(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.

(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.

(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.

(17) But we should not here again wholly set down the Ground of the Deity, so far as it is otherwise meet and known by us, we account that needless [here,] for you may find it before the Incarnation of a Child in the Mother's [Womb or] Body. We set down thus much here, to the End that the Region of his World may be understood. And thus we give the Reader exactly to understand and know how the Region of Good and Evil are in one another, and how it is an imperishable Thing [or Substance,] so that one is generated out of the other, and that also the one goes forth out of the other into another Substance [or Being,] which it was not in the Beginning; as you may learn to understand this in Man, who in his Beginning, in the Will of Man and Woman, viz. in the Limbus, and in the Matrix, is conceived in the Tincture, and sown in an earthly Soil; where then the first Tincture A Desiring or Attracting. Dispels. (in the Will) breaks, and his own Tincture springs forth out of the anxious [or aching] Chamber of Darkness, and of Death, out of the anxious Source [or Property,] and blossoms out of the Darkness, in the broken Gate of the Darkness in it, as a pleasant Habitation, and so generates its Light out of the anxious Fierceness out of itself; where then (in the Light) there goes forth again the endless Source of the [Thoughts or] Senses, which make a Throne and Region of Reason, which governs the whole House, and desires to enter into the Region of Heaven, out of which it proceeded not. And therefore now this is not the original Will, which there desires to enter into the Region of the Heaven; but it is the preconceived Will out of the Source of the Anxiety, [which Will is a Desire to] enter through the deep Gate of God.

(38) And it highly concerns us to know and apprehend, that when the Seed is sown in the Matrix, and that it is drawn together by the Fiat (when the Stars and the outward Elements set themselves in [the Dominion,] and that the Love and Meekness is extinguished; for there comes to be a fierce Substance in the Stopping [or Congealing] of the Tincture) that before the Kindling of the Light of Life, in the Child, there is no heavenly Creature. And although kit be figured [or shaped] with all the Forms [or Parts] of the Body, yet notwithstanding the heavenly Image is not therein, but the bestial. And if that Body perishes [corrupts, or breaks] before the Kindling of the Spirit of the Soul in the springing up of the Life, then nothing of this Figure appears before God on the Day of the Restitution, but its Shadow and Shape; for it has yet had no Spirit.

(1) "And when the darkness saw the womb, he became unchaste. And when he had aroused the water, he rubbed the womb. His mind dissolved down to the depths of nature. It mingled with the power of the bitterness of darkness. And the womb's eye ruptured at the wickedness in order that she might not again bring forth the mind. For it was a seed of nature from the dark root. And when nature had taken to herself the mind by means of the dark power, every likeness took shape in her. And when the darkness had acquired the likeness of the mind, it resembled the spirit. For nature rose up to expel it; she was powerless against it, since she did not have a form from the darkness. For she brought it forth in the cloud. And the cloud shone. A mind appeared in it like a frightful, harmful fire. The mind collided against the unconceived spirit, since it possessed a likeness from him, in order that nature might become empty of the chaotic fire.

(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.

(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.

(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.

(4) "Is the babe born, the power is feeble in it, and the soul is feeble in it, and also the counterfeiting spirit is feeble in it; in a word, the three together are feeble, without any one of them sensing anything, whether good or evil, because of the load of forgetfulness which is very heavy. Moreover the body also is feeble. And the babe eateth of the delights of the world of the rulers; and the power draweth into itself from the portion of the power which is in the delights; and the soul draweth into itself from the portion of the soul which is in the delights; and the counterfeiting spirit draweth into itself from the portion of the evil which is in the delights and in its lusts. And on the other hand the body draweth into itself the matter which senseth not, which is in the delights. The destiny on the contrary taketh nothing from the delights, because it is not mingled with them, but it departeth again in the condition in which it cometh into the world. "And little by little the power and the soul and the counterfeiting spirit grow, and every one of them senseth according to its nature: the power senseth to seek after the light of the height; the soul on the other hand senseth to seek after the region of righteousness which is mixed, which is the region of the commixture; the counterfeiting spirit on the other hand seeketh after all evils and lusts and all sins; the body on the contrary senseth nothing unless it taketh up force out of the matter. "And straightway the three develop sense, every one according to its nature. And the retributive receivers assign the servitors to follow them and be witnesses of all the sins which they commit, with a view to the manner and method how they will chastize them in the judgments.

(2) As it is mentioned above, so the Life in the Anguish, with the Kindling of the Light, takes its Beginning from the Glance of the Sunshine, from the Spirit of the Stars and Elements in the great Anguish, where Death and Life wrestle one with the other. For when Man departed from Paradise into another Birth (viz. into the Spirit of this World, into the Quality of the Sun, Stars, and Elements) then the paradisical [Vision or] Seeing ceased, [or was extinguished,] where Man sees from the divine Virtue, without [Need of] the Sun and Stars; where the Springing up of the Life is in the Holy Ghost, and the Light of God is the Glance of the Spirit, from whence he sees; which went out; for the Spirit of the Soul went into the Principle of this World.

(11) And now it may very exactly be understood by the Essences and Property of the Soul, that in this House of Flesh (where it is as it were generated) it is not at Home; and its horrible Fall may be also understood [thereby.] For it has no Light in itself of its own, it must borrow its Light from the Sun; which indeed springs up along with it in its Birth, but that is corruptible, and the Worm of the Soul is not so; and it is seen that when a Man dies it goes out. And if then the divine Light be not again generated in the Center, then the Soul remains in the eternal Darkness, in the eternal anguishing [Source or] Quality of the Birth, where nothing is to be found in the kindled Captive. Fire, but a horrible Flash of Fire, in which [Source, Property, or] Quality, also the Devils dwell; for it is the first Principle.