(120) Their food is abomination, and grows from the fierceness of all qualities: Lamentation and woe, and that for ever without end; there is no time there; another king sitteth on their throne, which keepeth or holdeth a judgment for ever; they are only his footstool.

(61) And in the sour [or harsh] Essence of the Tincture of the Worm of the Soul, he infects the sour harsh Essence, whereby it becomes sharply attractive, and gets a Will to draw all to itself, and yet is not able to do it; for the conceived Will is not easily filled, but is a dry hellish thirsty Hunger to have all; and if it did get all, yet the Hunger would not be the less, but it is the eternal Hunger and Thirst of the Abyss, the Will of Hell-fire, and of all Devils, who continually hunger and thirst, and yet eat nothing; but it is their satiating, that they [suck or], draw into themselves, the strong Source of the Essences of the harsh, bitter Might of the Fire, wherein consists their Life and Satiating; and the Abyss of the Wrath and of Hell is also such [a Thing.]

(97) Woe to you who devour the finest of the wheat, And drink wine in large bowls, And tread under foot the lowly with your might.

(79) Or if by tasting it should fall into a desire and longing to eat that which is not of the quality of the body, or is none of its own; as mother Eve in Paradise fell a longing to eat of the devil's crabapples, and did eat thereof; such stirring in lust the council also rejecteth.

(69) Now seeing then you will plead the right of the devil's cause, wherewith shall he requite you, or with what fee shall he reward you? He has nothing in his power but the hellish abomination; what will then be your recom-pense? Guess, Sir, even the best of all that he has, the best fruits and apples in his orchard, and the best perfumes and incense of his garden. Of the First Kind or Form.

(14) Get thee behind me, Satan: thou are an offence unto me: for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.

(28) Yet it could not be (how vigorously soever it was sought after) that Man (in his own Power) could enter into Paradise. And therefore poor captive Man must sit in this World in the Devil's murdering Den; where now the Devil has built his Chapel close by the Christian Church, and has quite destroyed the Love of Paradise, and has in the Stead of it set up mere covetous, proud, self-willed, [or self-conceited,] faithless, sturdy, malicious Blasphemers, Thieves and Murderers, which lift themselves up against Heaven and Paradise, and have built themselves a Kingdom according to the Dominion of the fierce sour [Stars or] Constellations, wherein they domineer (with Silver and Gold) and consume the Sweat one of another; whosoever is but able, oppresses the other to the Ground. And though he flies before him, yet then he only puts forth his Dragon's Tongue, and spits Fire upon him; he terrifies him with his harsh Voice, and plagues him Day and Night.

(52) But if the noble Grain of Mustard-seed be sown, then the noble Virgin of God preserves it, and makes the poor Soul continually careful to endeavour for Abstinence, and to enter into Fight with the Devil. O what a wonderful Way is it the Children of God go in this miserable House of Flesh; which the Reason of the Hypocrites neither comprehends, nor can believe, only they that tried it, know it.

(571) L AST of all comes the tyrannical man; about whom we have once more to ask, how is he formed out of the democratical? and how does he live, in happiness or in misery? Yes, he said, he is the only one remaining. There is, however, I said, a previous question which remains unanswered. What question? I do not think that we have adequately determined the nature and number of the appetites, and until this is accomplished the enquiry will always be confused. Well, he said, it is not too late to supply the omission. Very true, I said; and observe the point which I want to understand: Certain of the unnecessary pleasures and appetites I conceive to be unlawful; every one appears to have them, but in some persons they are controlled by the laws and by reason, and the better desires prevail over them—either they are wholly banished or they become few and weak; while in the case of others they are stronger, and there are more of them. Which appetites do you mean? I mean those which are awake when the reasoning and human and ruling power is asleep; then the wild beast within us, gorged with meat or drink, starts up and having shaken off sleep, goes forth to satisfy his desires; and there

(29) Here I write not without knowledge; but if thou, like an epicure and fatted swine of the devil, from the devil's instigation, shouldst mock at these things and say:

(1) The lover invoked blessings on that rough patrol, They were poison to most men, but sweets to him, In the world there is nothing absolutely bad; Know, moreover, evil is only relative. In the world there is neither poison nor antidote, Which is not a foot to one and a fetter to another; To one the power of moving, to another a clog; To one a poison, to another an antidote. Serpents' poison is life to serpents, To the creatures of the sea the sea is a garden,

(39) We must then exercise ourselves in taking care about those things which fall under the power of the passions, fleeing like those who are truly philosophers such articles of food as excite lust, and dissolute licentiousness in chambering and luxury; and the sensations that tend to luxury, which are a solid reward to others, must no longer be so to us. For God's greatest gift is self-restraint.

(93) Therefore it is not good to tattle with the Devil, he is a Liar and Murderer from the Beginning of his Kingdom, and a Thief also; he comes only to murder and to steal, as here [with Eve.] And the Devil is the highest Cause of the Fall; for he strewed Sugar upon Adam, so that he imagined [or lusted] Adam and Eve. after the Kingdom of this World; though Adam indeed did not see him, yet he slipt into the Essences of the [fierce, sour] Sternness; and did there throw Hell's paradisical Sugar before him, so that Adam lusted.

(558) rid, and of which the satisfaction is a benefit to us? And they are rightly called so, because we are framed by nature to desire both what is beneficial and what is necessary, and cannot help it. True. We are not wrong therefore in calling them necessary? We are not. And the desires of which a man may get rid, if he takes pains from his youth upwards—of which the presence, moreover, does no good, and in some cases the reverse of good—shall we not be right in saying that all these are unnecessary? Yes, certainly. Suppose we select an example of either kind, in order that we may have a general notion of them? Very good. Will not the desire of eating, that is, of simple food and condiments, in so far as they are required for health and strength, be of the necessary class? That is what I should suppose. The pleasure of eating is necessary in two ways; it does us good and it is essential to the continuance of life? Yes. But the condiments are only necessary in so far as they are good for health? Certainly. And the desire which goes beyond this, of more delicate food, or other luxuries, which might generally be got rid of, if controlled and trained in youth, and is hurtful to the body, and hurtful to the soul in the pursuit of wisdom and virtue, may be

(34) The birth or geniture of light, munificence and welldoing to be an eternal hellish pain and torment; the food of pleasing relish to be an eternal abomination and stink, a loathing of all fruits; and the house of Lebanon and cedars to be a stony and rocky house of fire; the sweet scent or relish to be a stink, and a house of ruin and desolation, an end of all good; the divine body to be a black, cold, hot, eating, corroding, and yet not consuming devil, who is an enmity against God and his angels: And so he has all the heavenly hosts or armies against him. Now observe:

(159) From thence existed the first poison, wherein we poor men now in this world have enough to chew upon, and thereby the bitter poisonous death is come into the flesh.

(15) There the Soul eats of all the Words of God; for the same are the Food of its Life; and it sings the paradisical i Songs of Praise concerning the pleasant Fruit in Paradise, which grows in the divine Virtue [or Power] of the divine Limbus, which is the Food of the kBody; for the Body eats of the Limbus, out of which it is, and the Soul eats of God and of his Word, out of which it is.

(99) This modern world would do well to speculate on this pride and covetousness, and to consider how it is an enmity against God; and that thereby they go headlong to the devil, and there must have their jaws and throats open eternally to rob and devour, and yet find nothing but hellish abomination. Of the Third Son, Envy. [Spite]

(3) Abominations, abominations, I eat them not. I abominate filth, I eat it not

(23) It goes very hard, when the [Grain of] Mustard-Seed is sown, for the Devil opposes strongly, but whosoever perseveres, finds by Experience what is written in this Book. And although he cannot be rid of the Untowardness of the Incitements of the four Elements, yet nevertheless the noble Seed in the eLimbus of God continues with him, which Seed springs and grows, and at last becomes a Tree, which the Devil favours [or relishes;] not, but he goes about the Tree like a fawning Cur, and then by his Servants he casts all Mishaps upon him; and by his Crew [of Followers and Confederates] he thrusts many out of his House, that he may do him no more Displeasure. But it goes well with him [that fears God,] and he comes into the Land of the Living.