(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.

(21) As we see that here out of the Earth there springs Plants, Herbs, and Fruits, which receive their Virtue from the Sun, and from the Constellation: So the Heaven or the heavenly Limbus is instead of the Earth; and the Light of God instead of the Sun; and the eternal Father instead of the Virtue of the Stars. The Depth of this Substance is without Beginning and End, its Breadth cannot be reached, there are neither Years nor Time, no Cold nor Heat; no moving of the Air; no Sun nor Stars; no Water nor Fire; no Sight of evil Spirits; no Knowledge nor Apprehension of the Affliction of this World; no stony Rock nor Earth; and yet a figured Substance of all the Creatures of this World. For all the Creatures of this World have appeared to this End, that they might be an eternal figured Similitude; not that they continue in this Spirit in their Substance, no not so: All the Creatures return into their a Ether, and the Spirit corrupts [or fades,] but the Figure and the Shadow continue eternally.

(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.

(4) Here now stand the great Secrets (which we cannot see with our earthly Eyes) wholly naked and plain, and there is no Vail before it, only we are blind to the Kingdom of God; for God cursed the Earth, and said, it should now bear Thorns and Thistles, and Man should eat the Fruit of the accursed Earth. This indeed is a new Thing. He allowed them not in Paradise to eat of the earthly Herbs, but of the pleasant Fruit. And if he had eaten of the Herbs of the Fields, yet that which he had eaten, was heavenly; and when the Lord cursed the Earth, then all became earthly; and the holy Element was withdrawn, and the Fruit did grow in the Proceeding-forth of the four Elements, in the Kindling of the Fierceness, out of which Thorns and Thistles grew.

(62) The earthly Earth is like the holy Ternary, wherein is the heavenly Aquaster (viz. in the heavenly Earth, which I call the [one holy] Element) which is pure. Thus God is a Spirit, and the pure Element is heavenly Earth, for it is substantial; and the Essences in the heavenly Earth are paradisical Buds [or Fruits;] and the Virgin of Wisdom is the great Spirit of the whole heavenly World, in a Similitude, and that not only opens the great Wonders in the heavenly Earth, but also in the whole Deep of the Deity.

(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.

(73) Therefore (as is mentioned before in the third Chapter) when the Birth of Life sprung up, every Essence had again a Center in itself, according to its own Property or Quality, and figures a Life according to its Essence, viz. Harshness, Bitterness, Fire, and Sound; and all further according to the Ability of the eternal Birth, which is confirmed in the Kingdom of Heaven.

(44) For it is paradisical, and it has its most inward Root therein. When Adam in Sin died the first Death, then said God, The Seed of the Woman shall break the Serpent's Head. The same Word imprinted itself in Adam, in the Center of the Springing-up of his Life, and so in like Manner with the Creation of Eve in the Springing up of her Life, and so in like Manner in all Men, so that we can, in our first Mind, through the Word and Virtue of God in the Treader upon the Serpent, who in the Time became Man [or was incarnate,] trample upon [or break] the Head and Will of the Devil, and if this Might [or Power] was not in this Place, then we were in the eternal Death. Thus the Mind is its own, in the free Will, and moves in the Virtue [or Power] of God, and in his Promise, in the free Substance [or Being.]

(33) For all Things are come to be Something out of Nothing: And every Creature has the Center, or the Circle of the Birth of Life in itself; and as the Elements lie hid in one another in one only Mother, and none of them comprehends the other, though they are Members one of another, so the created Creatures are hidden and invisible to one another. For every Creature looks but into its Mother that is fixed [or predominant] in it. The material Creature sees a material Substance, but an immaterial Substance (as the Spirits in the Fire and in the Air) it sees not; as the Body sees not the Soul, which yet dwells in it; or as the third Principle does not comprehend, nor apprehend the second Principle wherein God is; though indeed itself is in God, yet there is a Birth between: As it is with the Spirit of the Soul of Man, and the elementary Spirit in Man, the one being the Case, [Chest,] or Receptacle of the other; as you shall find, about the Creation of Man.