(23) The Earth is not eternal, and for the Sake of the Fragility [or Corruptibility,] therefore Man's Body must break [or perish,] because he has attracted the Corruptibility to him. Thus also the paradisical Knowledge, Delight and Joy is departed from him, and he is fallen into the kindled Anger, of the kindled four Elements, which (according to their Fierceness) P qualify with the eternal Anger in the Abyss; although the outward Region of the Sun is mitigated, so that it is a pleasant Habitation, as is seen before our Eyes; yet if the Sun should vanish away, then thou wouldst well see and feel the Anger of God. Consider it well.

(7) So also it is very clear and manifest, that before the Curse there grew not such venomous [or poisonous] Thorns and Thistles, and poisonous Fruits; and if God had not cursed the Earth (from the [one] Element) then no Beast should have been so fierce and [mischievous or] evil; for God said, Let the Earth be cursed for thy Sake. From whence now is also arisen the Disobedience of the Beasts towards Man, and their Wildness, [or flying in their Face,] as also, that they are so [cruel,] fierce, [mischievous,] and evil, and that Man must hide himself from their fierce Rage and Fury;] whereas God (in the Creation) gave all into his Power, all Beasts of the Field should be in Subjection under him, which now is quite contrary; for Man is become a Wolf to them [in devouring the Beasts,] and they are [like] Lions against him, and there is mere Eternity against one another; he can scarce order the tame Beasts, much less the wild.

(84) And so instead of the paradisical Joy and Refreshment, there has been a mere Brimstone-Spirit, which stands in Anguish and Trembling, of Corruption [or Fragility,] which kindles the Tincture of the Blood, wherein Tearing, Stinging, and Tormenting is wrought; and if the Fire in the Brimstone-Spirit be too much kindled, then it burns the Tincture up, and the Light of Life goes out, and then the Body falls away to be a dead-Carcase; and if the tart Sourness be kindled too much by the hard Attracting and Holding, then also the Light of Life goes out, and the Body perishes; so also of the Water; if the Tincture kindles itself in the Meekness, then it becomes windy, gross, swelled, wholly dark, also infectious.and corrupt, wherein the Flash of the Life is as a pricking Thorn. And so Man's Life is every where begirt with Enemies, and the poor Soul is always in a close Prison fettered with many Chains, and is continually in Fear that (when the Body shall [die or] break) it may fall into the Kingdom of the Executioner, the Devil.

(5) For it cannot be said that Fire, Bitterness, or Harshness, is in God, much less that Air, Water, and Earth are in him; only it is plain that all Things have proceeded out of that [Original.] Neither can it be said, that Death, Hell-fire, or Sorrowfulness is in God, but it is known that these Things have come out of that [Original.] For God has made no Devil out of himself, but Angels to live in Joy, to their Comfort and Rejoicing; yet it is seen that Devils came to be, and that they became God's Enemies. Therefore the Source or Fountain of the Cause must be sought, vis. what is the Prima Materia, or first Matter of Evil, and that in the Originality of God as well as in the Creatures; for it is all but one only Thing in the Origin: All is out of God, made out of his Essence, according to the Trinity, as he is one in Essence and threefold in Persons.

(8) And in this Form in the Wrath [or fierce Strength] in the watry sour Mother, the sour bitter Earth, Brimstone and Salt, is generated, before the Kindling of the Sun in the Matrix that is void of Understanding. But the Separation that is in it, is caused from the Birth's standing in great Anguish, and from its desiring the Separation in the Birth; for the Bitterness agrees not with the Harshness [or Sourness,] and yet they are as Mother and Son, and as Members one of another; and it must be so, or else nothing could be, for it is the eternal Band, and the Original of Life.

(35) It presents indeed the Wrath of God to itself, and trembles at its Fall, but it knows not what has happened to it; it only presents the Disobedience before itself, and makes [as if] God was an angry malicious Devil, that cannot be reconciled, having indeed put on the Garment of Anger (in Adam and Eve) on to itself in Body and Soul, and has set itself (against the Will of God) in the Bath [or Lake] of Anger, on which God took such Pity [or Compassion,] that he has not spared his own Heart, to send it into the Depth of Anger, into the Abyss of Hell, [as also] into the Death and Breaking of the four Elements from the eternal holy Element, to help fallen Man, and to deliver him out of the Anger and Death.

(75) Thus thou shalt know in what Manner it is Sin before God; thou hast in thyself the [one eternal pure] Element, which is a Joy in the Presence of God; and now if thou ragest and ravest with the Source [Quality or Property] of Hell, then thou touchest [or troublest] the Element; and thou stirrest up the did, when he awakened [or stirred up,] and kindled the Fierce and Stones; thou sinnest [piercing] into the Heaven in the Presence of God, upon which the Prophets complained in many Places, That the Disobedient did grieve their God. Though (in himself) he felt no Pain, yet his Wrath was kindled in the first Principle, in the Gate of the Deep, wherein the Soul stands, and that is a mere Abomination before him.

(16) Thus you must understand what it is [or means] when the Scripture speaks of revenging the Ungodly, that there is Joy in the Saints at it; for the fierce Wrath [or Grimness,] and the Source [or Torment] of Hell, is the Joy of the Heaven: For if there was no Source [or Pain,] there would be no Flowing-up [or Springing.] But if the Light comes [to be] in the fierce, [austere, sour] Source, then there is mere Joy; and in the Darkness there is a peculiar Enmity in itself, and therein is the eternal Worm generated.

(19) But then the Darkness and Source [or Pain] were in the Midst in the Center, wherein Death, the Wrathfulness, Decay, and the Corruptibility did stick; and if that had not been, this World would have stood for ever, and Adam should not have been tempted: P They also, like a Death, (or a corrupting Worm of the Source,) did work together, and generate the Tree of Good and Evil in the Midst of its Seat [or Place,] because Death stuck in the Midst of the Center, by which this World shall be kindled in the Fire at the End of the Days. And this Source is even the Anger of God, which by the Heart or Light of God in the Eternal Father is continually put into the Meekness; and therefore the Word or Heart of God is called the Eternal Mercifulness of the Father.

(14) We have a very powerful Testimony hereof, and it is known in Nature, and in all her Children, in the Stars and Elements, in the Earth, Stones, and Metals; especially in the living Creatures, as you see, how they are evil and good, viz. lovely Creatures, and also venomous evil Beasts; as Toads, Adders, and Serpents, [or Worms;] so also there is Poison and Malice in every Sort of kLife of the third Principle: And the [Fierceness] or Strength must be in Nature, or else all were a Death and a Nothing. The Depth in the Center.

(47) Now therefore the Anguish, Bitterness, and Woe in the [Sting or] Prickle, are like a Brimstone-Spirit, and all Spirits in Nature are Brimstone: They [torment, or] cause the Anguish in one another, till that the Light of God comes to help them; and then there comes to be a Flash, and there is its End, for it can climb no higher in Nature; and this is the Fire, which becomes shining in the Flash, in the Soul, and also in the Mind. For the Soul reaches the Virtue of the Light, which puts it into Meekness; and in this World it is the burning Fire: In Hell it is immaterial, and there it is the eternal Fire, which burns in the P Quality.

(24) Or what thinkest thou, if thy Twig be thus very dry and withered, and that thou must eternally swelter in the Anger of God, where instantly thy human Image will be taken away, and thou wilt be in the a Shape of the most abominable Beasts, Worms, and Serpents, all according to thy Deeds and Practice here, where then all thy Deeds will stand in the Figure in the Tincture eternally before thy Eyes, and will gnaw thee sufficiently, so that thou wilt continually think, if thou hadst not done this or that, thou shouldst have attained the Grace of God? Thy Mocking stands before thy Eyes, and thou art ashamed to let the least good Thought into thy Soul; for Good is as an Angel before thee, and thou darest not (for great Shame) so much as to touch it with thy Mind, much less look upon it. But thou must eternally devour into thyself thy great Scorning, with all thy Vices and Sins, and thou must eternally despair; and though thou thinkest to go forth after Abstinence, yet the Light strikes thee down again, and so thou goest but forth aloft (in thy devouring fretting Worm, in thyself) without the Thrones of God; and it is with thee, as with one who stands upon a high stony Cliff of a Rock, and would cast himself into a bottomless Gulf; and the further he sees, the deeper he falls. Thus thy own Sins, Scornings, Deridings, Cursings in Contempt of God, are thy Hell-fire, which gnaws thee eternally; this I speak in the Word of Life.

(5) We must conceive, that there was then a very pleasant Habitation upon the Earth; for all the Fruits did grow [spring and bud] out of the hidden Element, through the Fierceness of the four Elements; and although the four Elements had also their Fruits, yet Man should not (but the Beasts of the Field should) have eaten thereof. But now when the Lord cursed the Earth, then the Element withdrew from the Root of the Fruit, for God's Cursing is nothing else, but this Flying from a Thing; and thus God's Holiness is flown from the Root of the Fruit, and so the Root [of the Fruits] remains in the four Elements, in the Out-Birth; and Adam and Eve were also fallen thereinto. And thus now like came to like; his Body also was become earthly, and must turn to Earth again.

(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.