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(18) The eternal Generating is an unbeginning Birth, and it has neither Number nor End, and its Depth is bottomless, and the Band of Life incorruptible: The syderial and elementary Spirit cannot discern it, much less comprehend it; it only feels it, and sees a Glimpse of it in the Mind; which [Mind] is the Chariot of the Soul, upon which it rides in the first Principle in its own Seat in the Father's eternal Generating [or Begetting;] for its own Substance is altogether crude, without a Body, and yet it has the Form of the Body in its own spiritual Form, understand according to the Image; which Soul, if it be regenerated in the Light of God, it sees in the Light of the Father, (which Light is his Glance, Luster, or Son,) in the eternal Birth, wherein it lives and remains eternally.

(3) And although I write now, as if there was a Beginning in the eternal Birth, yet it is not so; but the eternal Nature thus begets [or generates] itself without Beginning. My Writings must be understood in a creaturely Manner, as the Birth of Man is, who is a Similitude of God. Although it be just so in the eternal Being, [Essence or Substance,] yet that is both without Beginning and without End; and my Writing is only to this End, that Man might learn to know what he is, what he was in the Beginning, how he was a very glorious eternal holy Man, that should never have known the Gate of the strong [or austere] Birth in the Eternity, if he had not suffered himself to lust after it through the Infection of the Devil, and had not eaten of that naked and vain Man in a bestial Form, and lost the heavenly Garment of the divine Power, and lives now in the Kingdom of the Devil, in the i infected Salnitre, and feeds upon the infected Food. Therefore it is necessary for us to learn to know ourselves, what we are, and how we might be redeemed from the anguishing austere Birth, and be regenerated or born anew, and live in the new Man, (which is like the first Man before the Fall,) in Christ our Regenerator.

(3) Now when God was to create the World, and all things therein, he had no other a Matter to make it of, but his own which has neither Beginning nor End, and his Greatness and Depth is all. Yet a Spirit does nothing but ascend, flow, move, and continually generate itself, and in itself has chiefly a threefold Manner of Form in its Generating or Birth, vis. Bitterness, Harshness, and cHeat, and these three Manner of Forms are neither of them the first, second, nor third; for all these three are but one, and each of them generates the second and third. For between Harshness and Bitterness, Fire is generated: and the Wrath of the Fire is the Bitterness or Sting itself, and the Harshness is the Stock or Father of both these, and yet is generated of them both; for a Spirit is like a Will, Sense, [or Thought,] which rises up, and in its Rising beholds,perfects, and generates itself.

(62) And although I have written here, as if it took a Beginning, (writing as it were of the Beginning [and first Springing] of the second Principle, and the Birth of the divine Essence,) yet you must not understand it as having any Beginning; for the eternal Birth is thus, [without Beginning or End,] and that in the Originality; but I write, to the End that Man might learn to know himself, what he is, and what God, Heaven, Angels, Devils, and Hell are, as also what the Wrath of God and Hell- Fire is. For I am permitted to write as far as of the Originality.

(63) For because Man was to be eternal, therefore he must also come to be out of the Eternal; for nothing is created out of the Fountain of the Heart of God. For that is the End of Nature, and has no such Essences; no comprehensible [or palpable] Thing enters therein; otherwise it would be a Filling and Darkness, and that cannot be: Also from Eternity, there has been nothing else but only the Source [or working Property] where the Deity continually rises up, as is mentioned before.

(54) Although here the Tongue of Man cannot utter, declare, express, nor fathom this great Depth, where there is neither Number nor End, yet we have Power to speak thereof as Children talk of their Father. But to dive into the whole Depth, that troubles us, and disturbs our Souls; for God himself knows neither Beginning nor End in himself.

(1) READER, understand [and consider] my Writings right, we have no Power or Ability to speak of the Birth of God [or the Birth of the Deity,] for it never had any Beginning from all Eternity; but we have Power to speak of God our Father, and what he is, and how he is, and how the eternal Geniture is.

(6) The first beginning is for the sake of the last end. God Himself doth not rest because He is the beginning, but because He is the end and goal of all creation. This end is concealed in the darkness of the everlasting Godhead, and is unknown, and never was known, and never will be known. God Himself remains unknown; the light of the everlasting Father shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. May the truth of which we have spoken lead us to the truth. Amen.

(37) Thus is the Birth (and also the first Original) of all the Creatures; and it standeth yet in such a Birth in the Essence; and after such a Manner it is, out of the eternal Thoughts (viz. the Wisdom of God) by the Fiat, brought out of the Matrix; but being come forth out of the Darkness, out of the Out-Birth, out of the Center, (which yet was generated in the Time, in the Will,) therefore it is not eternal, but corruptible [or transitory,] like a Thought; and though it be indeed material, yet every again, as it was before the Beginning.

(4) Now this cannot be expressed or described, nor brought to the Understanding by the Tongue of Man; for God has no Beginning. But I will set it down so as if he had a Beginning, that it might be understood what is in the first Principle, whereby the difference between the first and second Principle may be understood, and what God or Spirit is. Indeed there is no difference in God, only when it is enquired from whence Evil and Good proceed, it is to be known, what is the first and original fountain of Anger, and also of Love, since they both proceed from one and the same Original, out of one Mother, and are one Thing. Thus we must speak after a creaturely Manner, as if it took a Beginning, that it might be brought to be understood.

(30) Man only has Understanding, and his Senses reach into the Essences and Qualities of the Stars and Elements, and search out the Ground of all Things in the Region of the Stars and Elements: And this now has its Original in Man, in the eternal Element, he being created out of the [eternal] Element, and not out of the Out-Births of the four Elements. And therefore the Eternity sees into the beginning Out-Birth in the Corruptibility; and the Beginning in the Out-Birth cannot see into the Eternity, for the Beginning takes its Original out of the Eternity, out of the eternal Mind.

(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.

(21) Thus you [may] see how God created all Things out of Nothing, but only out of Himself; and yet the i Out-Birth is not from his Essence, [or Substance,] but it has its Original from the Darkness. The Source of the Darkness is the first Principle, and the Virtue [or Power] of the Light is the second Principle, and the Out-Birth, [generated] out of the Darkness by the Virtue of the Light, is the third Principle; and that is not called God: God is only the Light, and the Virtue of the Light, and that which goes forth out of the Light is the Holy Ghost.