,-- unblushingly rejecting the saving revelation of the Divine Birth, and in opposition to the Oracles reply to their destruction, "Thy ways I do not wish to know." Now the regulation of the holy Hierarchy permits the catechumens, and the possessed, and the penitents, to hear the sacred chanting of the Psalms, and the inspired reading of the all-Holy Scriptures; but it does not invite them to the next religious services and contemplations, but only the eyes of the initiated. For the Godlike Hierarchy is full of reverent justice, and distributes savingly to each, according to their due, bequeathing savingly the harmonious communication of each of the things Divine, in measure, and proportion, and due time. The lowest rank, then, is assigned to the catechumens, for they are without participation and instruction in every Hierarchical initiation, not even having the being in God by Divine Birth, but are yet being brought to Birth by the Paternal Oracles, and moulded, by life-giving formations, towards the blessed introduction to their first life and first light from Birth in God. As, then, children after the flesh, if, whilst immature and unformed, they should anticipate their proper delivery, as untimely born and abortions, will fall to earth without life and without light; and no one, in his senses, would say from what he saw, that they, released from the darkness of the womb, were brought to the light (for the medical authority, which is learned in the functions of the body, would say that light operates on things receptive of light); so also the all-wise science of religious rites brings these first to delivery, by the preparatory nourishment of the formative and life-giving Oracles; and when it has made their person ripe for Divine Birth, gives to them savingly, in due order, the participation in things luminous and perfecting; but, at present, it separates things perfect from them as imperfect, consulting the good order of sacred things, and the delivery and life of the catechumens, in a Godlike order of the Hierarchical rites.