(38) "I said, Ye are Gods; and all sons of the Highest." To whom speaks the Lord? To those who reject as far as possible all that is of man. And the apostle says, "For ye are not any longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit." And again he says, "Though in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh." "For flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption." "Lo, ye shall die like men," the Spirit has said, confuting us.

(37) Now behold, thou Child of Man, (seeing thou art an eternal Spirit) thou hast this to expect after the Breaking [or Deceasing] of thy Body; thou wilt be either an Angel of God in Paradise, or a hellish ugly diabolical Worm, Beast, or Dragon; all according as thou hast tbeen inclined [or given to] here in this Life; that Image which thou hast borne here in thy Mind, with that thou shalt appear; for there can no other Image go forth out of thy Body at the Breaking [or Deceasing of it;] but even that which thou hast borne here, that shall appear in Eternity.

(7) Your monstrous Form or Shape indeed is not God, nor of his Essence, or Substance, but the hidden Man, which is the Soul, is the proper Essence of God, for as much as the Love in the Light of God is sprung up in your own Center, out of which the Holy Ghost proceeds, wherein the second Principle of God consists: How then should you not have Power and Authority to speak of God, who is your Father, of whose Essence you are? Behold, is not the World God's, and the Light of God being in you, it must needs be also yours, as it is written, the Father has given all Things to the Son, and the Son has given all to you. The Father is the eternal Power, or Virtue, and the Son is the Heart and Light continuing eternally in the Father, and you continue in the Father and the Son. And now seeing the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, and that the eternal Power or Virtue of the Father is in you, and that the eternal Light of the Son shines in you, why will you be fooled? Know you not what Paul said? that our Conversation is in Heaven, from whence we expect our Saviour Jesus Christ, who will bring us out of this monstrous Image, or Birth, (in the Corruption of the third Principle of this World,) in the paradisical Birth to eat the Word of the Lord.

(42) O thou blind Mind, with thy Might and Stateliness, full of Wickedness and devilish fierce Wrath, [wilt thou know where thou art after that thy Body perishes?] Thou art even with all the Devils, in the Abyss of Hell, if thou dost not turn, and by earnest unfained Sorrow and Repentance for thy Abominations, enter into the angelical Footsteps, that the Saviour and Treader upon the Serpent of fierce Wrath, Wickedness, Lying, and Deceit, may meet thee, and embrace thee in his Arms, and [that thou] mayest be new-born in him, and be yielded up into the Bosom of the chaste Virgin, and become an Angel; or else thou art in the eternal Death, in the eternal Darkness, and canst not in all Eternity reach the Kingdom of God any more.

(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.

(54) If a man may attain thereunto, to be unto God as his hand is to a man, let him be therewith content, and not seek farther. This is my faithful counsel, and here I take my stand. That is to say, let him strive and wrestle with all his might to obey God and His commandments so thoroughly at all times and in all things, that in him there be nothing, spiritual or natural, which opposeth God; and that his whole soul and body with all their members may stand ready and willing for that to which God hath created them; as ready and willing as his hand is to a man, which is so wholly in his power, that in the twinkling of an eye, he moveth and turneth it whither he will. And when we find it otherwise with us, we must give our whole diligence to amend our state; and this from love and not from fear, and in all things whatsoever, seek and intend the glory and praise of God alone. We must not seek our own, either in things spiritual or in things natural. It must needs be thus, if it is to stand well with us. And every creature oweth this of right and truth unto God, and especially man, to whom, by the ordinance of God, all creatures are made subject, and are servants, that he may be subject to and serve God only. Further, when a man hath come so far, and climbed so high, that he thinketh and weeneth he standeth sure, let him beware lest the Devil strew ashes and his own bad seed on his heart, and nature seek and take her own comfort, rest, peace, and delight in the prosperity of his soul, and he fall into a foolish, lawless freedom and licentiousness, which is altogether alien to, and at war with, a true life in God.

(28) If thy Maker in thee does not make the Image of God, but the Image of the Serpent, how wilt thou then bring thy Beast into the Kingdom of Heaven? Dost thou suppose that God has Adders and Serpents in the broken Gate of the Regeneration in the pleasant Habitation? Or dost thou suppose that he looks after thy Hypocrisy, that thou buildest great Houses of Stone for him, and therein dost exercise thy Hypocrisy and Pomp? What cares he for thy Songs and roaring Noise, if thy Heart be a Murderer and Devourer? He will have a new-born Man, who yields himself up to him in Righteousness, and in the Fear of God; him, the Treader upon the Serpent takes into his Arms, and makes him an heavenly Image; such a one is a Child of Heaven, and not thy Fox.

(100) And thou Cainish Church (with thy Laws and Pratings, thy acute Comments, and Explanations of the Writings of the holy Men who spoke in the Spirit of God) should look well upon thyself, and do not build thy voluptuous and soft Kingdom so much upon those Things; for they are most of them in Paradise; they speak out of the Root of the holy Element through the the Out-Birth) the fierce Wrath, which Men had awakened; therefore look to it, that thou build not Stubble, Straw, or Weeds thereupon. If thou hast not the Spirit of Understanding out of the holy Element, then let them alone, do not daub them with the four Elements, or else those Things stand in Babel, it is not good to build the four Elements thereupon; for the Cherubim stands between, and he will cut off whatsoever does not belong to the Sheepfold; thou wilt have no Benefit of it, for thy Labour [or Work] stays fin the Land of Nod.

(44) And thy worldly Bravery, Glory, Beauty, and Riches, will not exalt thee before God, as thou supposest, nor yet thy Office which thou didst bear here, be it the kingly or priestly Office; if thou desirest to be in Heaven, then thou must (through thy Saviour) be new born; thou must endeavour to bring thy Subjects to Righteousness, and then thou wilt shine (with thy Office) as bright as the Luster of Heaven, and thy Works will follow thee. O Man! consider thyself in this.

(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.

(34) But now the Scripture says, The Devil was a holy Angel. And further, it says, You are not a God that wills Evil. And in Ezekiel, As sure as I live, I will not the Death of a Sinner. This is testified by God's earnest severe punishing of the Devils, and all Sinners, that he is not pleased with Death.

(34) And it is here with the Image of Man, as St. Paul said; To whom you give yourselves as Servants in Obedience, his Servant you are, whether it be of Sin unto Death, or of the Obedience of God to Righteousness, that Driving [or Property] you have. If a Man yields his Mind up to Malice, Pride, Self-power, and Force, to the Oppressing of the Miserable, then he is like the proud, haughty Devil, and he is his Servant in Obedience, and loses the Image of God; and out of the Image comes a Wolf, Dragon, or Serpent to be, all according to his Essences, as he stands figured in the Mind. But if he yields up himself to another swinish and bestial Condition, as to a mere bestial voluptuous Life, to Gormandizing, Gluttony, and Drunkenness, and Lechery, Stealing, Robbing, Murdering, Lying, Cozening, and [Cheating] Deceit, then the eternal Mind figures him also in such an Image as is like an unreasonable ugly Beast and Worm. And although he bears the elementary Image in this Life, yet he has indeed the Image of an Adder, Serpent, and Beast, hidden therein, which will be manifested at the Breaking [or Deceasing] of the Body, and it belongs not to the Kingdom of God.