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8. And controversy is hence arisen that the world is fallen into its selfish lust and imagination, whereby they have rent themselves off from Christ, their stem, in whom Christians should stand in unity; but have turned themselves unto images [opinions, mental idols], and questions.

g. Out of which questions such controversies and contentions are arisen; where the pride of the devil hath been involved in the ques- tions, and hath so imprinted and immodelised itself on the image of man, that they have fought for their images and opinions, and have therein extolled and advanced themselves; and Christ's humility, wherein we should die in Christ from our evil nature, is quite for-

gotten; so that for the present we are rather a monster of an image than a living Christendom in spirit and in power.

I o. For a Christian must and ought to stand in the tree of Christ, with the increase and growth of Christ's life, and also live in the spirit of Christ, and bear fruit, in whom Christ Himself (as to the internal ground) liveth, and is all in all in him, who continually breaketh the head of the serpent's will in the flesh, and bringeth to naught the works of the devil; he must know, will, and do from Christ; it must come to effectual doing (that is, into the divine working), for without this none is a Christian.

1 1. Christ must wholly receive and take possession of the internal ground of the soul, that the severe justice of God (which holdeth us captive in the anger) might be satisfied with Christ's fulness [and ■effectual merit], that Christ may fulfil the anger of God in us with love, and mortify the will of the devil, and also the nature in the wrath of God, and wholly annihilate its will, that so he may die in the love of Christ, and bring forth a new will in the love-spirit of Christ, through the nature of the soul, which liveth and walketh in God. As St. Paul saith, our conversation is in the Lord.

12. Lip-labour, and the pratings of the mouth, avail nothing; the same make no Christian. A Christian must alway.s be born (or regenerated) of Christ, else he is no Christian, no outward imputed righteousness or grace helpeth at all.

13. All the comforting, flattering, soothing, and dissembling is but in vain; where the purple-mantle of Christ is put upon the man of iniquity and malice [or the Cain-like hypocrite], who from without will be an adopted child of grace.

14. For no whore, or one that is impregnated (one that is gotten with child )^ can be a virgin, albeit she puts on a maid's garland; yea, no prince or potentate can grace her with any virginity.

15. Thus the flattering, hypocrisy, and comforting [with Christ's merits and promises], is to be understood, unless we be converted and become like children, which hang on the breasts of their mother, and receive and conceive in us the Ens [or essential power] of Christ, which destroyeth the harlot, that a new spirit may be born in us out of Christ, which hath in it Christ's sufferings and death, ■that we be born out of His resurrection, and resign up ourselves into the whole process of Christ, which is the imputed grace in Christ.

16. A Christian must be begotten and regenerated of the same grace that he be a Christian in and of Christ, namely, a true branch in the tree which is Christ, that the engrafted Word of life may •spring forth and become essentia], living and working in the soul,

and then the merit of Christ and the imputed grace doth avail, when he is growing on the tree as to the internal ground.

1 7. Beloved friend, Mr. Frederick, your questions require a large declaration; in the Treatise or Commentary tipon Genesis they be all determined at large, and if you obtain the eyes and sight of Christ, then there need not any such questions at all in such small things, which, indeed, are too high for reason, but in Christ they are nothing but a childHke play; but, however, I will answer you briefly thus:

Of the Sei-pent which, after the Curse, must eat Eaiih and Creep upon the Belly.

18. First, concerning the article of the serpent (which after the curse must feed upon earth and creep upon the belly) [I answer], that her shape and form was such., but her body and spirit was not so evil in the fiery science of the ground of nature as after the curse.

1 9. For both tinctures of good and evil of the original of the first and second principles were manifest in her; and, therefore, she was so exceeding cunning, that the nature was able to see in her centre in the tinctures the ground of the whole creation.

20. She was in her ground before the creatural original (when she in the grand mystery was put into the severation to a creature), a fair and excellent Ens of great power and virtue.

21. But the devil's imagination (when he sat like an enthroned prince in the ground of nature in very high power and dominion), poisoned this Ens, which in the severation formed itself into a serpent; and, therefore, he made use of her for his instrument by the same cunning and by the same poison in which lay the mightiest power to make Eve monstrous.

22. Ye physicians! It behoveth you, doubtless, well to know and understand the mystery of the serpent, and what lieth hid under her poison. If you take out the same, and proceed aright in the pro- cess thereof, then you may get a tincture against poison, the like whereof is not to be had.

23. She was in the Ens of the grand mystery, before she was a creature, a virgin; but after the curse she became an whore, magically [or parabolically] to be understood.

24. She saw in her the ground of the inward and outward world, and, therefore, one must come out of the inward world and kill her monster, which she hath put upon Eve; and an whole book might

be written of what the desire of the devil hath wrought by and through her.

25. But when she did help to deceive the image of God, then God accursed the same, that she became blind as to the internal ground, and was, also, altogether manifest in the four elements; and so she fell into the earth, whence the body was taken, and, moreover, she fell only to the wrath [or bad part] of the earth; she can no more obtain or reach the good part or quality of the earth as other beasts do; and therefore she must eat earth, namely, the property of the curse in the earth.

26. She was a flying worm, else Nature would have provided her legs, as other worms have on earth; but her nimbleness, wily subtlety, and cunning made Eve to long [after the forbidden fruit].

27. Paradise was the temperature in man when he knew not what good and evil was; where the divine light did shine through Nature, and tinctured and tempered all things; for Paradise is revealed in us, again in Christ, as to the internal ground.

28. But when God saw and knew that he would fall, then Paradise sprung not forth with fruit any more through the earth in the whole world (albeit it was everywhere manifest), but only in the Garden of Eden, where Adam was tempted, for that is the place; but Paradise is the quality, to wit, the life of God in the similitude [or harmony of the universal being].

Whether the beasts (being they were in Paradise, and, moreover, wholly earthly) did also feed upon Paradisical fruit i

29. Beloved friend, Mr. Frede7-ick, every spirit eateth of its mother; out of what the beasts were, of that likewise they did eat, namely, of the fifth essence of the earth in the cosmic spirit (quint- essence in spiritu mundi); for the deepest ground of the beasts is not by many degrees like unto man; thus did they feed upon their mother, namely, the spirit of them feeds upon the cosmic spirit, and the body upon the four elements.

30. God knew very well that man would not stand, but fall; what use, or profit, then should the Paradisical food be to the beasts? in the quintessence there lieth indeed a Paradisical property, upon that

they feed even to this day, for in every beast there is a power which is incorruptible, which the cosmic spirit draweth into itself to the separation of the last judgment.

Whether the beasts ivere so wild and rough before the curse as they now are 2

31. Beloved Mr. Frederick, the garment which Adam had before the curse, when he was yet naked, was exceeding fair, and became him very well; so likewise was the hide of the beasts rough and hairy unto them; but in the curse all things (both in the beasts and in the plants of the earth) were deformed, and changed into a mon- strous strange form; they had, indeed, such a clothing, but far more glorious in colours, feature, and ornament of the pure tincture.

32. And I entreat you, about these queries, to look into the grand mystery (or the book called the Mysterium Magnum: an exposition upon Genesis) with the eyes of Christ, in whom all the treasures of wisdom do lie, and then you shall see them better in the understanding than I can in haste briefly set down in writing; and I commit you to the love of Jesus Christ.

The open Fountain of God in the heart of jFestis Christ be our ^refreshment and constant Light.

ORTHY, much respected, and very learned sir, I heartily wish unto you even that which my very soul desireth of God; namely, the real true divine knowledge in the love of Christ, that God would vouch- safe to open the centre of the soul, whereby the Paradisical lily-twig in Christ's rose- garden might spring forth, grow, blossom, and bear fruit, and the streams out of Christ's fountain might flow from you, and you might be taught of God that His Holy Spirit might drive and rule you: As it is written. Those who are driven and moved by the Spirit of God, they are the children of God.

2. I have received your letter, and thereby understand that you have read my writings, and that you do delight in them; and I wish from my very heart that the sense and right meaning of the same may be apprehended and understood; and then there would be no need of any further asking and searching.

3. For the book in which all mysteries lie is man himself; he himself is the book of the Being of all beings; seeing he is the like- ness [or similitude] of God; the great Arcanum lieth in him, the revealing of it belongeth only unto God's spirit.

4. But if the lily in the humanity of Christ springeth forth in the new birth out of the soul; then out of the same lily the spirit of God proceedeth, as out of His own original and ground; and the same [spirit] seeketh and findeth all mysteries in the divine wisdom.

5. For the lily-branch which springeth forth in the new birth out of Christ's humanity (understand the new bom spirit, out of the soul's essence, out of Christ's power) is the true real branch springing from and remaining in God's tree.

6. As a mother beareth a child, even so is the new man born in and out of God; and no otherwise at all is he God's child and heir, a child of Heaven and of Paradise.

7. No imputed righteousness availeth (a stranger cannot inherit God's kingdom), but an innate righteousness out of God's essentiality, out of the water and spirit of God, as Christ told us, that We must become like unto children, and be conceived in God's essence, and, like new children in God, we must spring forth and be born anew; as a fair flower springeth out of the wild earth, or as precious gold groweth in a rough stone or drossy ore; otherwise we cannot see nor inherit the kingdom of God.

8. For whatsoever will possess the internal spiritual world must be born out of the same; the earthly flesh from the four elements cannot inherit the kingdom of God.