26

26. For Saint Paul saith. Our conversation is in Heaven: Thus the new man walketh in Heaven, and the old man in this world, for the heaven in which God dwelleth is in the new man.

2 7. Thus, beloved sir and brother, and in no other way and manner, have I found the mystery. I have not studied or learned the same, but if you or any other doth thirst after it, I am engaged, as a brother in 'my affection and love, to show him the way how I met with it as I have set down at large in my writings, chiefly in the book of the Threefold Life of Man, and in the book of the Three Principles of the Divine Being.

28. Indeed, I did it for myself as a spiritual exercise in God's knowledge in the mystery of the great wonders of God, which, not- withstanding by God's providence and guidance, is come so far as to be published and read; and I would gladly that every one that earnestly desires to understand the same, might have it; and I wish from my heart that it may be really manifest and made known to the reader of this Epistle, and to every one in himself, and then there would be no need of any further searching and seeking.

29. But seeing God hath promised by the prophets (especially in yoel), that 'He will pour forth His spirit in the last days upon all flesh, therefore the time is to be considered and taken notice of.

30. I say as I have known it, that whosoever at present will die to himself, him shall the spirit of the Lord, according to yoel's prophecy, apprehend, and manifest His wonders by him; therefore if any be in earnest, he shall find it by experience.

31. Yet let every one be faithfully warned, that if God's light doth arise in him, that he continue steadfast in great humility in resigna- tion, namely, in the death of Christ.

32. (For the heaven shall now at last pour forth its long con- trived egestum of the constellations which it hath wrought in the human property), lest he also be taken hold of by the starry heaven and go beyond the limit out of resignation.

33. As it may be seen by the Metists (the proselytes or disciples of Isaias Steefel and Ezekiel Metts, that held perfection in this out- ward flesh), who came even unto the gates of the Deep, and were again captivated by the starry heaven, and entered into themselves, and exalted themselves, and surceased the strife against the serpent, and entered into a selfhood [or a singular Luciferian conceit of their own holiness] supposing \}rsX \hty wtr& changed i7ito a deity, wad. so they have confounded the external world with the internal.

34. Which is unsound, and void of ground, and of which we must take great heed, and see that we continue steadfast in deepest humility, that the seed that is sown may grow unto a tree, and may come to the blossoming, and the spirit of God get a form in us.

35. For out of the blossom ariseth the morning star, that man may learn to know himself what he is, and what God and time is.

36. I give you, sir, out of good affection, to understand that this present time is seriously to be taken into consideration, for the seventh angel in t]\e. Revelation hath prepared his trumpet; the powers of heaven be in peculiar motion; moreover, both gates stand open, and light and darkness are in great desire; as every- thing is taken, so it shall go in.

37. At what the one shall exceedingly rejoice, the other shall mock at it; whereupon foUoweth the sore and severe judgment upon Babel.

38. And so I commit you and yours unto the pleasant and amiable love of Jesus Christ.

OF THE KILLING OF ANTICHRIST IN OURSELVES.

AND ALSO HOW WE MAY ATTAIN UNTO DIVINE CONTEMPLATION.

ORTHY and much respected sir, I wish unto you the grace, knowledge, and bless- ing of God in Christ Jesus; after I was informed of D. K. that you as a Christian brother, and fellow-member in the Lord, do stand in a hearty desire in the drawing of the Father to Christ Jesus; and do also labour in your mind how you may come to divine contemplation and vision in yourself; therefore upon the request of the doctor, I would not omit to visit and salute you with a short epistle, and briefly to declare unto you out of my gifts, out of Christian love, the way to divine vision z.rid feeling; and hereby to present unto you in brotherly love the sap of my little coral in the spirit and life of Jesus Christ, as one branch or twig on the tree is bound to do to the other; and I desire that I might be well understood, if peradventure I might give further occasion to your zeal.

2. Seeing that you very well perceive in yourself that Antichrist in Babel beareth the sway and government in Christmdom, and acteth selfhood and the lust of the flesh; and that our dear Immanuel hath faithfully warned us thereof, and said. That flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of Heaven (John vi.) And yet the Antichrist seeketh and desireth nothing else, but only temporal honour, might, and power, to climb up and advance himself in the lust of the flesh; and, moreover, that this Antichrist hath for a long time so civilly and demurely decked and adorned himself with Christ's purple mantle ('or His seamless coat), that men have not discerned

him, but they have honoured and adored him for a saint; the which ia reasonably well revealed to me in the grace of the Most High; and thereupon I would declare unto you in brief what a Christian is, and also what the Antichrist in man is, for your further con- sideration.

3. Christ saith: Whosoever forsaketh not houses, land^ money, goods, wife, children, brothers mid sisters, and deny himself and follow Me, he is not My disciple or servant; also, you must turn and become like children, or be born anew of water and the spirit, else you shall not see the kindgom of God. This is not meant that one should run out of his vocation and calling (or employmenf) from his wife and children into a solitary desert and wilderness, and forsake all; but only he must forsake the Antichrist, that is, the self in all [the meicm and tiium, the mine and thine].

4. Whosoever will attain to divine contemplation and feeling within himself, he must mortify the Antichrist in his soul, and depart from all ownhood of the will; yea, from all creatures, and become the poorest creature in the ownhood [selfness or self interest] of his mind, so that he hath or owneth nothing any more for a propriety, be he in what estate and condition he will.

5. And though he be a king yet his mind must forsake all own- hood, and esteem himself in his place, dignity, and temporal goods no other than a servant of God; and that he therein ought to serve God and his brethren, and that he hath and possesseth all that he hath, not after the right of nature, as if it were his own [to do according to his own will and pleasure therein], but that it is his- fellow-brethren's and members; and that God hath set him as a steward and officer over it; and he must think that he therein serveth his Lord, who will require an account of him.

6. He must wholly and fully resign up in himself his own will (which driveth him to such possession of ownhood [or selfish affection or union with the creature] ) to the suifering and dying in the death of yesus Christ; and humbly beseech God, in right earnest repentance and conversion, that He would mortify this evil will to selfness and temporal lust, in the death of yesus Christ, and bring the vrill of his soul into the true adoption or filiation of God, that so he might not will and desire any longer to his self, but that God's will might be in him his will and desire; that he might be dead (as to the will of the soul) in and to his self or ownhood, and that God in Christ might be his life.

7. He must wholly immerse his will in deepest humility into God's mercy, and lay hold on such a will and resolution in the divine

promise of grace, that he this very hour will depart from all own- hood of the pleasure of this world, and never enter any more therein; albeit he thereby should become the fool of all the world; he must wholly immerse himself into the deepest submissive lowliness and unworthiness before God with repentance, and yet in the soul apprehend and hold fast the promise of grace, and stand therein, as a soldier before his enemy, when it concerns his body and life.

8. When this cometh to pass, then his own will (being the Anti- christ) will be apprehended and mortified in the death of Christ, and his soul will soon become as a young simple child which hath lost its natural understanding of selfhood, and beginneth to lament before God as a young child before its mother, and trusteth in the mother to give what she pleaseth to it.

9. And this is that, which Christ said, ye must turn and become as children, and forsake all and follow Me, for Adam departed from God's will into self-will, and hath in his own self-desire brought the insinuations of the serpent and the will and desire of the devil into himself, so that he hath brought himself and his life's comfort (which afore stood in mutual harmony and agreement in one only will, which was God's) into a division and disunion, where the properties of nature departed from the equal agreement and con- cordance, each property entering into its selfhood (being an own or peculiar self-desire), whence the lust and imagination to good and evil did arise in him, and heat and cold presently fell on him, and he died from the holy life in the equal and mutual concordance, wherein he lived in one only pure eletnent, wherein the four elements were in him in equal weight or temperature.

10. And of this God warned him, saying, Eat not of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, else you shall die, meaning thereby the death to the kingdom of heaven, namely [the disappearing], of the fair angelical image, which died presently in the false-introduced desire of the serpent; and therefore this false will of the serpent must first die in Christ's death by true conversion; and out of this death Christ ariseth in His spirit again in us in the heavenly image which died in Adam, and the inward man is regenerated and new- bom in Christ's spirit.

11. This new spirit cometh to divine vision or contemplation in himself; it heareth God's word and hath divine understanding and inclination, and may behold the graiid mystery., in divine and natural mysteries; and albeit the earthly flesh yet cleaveth unto him in its inclination, yet the same hurteth or spoils not [the new-born spirit] at all in him.

12. He is in this new birth as solid fine gold in a rough drossy stone, the drossy soil of the stone being not able to destroy or spoil the gold: for his right will is dead to the earthly desire, and con- tinually desireth to kill and mortify the lust of the flesh, and doth likewise kill it without intermission, for here the seed of the woman, viz., the new man born in Christ, bruiseth the head of the serpenfs will in the flesh, [which will] is Antichrist.

13. And, beloved sir, I give you as a Christian and brother in all faithfulness, sincerity, and uprightness to understand that we in our supposed religion.^ wherein men do nothing but contend, confute, and revile one another about the letter [and the difterent opinions thence contrived] are as yet in the midst of Babel and that it was never 7uorse than now; whereas yet men do boast that they are gone out from Babel and have the true religion, which I leave in its worth [to be well considered].

14. But for so much as is known to me in the Lord my God, in my exceeding precious talent given to me of God, I say, that men indeed have dipped Christ's mantle with its purple colour in the blood of Christ, and taken it upon them for a covering; and there- with they have only covered the antichristian child of self-will, and so have painted over the antichristian bastard with a strange colour.

15. For men do exceedingly flatter it, and cover it with Christ's suffering merit, and death, and comfort it, that Christ hath paid all for it, saying: It ought only to [apply or] comfort itself with the merit of Christ, and receive it in faith as a satisfaction, and thus they show us an outward imputed righteousness.

1 6. But it hath far another A B C in the true understanding; no comforting, self-willing, running, or keeping a round, availeth anything; the suffering, the death of Christ, will not be given to the antichristian beast in self, but to them that depart from, and relinquish all the ownhood [and propriety] of the creatures, and wholly resign up themselves into the suffering and death of Christ Jesus, and die to their own will, in and with Christ, and are buried with Him, and also arise in Him to a new will and obedience, and hate sin. Who put on Christ in His suffering, reproach, and persecu- tion, and take His cross upon them, and follow Him under His Hed Banner; to them I say, it will be given, these put on Christ in His process, and become in the inward spiritual man Christ's members, and the Temple of God, who dwelleth in us.

17. None hath right to comfort himself with Christ's merits, unless he desireth wholly to put on Christ in himself; and he is also no Christian before he hath put Him on by true repentance and

conversion to Him with an absolute resignation, and unfeigned self- denial; so that Christ espouseth and betrotheth Himself with him.

1 8. The beginning of which comes to pass in the covenant of baptism, where the child promiseth and sweareth under Christ's Red Banner, that which afterwards must follow in very deed, or real practice; or if one hath turned himself away [from the practice of what he then promised] he must in such a conversion of his will turn himself thereinto again; and I say upon sure ground that to many an one the mantle of Christ will turn to hellish fire, in that he covereth Antichrist therewith, and yet remaineth but a beast.

19. For a Christian must be born of Christ, and die to the Adamical will; he must have Christ in him, and be a branch or member on His flesh and spirit, not according to the animal beast, but according to the spiritual man.

20. For the spirit of God possesseth not the beast [the out- ward sensual natural or rational man] but indeed the temple of Christ, viz., Christ's spiritual flesh and blood in us; for Christ said, Whosoever shall not eat the flesh of the Son of j\lan, he hath no life in himself.

21. Now there must be a mouth which indeed is proper and fit to eat it, for it will not be given to the beast, much less to the Ens of the serpent; for every spirit eateth of its mother, whence it is arisen; which I give to every understanding man to consider of, and here I only mention what a Christian ought to be, if he will account himself a Christian.

22. For a beast is no Christian, but he that is baptised with the Holy Ghost in the death of Christ; who hath put on Christ, and liveth in Christ's heavenly flesh and blood; who hath tasted Chrisfs supper, and sitteth with Christ at table; he is a Christian that walketh in Christ's footsteps, and continually mortifieth the antichristian evil beast in flesh and blood (which still adhereth to a Christian), binds it and depriveth it of its strength, and patiently resigneth himself up in temptations, which many hundred ways are offered him, for his trial and purification.

23. A Christian must learn the ABC backwards, and account the wisdom of his reason foolishness, that Christ may gain a form in him, and he be made capable of the heavenly wisdom.

24. For the wisdom of the outward world is blind in respect of God, and seeth Him not; albeit all things live and move in God, and He Himself is through all things, and yet He possesseth nothing, save that which dieth from its own will, that He must possess, and

He possesseth it willingly; for it willeth nothing without Him, and it is in the end of the creation, and also in the beginning.

25. Whereof I could further mention unto you, if occasion here did permit, the which I have in my writings largely described and declared out of the centre and original of all essences; and here only I have hinted in brief what a Christian's state, being, and condi- tion is; if it should please you further to consider of it, and to give up yourself into this process, as I likewise hope that you are already in it.

26. But, for a more brotherly recreation, I thought good to visit you with a short epistle, and to solace myself a little with you in the hope and faith which worketh and is in us, until we be once freed from this cottage, and be afterwards refreshed and quickened perfectly, one with another, in divine and brotherly union and vision.

2 7. And this I have done upon the desire of the doctor above- mentioned, in all sincerity and uprightness; and so I commend you to the.tender love of Jesus Christ.

Our salvation is in the effectual working love of yesus Christ in us.

EAR brother in the Hfe of Jesus Christ, I wish from my heart the divine working love unto you, that your noble lily-twig, sprung forth in Christ, may, in the power of Christ, grow great and bring forth much fruit in the Paradise of God to the heavenly joy of us all, and our eternal brotherly fellowship. 2. I rejoice in my soul when I perceive that a goodly, virtuous, fair branch is sprung up in our Tree of Life, Christ; and I hope also to be a partaker of its good fruit.

3. As one branch on the tree doth enjoy the sap and power of the other, and they all do mutually grow and bear fruit in one only power, so likewise we are in the tree of Christ all only oiie, which [tree] is christ in us all.

4. Seeing, then, that you freely and unfeignedly, with all acknow- ledgment of heart and mouth, do approve yourself to this tree of life; and, on the contrary, do renounce and gainsay the poison and delusion of Satan; therefore, I wish nothing more at present than that I might be able, in the power of tliis tree, which is Christ, to impart and give the influence of my power received from Him unto you, that we might grow together as members in one power.

5. And I make no doubt but the Most High hath begotten His lily-twig in you, for without divine power we have no longing or hunger after God; and also we cannot know Him without His spirit in us; all that we understand and know of Him fundamentally [or in reality] cometh from His revelation and operation.

6. For albeit the world prateth and talketh much of God, yet it doth it only from custom, and receiveth its knowledge from the history of the literal word [by the habitual faculties of its natural reason], and yet it is void of true knowledge.

For no7te knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him.

7. And therefore we have no true knowledge of God, unless it be given us of the Son, who liveth in us, if we be [living] branches on the vine.

8. For Christ said, whosoever is of God, he heareth God's word; and to the reason-learned, who were only skilful, and taught in the letter. He said, therefore you do not hear, because yoit are not of God; i\%o^yoii are not My sheep; you are ravening wolves and hirelings.

9. Therefore I say, that if we will speak aright of God and understand His will, then His words must abide in us in a quick and living working; for Christ said, without Me ye can do nothing; also, none can call God Lord withoiit the Holy Spirit in him; for his calling Lord must be born of God, and flow from the Holy Ghost.

10. Nothing is pleasing to God, and, also, nothing is accepted of God but that which He Himself doth, and worketh in and through the spirit of man; therefore, saith Christ, all the plants which My heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted out and burnt with fire.

1 1. Therefore, my beloved brother, you do well to hold and keep yourself to the original of life, and desire power and strength from it; you shall be well quickened, refreshed, and strengthened; you are an acceptable guest to God and the members of Christ in [this] your purpose.

12. And if you persevere steadfastly, and resist the devil, the world, and the earthly flesh and blood, and prepare yourself to fight like a true, noble champion for conquest against all these, and over- come in you the potent and open enemy, self-love, and come aright into our general love, then you shall certainly know, and find by experience, that the noble and exceeding worthy trophy, or crown, of Christ's conquest, which He obtained in the overthrow of death and hell, shall be set upon you with the heavenly kingdom of joy.

13. And then all the children of Christ, together with the holy angels, shall exceedingly rejoice more with you than for ninety-nine righteous ones, who have already obtained it.

14. And the fair and noble Sophia shall be given for a spouse unto your soul, which now at present standeth at the door of your soul, and doth earnestly entreat and call you with her voice, and knocketh, bidding you to come forth and hold out aright in battle against sin, death, devil, and hell, and with your earnestness, or fixed resolution, to set the great petards against the strong fort of nature, and she will help you to blow up and demolish this strong fort.

15. And then you shall see great wonders, and, at the hour of conquest, the joyful nuptials or marriage of the Lamb shall be

celebrated in heaven in you, and then the Shepherd's staff (Shepherd's crook) shall be given by Christ into the hand of your soul.

16. But be sure remember to keep truly and faithfully unto the end what you have promised unto this chaste Sophia; it must be in right earnest, and not to look back again into Sodom, as Lot's wife, who was turned into a.pii/ar of salt.

17. But you must go out of Sodom with Lot, according to God's command, and enter into the footsteps of Christ, not at all regarding the scoffings, reproaches, and opprobrious speeches of the world; but love the brand (or mark) of Christ more than the friendship, honour, and goods of the whole world, and then you may walk along with us upon the pilgrim's path of Christ.

18. But if you do not relish this, but mind and desire rather the pleasure and honour of the world, then you are not as yet ready and prepared for the marriage, and to come to your spouse, our loving and dear Sophia.

19. Therefore, consider well yourself, behold and examine well your whole heart; if you find a longing desire and drawing thereunto (as I in part perceive and take notice of), then do not delay or put it off an hour, but go forward and enter with a right earnestness [or fixed mind] into repentance, and yield up your will, wholly and fully, to enter instantly thereinto, and never to go out from it again, albeit you should \!r^tx&ioit. forsake body, life, honour, and goods.

20. And if you do thus, then you are rightly prepared, and the true Pioneer will come unto your soul, and do that in you which you cannot do without Him.

21. And although, afterwards, [vain] inclinations and great strife and opposition in the flesh might stick and cleave unto you, and your reason call you a fool, yea, though God's anger should cover and cloud you in soul and body, yet all this will not hurt you; you shall spring forth under such thorns with a new mind, and walk with the Spirit in heaven.

22. And albeit the earthly body must be conversant with the creatures, yet it shall be with it, as with a rough stone in which fine gold groweth.

23. Be not at all offended at my tribulation and persecution, neither be afraid, for it is the mark of Christ. Look but back into the Scripture, and see how it went with the children of God; how they were continually persecuted and killed by those who should have taught the ways of God.

24. For I am entrusted with a precious pearl, which God doth so cover that the unworthy see it not, but are blind therein, and are

offended at the simplicity of the person, that so they may remain blind to themselves in the wisdom of their own reason; this they see, and yet do not understand it, seeing they scorn and despise the simplicity of Christ.

25. But the time is very nigh at hand when they shall give an earnest account for it.

26. But that God hath given you to understand what it is, and from whence it cometh; be thankful to him for it, it is befallen you out of grace; for you have humbled yourself before Him, and there may yet greater grace happen unto you if you persevere steadfast in humility and earnest prayer.