Of Regeneration Or The New Birth Showing

How he that earnestly seeks salvation, must suffer himself to be brought out of the confused and contentious Babel, by the Spirit of Christ, that he may be born a-new in the Spirit of Christ, and live to him only.

 

Rev. 18:4: Come out of Babylon, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues; for her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquity.

 

The Author's Preface To The Reader.

Though I have in my other writings, set down a clear description of regeneration, or the new-birth, from it’s foundation; yet because everyone does not as of yet have it, neither has everyone the capacity to understand it; I have therefore, as a service to the simple children of Christ, here set down a short summary concerning the new-birth.

But if any desire to search the deep ground from where all flows, and have the gift to understand it, let them read.

1 The three principles of the divine essence.

2 The threefold life of man.

3 The forty questions of the original essence, substance, nature, and property of the soul.

4 The incarnation and birth of Jesus Christ the Son of God; also of His suffering, death, and resurrection.

5 The six points treating of the three worlds how they are in one another as one; and yet make three principles, i.e., three births or centers.

6 The mysterium magnum, which is an interpretation upon genesis.

And in them he shall find all that he can ask, and that as deep as the mind of man is able to reach. I have written this for the true Israelites, that is, for the hungry and thirsty hearts that long after the fountain of Christ, who are my fellow members in the Spirit of Christ: but not for the Ishmaelites, and scorners, for they have a book within them, with which, they vex, persecute, and suppress the children of Christ that are under the cross; and yet, though it be unwillingly and unwittingly to themselves, they must be servants to these children of Christ.

 

Contents Of The Chapters

 

1. How man ought to consider himself.

2. How man was created.

3. Of the miserable fall of man, and how he is delivered again.

4. How we are born a-new, and also how we fall into the wrath of God again.

5. How a man may call himself a Christian, and how he can’t.

6. Of right and wrong going to Church, receiving sacraments and forgiveness.

7. Of unprofitable opinions and contention about the letter.

8. Wherein Christian religion consists, and how men must serve God and their brethren.

 

Chapter 1

How man should consider himself.

Christ said, “Except you turn and become as children, you shall not see the kingdom of God.” Again, he said to Nicodemus; Except a man be born again, of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God; for that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.

Also the scripture positively declares, that the fleshly natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, neither can he know or conceive them.

Now seeing that all of us have flesh and blood and are mortal, as we find by experience, and yet the scripture says, that we are the temples of the Holy Ghost, who dwells in us, and that the kingdom of God is within us, and that Christ must be formed in us; also, that he will give us His flesh for food, and His blood for drink: and that, whosoever shall not eat of the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood has no life in him. Therefore we should seriously consider, what kind of man is in us, that is capable of being like the deity.

For it cannot be said of the mortal flesh that returns to earth again, and lives in the vanity of this world, and continually lusts against God; that it is the temple of the Holy Ghost; much less can it be said that the new birth comes to pass in this earthly flesh, which dies and putrefied, and is a continual house of sin.

Yet seeing that it remains certain, that a true Christian is born of Christ, and that the new birth is the temple of the Holy Ghost which dwells in us, and that the new man only, that is born of Christ, partakes of the flesh and blood of Christ; it appears that it is not so easy a matter to be a Christian.

And that Christianity does not consist in the mere knowing of the history of Jesus Christ, and applying the knowledge to ourselves, saying that Christ died for us, and has destroyed death and turned it into life in us, and that He has paid the ransom for us, so that we need do nothing but comfort ourselves with that, and steadfastly believe that it is so.

For we find of ourselves that sin is living, lusting, strong, and powerfully working in our flesh, and therefore it must be something else, which does not co-operate with sin in the flesh, nor wills it, that is the new-birth in Christ.

For Paul says, there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. And further, should we that are Christians be yet sinners? God forbid, seeing we are dead to sin in Christ.

Besides, the man of sin cannot be the temple of the Holy Ghost; and yet, there is no man that does not sin, for God has shut up all under sin. As the scripture says, no one living, is righteous in your sight, if you impute his sins to him. The righteous man falls seven times a day; and yet it cannot be meant that the righteous falls and sins, but his mortal and sinful man. For the righteousness of a Christian in Christ cannot sin.

Moreover, Paul said, our conversation is in heaven, from where we expect our Savior Jesus Christ. Now, if our conversation is in heaven, then heaven must be in us; Christ dwells in heaven; and if we are His temple, then heaven must be in us. But for all this, seeing sin tempts us from within, where the Devil has an access in us, therefore hell also must be in us too, for the Devil dwells in hell; wherever he is, he is in hell. And cannot come out of it. Yes, when he possesses a man, he dwells in hell, i.e., in the anger of God in that man.

Therefore we ought to consider well what man is, and how he is a man; and then we shall find that a true Christian is not simply a person that knows the history of Christ, and mentally accents to it, as if it were enough for us outwardly to confess Christ, and believe that He is the son of God, and has paid the ransom for us. For righteousness avails nothing, if it is only imputed from without, that is, by believing only that it is so imputed. But it is an inherent righteousness born in us, by which we become the children of God. And as the earthly flesh must die, so also the life and will must die from sin, and be as a child that knows nothing, but longs only after the mother which brought it forth. So likewise must the will of a Christian enter again into its mother, i.e., into the Spirit of Christ, and become a child in itself, in its own will and power, having its will and desire inclined and directed only towards its Christ. And a new will and obedience in righteousness, which no longer wills to sin, must rise from death, out of the Spirit of Christ in him.

For that will is not born a-new, which desires to live in vanity, and to itself; and yet there remains a will, which longs after vanity, and sins, even in the new-born or regenerate man. Therefore the image or nature of man should be well understood, and also, how this new-birth comes to pass; seeing it is not fashioned in the mortal flesh, and yet is formed truly and really in us, in flesh and blood, in water and spirit, as the scripture says. We should therefore rightly understand what kind of man it is in us, that truly is the member of Christ, and temple of God who dwells in heaven. And then also what kind of man it is, that the Devil rules and drives; for he cannot interfere with the temple of Christ, nor does he care much for the mortal flesh; and yet there are not three men in one another, for all make but one man.

Now if we will understand this rightly, we must consider time and eternity, and how they are in one another; also light and darkness, good and evil; but especially the original of man. This may be apprehended in this way. The outward world with the stars and four elements, in which man and all creatures live, neither is, nor can be called God. Indeed God dwells in it, but the substance of the outward world comprehended Him not.

We see also that the light shines in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend the light, and yet they both dwell in one another. The four elements are also an example of this; which in their original state, are but one element, which is neither hot, nor cold, nor dry, nor moist; and yet by its stirring, separates itself into four properties, i.e., into fire, air, water, and earth.

Who would believe that fire produces or generates water? And that the origin of fire could be in water, if we did not see it with our eyes in tempests of thunder, lightening, and rain; and did not find also, that in living creatures, the essential fire of the body dwells in the blood, and that the blood is the mother of the fire, and the fire is the father of the blood.

And as God dwells in the world, and fills all things, and yet possesses nothing; and as the fire dwells in water, and yet does not possess it: also, as the light dwells in darkness, and yet does not  possess darkness; as the day is in the night, and the night in the day, time in eternity, and eternity in time; so is man created according to outward humanity; he is the time, and in the time, and the time is the outward world, and it is also the outward man.

The inward man is eternity and the spiritual time and world, which also consists of light and darkness, i.e., of the love of God, as to the eternal light, and of the anger of God as to the eternal darkness; which ever of these is manifest in him, his spirit dwells in that, if it is darkness, or light.

For light and darkness are both in him, but each of them dwells in itself, and neither of them possesses the other; but if one of them enters into the other, then it will possess it, and the other loses its right and power. The passive loses its power; for if the light is made manifest in the darkness, then the darkness loses its darkness, and is not known or discerned. Also on the contrary, if the darkness arise in the light and gets the upper-hand, then the light and the power of it is extinguished. This is to be observed also in man.

The eternal darkness of the soul is hell, i.e., an aching source of anguish, which is called the anger of God; but the eternal light in the soul is the kingdom of heaven, where the fiery anguish of darkness is changed into joy. For the same nature of anguish, which in the darkness is a cause of sadness, is in the light a cause of the outward and stirring joy. For the source or origin in light, and the source of the darkness are the same eternal source, and one nature, yet they, the light, and darkness, have a mighty difference in the source; the one dwells in the other and begets the other, but is not the other. The fire is painful and consuming, but the light is yielding, friendly, powerful, and delightful, a sweet and amiable joy. This may be found also in man; he is, and lives in three worlds; the first is the eternal dark world, i.e., the center of the eternal nature, which produces or generates the fire, i.e., the source or property of anguish. The second is the eternal light world, which begets the eternal joy, which is the divine habitation in which the Spirit of God dwells, and in which the Spirit of Christ receives the human substance, and subdues the darkness, so that it must be a cause of joy in the Spirit of Christ in the light. The third is the outward visible world in the four elements and the visible stars; though indeed every element has its peculiar constellation in itself, where the desire and property arise, and is like a mind. Therefore you may understand, that the fire in the light is a fire of love, a desire of meekness and delightfulness; but the fire in the darkness is a fire of anguish, and is painful, irksome, and full of contrariety in its essence. The fire of the light has a good taste, but the taste in the essence of darkness is unpleasant, loathsome and irksome. For all the forms or properties in the eternal nature, until they reach to fire, are in great anguish.

Chapter 2

How man was created

Here we are to consider the creation of man. Moses says, God created man in His image, in the image of God created He him. This we understand to be both out of the eternal and temporal birth; out of the inward and spiritual world, which He breathed into him, into the created image; and then out of the substance of the inward spiritual world, which is holy.

For as there is a nature and substance in the outward world; so also in the inward spiritual world,  there is a nature and substance which is spiritual; from which the outward world  is breathed forth, and produced out of light and darkness, and created to have a beginning and time.

And out of the substance of the inward and outward world, man was created; out of, and in the likeness of the birth of all substances. The body is a radiant light (an extract or a kind of seed, which contains all that, which the thing from where it is taken has) of the earth, and also a radiant light of the heavenly substance; for the earth is breathed forth or created out of the dark, and light world. In the word fiat (or creating word) i.e., in the eternal desire man was taken out of the earth, and so created an image out of time and eternity.

This image was in the inward and spiritual element, from which the four elements proceed and are produced. In that one element was paradise; for the properties of nature from the fire-dark-and-light-world were all in harmony and agreement in number, weight, and measure. One of them was not manifested more eminently than another, therefore there was no frailty in it. For no one property was predominant over another, neither was there any strife or contrariety among the powers and properties.

Into this created image God breathed the spirit and breath of understanding out of the three worlds, as one soul which, as to its original principle or essence, is, or consists in, the inward dark fire-world of the eternal spiritual nature; according to which God calls himself a strong jealous God, and a consuming fire. And this now is the eternal creaturely great soul, a magical breath of fire, in which fire consists the original of life, from the great power of separation. God's anger, or the eternal darkness, is in this property, so far as fire reaches without giving light.

The second property of the breath of God is the spirit of the source of light, proceeding from the great fiery desire of love, from the great meekness; according to which God calls himself a loving, merciful God; in which consists the true spirit of understanding, and of life in power.

For as light shines from power, and as the power of understanding is discerned in the light, so the breath of the light was joined to the breath of the fire of God, and breathed into the image of man.

The third property of the breath of God was the outward air with its constellation or astrum, wherein the life and constellation of the outward substance and body did consist. This He breathed into his nostrils; and as time and eternity hang together, and as time is produced out of eternity, so the inward breath of God hung to the outward.

This three-fold soul was at once breathed into man; and each substance of the body received the spirit according to its property. The outward flesh received the outward air and its constellations, for a rational and vegetative life, to the manifestation of the wonders of God; and the light body or heavenly substance received the breath of the light, of the great divine powers and virtues; which breath is called the Holy Ghost.

Thus the light pierced through the darkness, i.e., through the dark breath of fire, and also through the breath of the outward air and its constellation or astrum, and so deprived all the properties of their power, that neither the anguish of the breath of fire in the inward property of the soul, nor heat nor cold, nor any of the properties of the outward constellation, might or could be manifested.

The properties of all the three worlds in soul and body were in equal agreement, temperature, and weight. That which was inward and holy ruled through and over the outward, that is, the outward parts of the outward life, of the outward stars and constellations and the four elements; and that original and universal power of the inward over the outward constituted the holy paradise.

And thus man was both in heaven and also in the outward world, and was Lord over all the creatures of this world. Nothing could destroy him. For such was the earth also, until the curse of God broke forth. The holy property of the spiritual world sprung up through the earth, and brought forth holy paradisaical fruits, which man could then eat in a paradisaical manner.

And had neither need of teeth, nor entrails in his body. For as the light swallows up darkness, and as the fire devours water, and yet is not filled with it, just such a center man had also for his mouth to eat with, according to the manner of eternity. And he could also generate his likeness, out of himself, without any dividing or opening of his body and spirit, in such a manner as God generated the outward world; who didn’t divide Himself; but did in His desire, i.e., manifest Himself, and brought that same desire into a shape, according to the eternal spiritual birth. So also man was created an image and likeness of God in that respect, according to time and eternity, out of both time and eternity, yet in and for an immortal life, which was without enmity or contrariety.

But the Devil having himself been a prince in the place of this world, and was cast out because of his pride, into the dark, anguishing, painful and hostile property, into the wrath of God, he envied man the glory of being created in and for the spiritual world, the place which he himself once possessed; and therefore brought his desire into the image of man, and tried to made man lust, and so the dark world, and also the outward world arose in man, and departed from the equal agreement and temperature wherein they stood, and so one predominated over the other.

And then the properties were separately made manifest in itself, and each of them lusted after that which was like itself. That which was out of the birth of the dark world, and also that which was out of the birth of the light world, each of them would like to eat of the radiant light of the earth, according to its hunger; and so evil and good became manifest in Adam. And when the hunger of the properties went into the earth, from which the properties of the body were extracted, then the fiat drew such a branch out of the earth, as the properties could eat of, in their awakened vanity.

For the spirit of the strong and great power of time and eternity was in Adam, from which the earth with its properties was breathed forth; and so the strong desire of the eternal nature, attracted the essence of the earth. And God let the tree of knowledge of good and evil grow for Adam, according to his awakened properties; for the great power of the soul and of the body caused it. And then man must be tried, to see whether or not, he would stand and subsist in his own powers, before the tempter, the Devil, and before the wrath of the eternal nature; and whether the soul would continue in the equal agreement of the properties in true resignation under God’s Spirit, as an instrument of God’s harmony, a tuned instrument of divine joyfulness for the Spirit of God to strike upon. This was tried by that tree, and this severe commandment was added, you shall not eat of that tree, for on the day that you eat of that tree, you shall surely die.

But since it was known to God that man would not stand, and that he had already imagined and lusted after the good and evil, God said, it is not good for man to be alone, we will make an help-mate for him.

For God saw that Adam could not then generate, having entered with his lust into vanity. Now therefore Moses says, God caused a deep sleep to fall upon him, and he slept; that is, seeing man would not continue in the obedience of the divine harmony in the properties, submitting himself to stand still as an instrument of the Spirit of God; therefore God allowed him to fall from the divine harmony into an harmony of his own, i.e., into the awakened properties of evil and good; the spirit of his soul went into these.

And there in this sleep he died from the angelical world, and fell under the power of the outward fiat, and thus bade farewell to the eternal image which was of God’s begetting. Here his angelical form and power fell, and lay on the ground.

And then by the fiat, God made the woman out of him, and so out of one body he made two, and divided the properties of the tinctures, i.e., the watery and fiery constellations in the element; yet not wholly in substance but in the spirit, i.e., the properties of the watery and fiery soul.

And still it is but one thing, only the property of the tincture was divided; the desire of self-love was taken out of Adam, and formed into a woman according to his likeness. And therefore it is that man now so eagerly desires the woman, and the woman desires the radiant light of the man, i.e., the fire-element, the origin of the true soul, by which is meant the tincture of fire; for these two were one in Adam, and therein consisted the magical begetting.

And as soon as Eve was made out of Adam in his sleep, both Adam and Eve were at that instant set and constituted in the outward natural life, having the members given them for propagation, after the manner of the brute animals, and also the fleshly carcass, into which they might put their earthliness, and live like the beasts.

Of which the poor soul that is captivated in vanity is at this day ashamed; and sorry that its body has received such a bestial, monstrous shape. Nothing can be clearer than this. For it is because mankind is ashamed of it’s members and nakedness, that they borrow their clothing from the earthly creatures. For this they would not have done, had they not lost the angelical form, and assumed that of a beast. This borrowed clothing, together with the awakened earthliness, and subjection to the powers of heat and cold, is a plain and full proof to man, that he is not truly at home in this world. For all earthly appetites, cares, and fears, together with this false clothing, must perish and be severed from the soul again. When Adam awoke from sleep, he beheld his wife, and knew that she came out of him; for he had not yet eaten of vanity with his outward mouth, but with the imagination, desire, and lust only. And it was one of the first desires of Eve, to eat of the tree of vanity, of evil and good, to which the Devil in the form of a serpent persuaded her, saying, that her eyes should be opened, and she would be as God Himself; which was both a lie and ha a little truth in it.

But he did not tell her, that she would lose the divine light and power by doing this: he only said, her eyes would be opened, that she might taste, prove, and know evil and good, as he had done. Neither did he tell her that heat and cold would awake in her, and that the property of the outward constellations would have great power over the flesh and over the mind. His only aim was that the angelical image, i.e., the substance which came from the inward spiritual world, might disappear in them. For then they would be constrained to live in subjection to the earthliness, and the constellations or stars; and then he knew well enough that when the outward world perished, the soul would be with him in darkness. For he saw that the body must die, which he perceived by that which God had intimated; and so he expected still to be Lord to all eternity in the place of this world, in his false shape which he had received; and for that reason, he seduced man.

For when Adam and Eve were eating the fruit, evil, and good, bringing it into the body, then the imagination of the body received vanity in the fruit, and then vanity awakened in the flesh, and the dark world got the upper hand, and dominion, in the vanity of the earthliness; upon which the fair image of heaven, that proceeded out of the heavenly divine world, instantly disappeared.

Here Adam and Eve died to the kingdom of heaven, and awaked to the outward world, and then the fair soul as it stood in the love of God, lost it’s holy powers, virtue, and property; and instead received, the wrathful anger, i.e., the dark fire world, and awoke in it, the soul became in the inward nature, a half devil, and in the outward part as related to the outward world, a beast.

Here are the bounds of death and the gates of hell, for which cause God became man, that he might destroy death, defeat the Devil’s purpose, and change hell into great love again.

Let this be told you, you children of men; it is told you in the sound of a trumpet, that you should instantly go forth from the abominable vanity, for the fire thereof is burning.

 

Chapter 3

Of The Miserable Fall Of Man, And How He Is Delivered Again

Now when Adam and Eve fell into this vanity, then the wrath of nature awoke in each property, and in and through the desire, impressed the vanity of the earthliness and the wrath of God into itself. The flesh became gross and rough, as the flesh of a beast, and the soul was captivated in that essence of the flesh, and saw that its body had become a beast, and had received the bestial members for multiplication, and the filthy carcass into which the desire would stuff the loathsomeness which it was ashamed of in the presence of God; and therefore Adam and Eve hid themselves under the trees of the garden of Eden. Heat and cold also seized on them. And here the heaven in man trembled for horror; as the earth quaked in wrath, when this anger was destroyed on the cross by the sweet love of God; there the anger trembled before the sweet love of God.

And for this vanity's sake, which was awakened in man, God cursed the earth; lest the holy element should spring or shine forth anymore through the outward fruit, and bring forth paradisaical fruit. For there was then no creature that could have enjoyed it; neither was the earthly man worthy of it any more. God would not cast the precious pearls before beasts; an un-godly man in his body is only a bestial creature; and though he is of noble extract, yet he is wholly poisoned and loathsome in the sight of God.

Now when God saw that His fair image was spoiled, He manifested Himself to fallen Adam and Eve, and had pity on them, and promised Himself to them for an everlasting possession, and that with His great love in the received humanity, he would destroy the power of the serpentine property, i.e., of the vanity in the wrath of God awakened in them. And this was the breaking of the head of the serpent, which he would perform, i.e., he would destroy the dark death, and subdue the anger with His great love. And this covenant of his incarnation which was to come, He put into the light of life; to which covenant the Jewish sacrifices pointed, to which God had promised Himself with His love; for the faith of the Jews, entered into the sacrifices and offerings, and Gods will, entered into the covenant. And the offering was a figure of the restitution of that which Adam had lost, and so God did compensate His anger in the human property, through the offering in the limit of the covenant. In which covenant the most holy sweet name Jesus, proceeding out of the holy name and great power of Jehovah, had incorporated itself; so that he would again move and manifest Himself in the substance of the heavenly world which had disappeared in Adam, and kindle the holy divine life again.

This mark or limit of the covenant was propagated from Adam and his children, from man to man, and did go through from one to all, as sin also did, and the awakened vanity, also went through  one, to all. And it stood in the promise of the covenant at the end, in the root of David in the virgin Mary, who was, in the inward kingdom of the hidden humanity, i.e., of the essentiality that disappeared as to the kingdom of God, the daughter of God’s covenant, but in the outward, according to the natural humanity, she was begotten by her true bodily father Joachim and her true mother Anna, out of the essences and substance of their souls and bodies, like all other children of Adam; a true daughter of Eve. 

In this Mary from the virgin (i.e., the wisdom of God) in the promised limit of the covenant, of which all the prophets have prophesied. The eternal speaking word, which created all things, did in the fullness of time move itself in the name Jesus, according to its highest and deepest love and humility, and bring again a living, divine, and heavenly substantiality into the humanity of the heavenly part, which disappeared in Adam, and from which he died in paradise, into the seed of Mary, into the tincture of love, into that property wherein Adam should have propagated himself in a heavenly manner, into the true seed of the woman, of heavenly substantiality, which disappeared in paradise.

And when the divine light in the heavenly essence was extinguished, the word of God, i.e., the divine power of the understanding, did bring in heavenly and living substantiality, and awakened the substantiality in the seed of Mary, and brought it to life.

And now God's substance, wherein he dwells and works, and the disappeared substance of man, have become one person; for the holy divine substantiality did anoint that which had disappeared; therefore that person is called Christ, the anointed of God.

And this is the dry rod of Aaron, which blossomed and bore almonds, and the true high priest; and it is that humanity of which Christ spoke, saying, that He was come from heaven and was in heaven; and that no man could ascend into heaven but the son of man which is come from heaven, and is in heaven. Now when he says, he is come from heaven, it is meant of the heavenly substance, the heavenly corporeality; for the power and virtue of God did not need to come anywhere, for it is everywhere altogether immeasurable and undivided. But substance did need to come; the power or virtue needed to move itself, and manifest itself in substance.

And that substance entered into the human substance, and received it; not that part only of heavenly substantiality, which disappeared in Adam, but the whole human essence in soul and flesh, according to all of the three worlds.

But he has not received, or taken upon himself, the awakened or impressed vanity, which the Devil, by his imagination, brought into the flesh, by which the flesh did commit sin; though he has indeed taken upon him the awakened forms of life, as they were gone forth from their equal agreement, each of them into its own desire.

For therein lay our infirmity, and the death, which he was to drown with his heavenly, and holy blood. He took upon Himself all our sins and infirmities, also death and hell, in the wrath of God, and destroyed their power in the human properties.

The wrath of God was the hell into which the Spirit of Christ went, when he had shed that heavenly blood into our outward human blood, and tinctured it with the love; thereby changing that hell of the human property into heaven, and reducing the human properties into equal agreement, into the heavenly harmony.

 

Chapter 4

How we are born a-new; and how we may fall into God's anger again.

Now here we may rightly understand what our new-birth, or regeneration, is; and how we may become, and continue to be, the temple of God; though in this life's time, according to the outward humanity, we are sinful mortal men.

Christ in the human essence has broken up and opened the gates of our inward heavenly humanity, which was shut up in Adam; so that nothing is now needed, but that the soul withdraw its will out of the vanity of corrupted flesh, and bring it into this open gate in the Spirit of Christ. Great and strong earnestness is required here; and not only a learning and knowing, but, a real hunger and thirst after the Spirit of Christ. For to know only, is not faith; but we must hunger and thirst after that which we want, so that we truly draw it into ourselves, and lay hold on it with the desire and, make it my own; this is the truth and essence of a Christian’s faith.

The will must go forth from the vanity of the flesh, and willingly yield itself up to the suffering and death of Christ, and to all the reproach of vanity, which derides it, because it goes forth from its own house wherein it was born, and no longer regards vanity, but desires the love of God in Christ Jesus. In such a hunger and desire the will receives and impresses into itself the Spirit of Christ with His heavenly corporality; that is, the soul in its great hunger and desire takes hold of, and draws the body of Christ, i.e., the heavenly substantiality, into its true image which had disappeared, within which the word of the power of God is working. The hunger of the soul brings its desire quite through the bruised property of its humanity in the heavenly part, which disappeared in Adam; which humanity, the sweet fire of love in the death of Christ did bruise, when the death of that heavenly humanity was destroyed. And so the hunger of the soul received into it, into its disappeared corporality, through the desire, the holy heavenly substance, i.e., Christ’s heavenly corporality, which fills the Father all over, and is near to all, and through all things; and through this, the disappeared heavenly body rises in the power of God, in the sweet name of Jesus. And this raised heavenly spiritual body is the member of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Ghost, a true mansion of the God, according to Christ’s promise, saying, we will come to you, and make our abode in you.

The essence of that life eats the flesh of Christ, and drinks His blood. For the Spirit of Christ, i.e., the word, which made itself visible with the humanity of Christ out of, and in our disappeared humanity, through the outward man of the substance of this world, swallows its holy substance into its fiery; for every spirit eats of its own body.

Now if the soul eats of this sweet, holy, and heavenly food, then it awakens itself with the great love, in the name, and power of Jesus; where its fire of anguish becomes a great triumph of joy and glory, and the true sun arises to it, wherein it is born to another will. And here comes to pass the wedding of the lamb, which we heartily wish that the lip-service Christians might once find by experience in themselves, and so pass from mental assent  into the substance.

But the soul does not obtain this pearl of the divine wisdom and virtue for its own property during the time of this life; because it has the outward bestial flesh sticking to its outward man.

The power of this pearl of divine wisdom espouses itself in this wedding of the lamb, and sinks itself down into the heavenly image, i.e., into the substance of the heavenly man, who is the temple of Christ; and not into the fire-breath of the soul, which is yet, during this whole life's time, bound fast to the outward kingdom, to the bond of vanity, with the breath of the air, and is in great danger. It darts its beams of love indeed very often into the soul, whereby the soul receives light; but the Spirit of Christ does not yield itself up to the fire-breath in this life's time, but to the breath of light that was extinguished in Adam, in which the temple of Christ is, for that is the true and holy heaven. Understand aright now, what the new-birth or regeneration is, and how it comes to pass. The outward earthly mortal man is not born anew in this life's time; that is, neither the outward flesh, nor the outward part of the soul. They continue in the vanity of their wills which awoke in Adam. They love their mother, in whose body they live, i.e., in the dominion of this outward world; and therein the birth of sin is manifest. The outward man in soul and flesh, (we mean the outward part of the soul) has no divine will, neither does he understand anything of God, as the scripture says, the natural man perceives not the things of the Spirit of God. But only the fire-breath of the inward world, if it is once enlightened, will understand it; it has a great longing, sighing, hunger, and thirst after the sweet fountain of Christ; it refreshes itself by hungering and desiring, which is the true faith in the sweet fountain of Christ from His new body, from the heavenly substantiality, as a hungry branch in the vine Christ.

And the reason why the fiery soul cannot attain to perfection during this life time, is because it is fast bound with the outward bond of vanity, through which the Devil continually casts his venomous rays of influence into, and so sifts it, that it often bites at his bait, and poisons itself. From where misery and anguish arise, so that the noble Sophia hides herself in the fountain of Christ, in the heavenly humanity; for she cannot draw near to vanity. For she knew how it went with her in Adam, when she lost her pearl, which is of grace freely bestowed again upon the inward humanity; therefore she is called Sophia, i.e., the bride of Christ. Here she faithfully calls to her bridegroom the fiery soul, and exhorts him to repentance, and to go forth from the abomination of vanity. And then when this is done, war assaults the whole man. The outward fleshly man fights against the inward spiritual man, and the spiritual against the fleshly; and so, man is in continual warfare and strife, full of trouble, misery, anguish, and care.

The inward spirit says to the fiery soul: oh my soul! O my love! Turn I beg you, and go forth from vanity, or else you will lose my love and the noble pearl. Then says the outward reason, i.e., the bestial soul; you are foolish; why will you want to be a laughed at, and the scorn of the world? You need the outward world to maintain this life. Beauty, power, and glory are your proper happiness; therein you can rejoice and take delight. Why will you cast yourself into anguish, misery, and reproach? Take your pleasure, which will do both your flesh and your mind good. With such filth, man is often defiled; that is, the outward man defiles himself, as a sow in the mire, and obscures his noble pearl. For the more vain the outward man grows, the more dark the inward man comes to be, until at length it disappears altogether. And then the fair Paradisaical tree is gone, and it will be very difficult to recover it again. For when the outward light, i.e., the outward soul is once enlightened, so that the outward light of reason is kindled by the inward light; then the outward soul commonly would become hypocritical, and esteem itself divine, even though the pearl was gone; this error is difficult to overcome for many men. And thus it comes to pass that the tree of the pearl in the garden of Christ is often spoiled; concerning which the scripture makes a hard conclusion, i.e., that those who have once tasted the sweetness of the world to come, and fall away from it again, shall hardly see the kingdom of God. And though it cannot be denied, that the gates of grace still stand open, yet the false and dazzling light of the outward reason of the soul so deceives and hinders such men, that they suppose that they have the pearl, while they yet live to the vanity of this world, and dance with the Devil after his pipe.

 

Chapter 5

How a man may call himself a Christian, and how he can’t

Here therefore a Christian should consider why he can call himself a Christian, and examine truly whether he is one, or not. For surely my learning of, and confessing that I am a sinner, and that also that Christ has destroyed my sins on the cross, and shed his blood for me, does not make me a Christian.

The inheritance belongs only to the children. A maid-servant in a house knows well enough what the mistress would like to have done, and yet that does not make her the heiress of her mistress's goods. The very devils know that there is a God, yet that does not change them into angels again. But if the maid-servant in the house shall be married to the son of her mistress, then she may come to inherit her mistress's goods. And so it is to be understood also in the matter of being a Christian.

The children that understand the Gospel or “history of the Gospel” are not the heirs of the goods of Christ, but the legitimate children regenerated by the Spirit of Christ are the only true heirs. For God said to Abraham, cast out the son of the bondwoman, he shall not inherit with the son of the free. For he was a scorner, and only an “historical” son of the faith and spirit of Abraham; and so long as he continues as such, he was not a true inheritor of the faith of Abraham, and therefore God commanded that he should be cast out from inheriting his goods.

This was a type of the future Christendom. For the promise of Christendom was made to Abraham: the type was also set forth by two brothers, Isaac and Ishmael; foreshowing the diverse state and manners of Christendom; how that two sorts of men would be in it, i.e., true Christians and lip-service-Christians. Which latter, under the title or outward profession of Christianity, would be only mockers, as Ishmael, and Esau were, who also were a type of the outward Adam, as Jacob was a type of Christ, and His true Christendom. Thus everyone who calls himself a Christian, must cast out from himself the son of the bond-woman, that is, the earthly will, and be evermore killing and destroying it, and not allow it to settle in the inheritance.

Nor give the pearl to the bestial man, for him to please and amuse himself with in the outward light, in the lust of the flesh. But we must, with our father Abraham bring the son of the right will to mount Moriah, and be ready in obedience to God to offer it up, always willing, and dying from sin, in the death of Christ, giving no place to the beast of vanity in the kingdom of Christ, nor letting it grow lustful, proud, covetous, envious, and malicious. For all these are the properties of Ishmael the son of the bond-woman who was born of Adam, in his vanity, on the lustful whore, the false bond-woman, by the Devil’s imagination, out of the earthly property in flesh and blood.

This mocker and supposed Christian is the son of the false bond-woman, and must be cast out; for he shall not possess the inheritance of Christ in the kingdom of God. He is not fit, he is only Babel, a confusion of the one language, into many. He is only a talker and a wrangler about the inheritance; he means to gain it for himself by talking and wrangling, by the hypocrisy of his lips and seeming holiness, although in his heart, he is no better than a blood-thirsty murderer of his brother Abel, who is the right heir.

Therefore we say what we know, that he that will call himself a true Christian must try himself, and find out what kind of properties drive and rule him, whether the Spirit of Christ moves him to truth and righteousness, and to the love of his neighbor, so that he would willingly do what is right if he knew but how. Now if he finds that he has a real hunger after such virtue, then he may justly think that he is drawn. And then he must begin to practice accordingly, and not be content with a willingness in his mind, that never ends up doing. The drawing of the Father to Christ consists in the will, but true life consists in the doing; for the right spirit does that which is right.

But if there is a will to do, and yet the doing does not follow, then the true man is still shut up in ineffective lust, which suppresses the doing. And therefore such a one is but an hypocrite, and an Ishmaelite; he speaks one thing and does another, and witnesses by his actions, that his mouth is a liar; for he himself does not do that which he teaches, and consequently only serves the bestial man in vanity.

For he that will say, I have a will, and would willingly do good, but the earthly flesh which I carry about me, keeps me back, so that I cannot; yet I shall be saved by grace, because of the merits of Christ. I comfort myself with His merits and sufferings; who will receive me by grace, without any merits of my own, and forgive me my sins. Such a one, I say, is like a man that knows which food is good for his health, yet will not eat of it, but eats poison instead, from where sickness and death, will certainly follow.

For what good does it do for the soul to know the way to God, if it will not walk in it, but instead, goes on in the opposite and contrary path? What good will it do the soul to comfort itself with the filiations of Christ, with His passion and death, and so flatter itself with the hopes of getting the inheritance thereby, if it will not enter into the new birth, that it may be a true child, born out of the Spirit of Christ, out of His suffering, death and resurrection? Surely, the tickling and flattering of itself with Christ's merits, without the true innate child-ship, is a falsehood, and a lie. This comfort belongs only to the penitent sinner, who strives against sin and the anger of God. When temptations come, and the Devil assaults such a poor repentant soul, then it must wholly wrap itself up in the merits and death of Christ, as its sole armor of defense. Christ alone indeed has merited redemption for us; but not in such a way as that for His own proper merit’s sake, will He will freely grant us his child-ship by an outward adoption only, and so receive us for children, when we are not. No, He Himself is the merit; he is the open gate that leads through death; and through that gate that we must all enter. He receives no beast into His merit, but those only that turn, and become as children. Those children that come to Him, are His reward, which He has merited. For he said, Father, the men were yours and you have given them to me (as my reward) and I will give them eternal life. But the life of Christ will be given to none, unless they come to Him in His spirit, into His humanity, sufferings, and merit, and therein be born true children of the merit.

We must be born of His merit, and put on the merit of Christ in His passion and death; not outwardly with verbal flattery only, to comfort ourselves, all the while we still remain aliens and not children. No; the strange essence did not inherited the child-ship, but the inborn essence inherited it.

This inborn essence is not of this world, but is in heaven, of which Paul speaks saying, our conversation is in heaven. The filial essence walks in heaven, and heaven is in man.

But if the heaven that is in man is not opened, and the man stands outside of heaven, flattering himself, and saying, I am still outside, but Christ will take me in through His grace; His merit is mine? Such a one is in vanity and sin, with the outward man, and with the soul he is in hell, i.e., in the anger of God.

Therefore learn to understand rightly what Christ has taught us, and done for us. He is our heaven; he must be born, and formed in us, or else we shall not be in heaven. Then and only then is the soul's inward man, with the holy body of Christ (In the new birth,) in heaven, and the outward mortal man is in the world, of which Christ spoke saying, my sheep are in my hand, and none shall pluck them away; the father which gave them to me is greater than all.

 

Chapter 6

Of the right, and of the wrong way of going to church, receiving the sacraments, and forgiveness.

Beloved brethren, we will teach you faithfully, not with flattering lips, to please the antichrist, but from our pearl, the virtue, power, and Spirit of Christ in us, from a Christian essence and knowledge; not from the husk and history, but from a new-born spirit, from Christ's knowledge, as a branch growing on the vine, Christ; from the measure of that knowledge which is opened in us, according to the will and counsel of God.

Men tie us to the history. these days, and to the material churches of stone; which churches are only good, if men bring the temple of Christ into them. They teach moreover, that their forgiveness is a forgiveness of sins, and that the supper of the Lord takes away sin: also that the Spirit of God comes into men through their ministry. All which has a proper meaning, if it were to be rightly understood; and if men did not cling merely to the husk. Many a man goes to church twenty or thirty years, hears sermons, receives the sacraments, and hears forgiveness read or declared, and yet is as much a beast of the Devil, and yet lives in vanity, now, as much as at the first. A beast goes into the church, and to the supper, and a beast comes out from it again.

How will he eat who does not have a mouth? Can any man eat that food which is so far away that he cannot get it? How will he drink who cannot come to the water? Or how will he hear, that has no ability to hear? What good does it achieve, for me to go to the material churches of stone, and there fill my ears with empty breath? Or to go to the supper, and feed on nothing but the earthly mouth, which is mortal and corruptible? Cannot I feed and satisfy that with a piece of bread at home? What good does it do for the soul, which is an immortal life, to have the bestial man observe the form, and venerate the shell of Christ’s institution, if it cannot obtain the kernel thereof? For Paul says of the supper, “You receive it to condemnation, because you discern not the Lord's body.”

The covenant stands firm, and is stirred in the use of the institution. Christ, proffered His Spirit to us in His word (i.e., in His preached word) and His body and blood in the sacrament, and His forgiveness in a brotherly reconciliation one to another.

But what good does it do for a beast to stand and listen, who has no hearing to receive the inward living word, nor any foundation wherein to put the word, that it may bring forth fruit? Of such Christ says, the Devil plucked the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. But how can he do so? Because the word finds no place in the hearing mind, to take root in. And thus it is with forgiveness also: what benefit is it to me for one to say, I pronounce or declare to you the forgiveness of your sins, when my soul is wholly enclosed in sin? Whoever says this to a sinner, so enclosed in sin, erred; and he that receives it without the voice of God within himself confirming the same, deceives himself. None can forgive sins but God only. The preacher does not have forgiveness of sins in his own power; but it is the Spirit of Christ in the voice of the preacher that has the power, provided the preacher himself is a Christian.

What good did it do to those that heard Christ Himself teaching on earth, when he said, come to me, all you that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest? What good did this blessed promise do to those that heard it, if they did not labor, nor were not heavy laden? What became of the refreshment or rest then? Seeing they had dead ears, and heard only the outward Christ, and not the word of the divine power; certainly they were not refreshed. Just so much good the bestial man has of his forgiveness and sacraments.

The covenant is open in the sacraments; and in the office or ministry of teaching, also the covenant is stirred; the soul does receive it, but in that place only, where the mouth of the soul is. That is, the outward beast receives bread and wine, which it may as well of had at home. And the fiery soul receives the testament according to its property, i.e., in the anger of God it receives the substance of the eternal world, but only according to the place of the dark world; it receives it, as the scripture says, to its own condemnation. For as the mouth is, so is the food which is taken in by the mouth. And after this manner also it is, that the wicked shall behold Christ at the last judgment, as a severe judge; but the saints shall behold him as a loving Immanuel.

God’s anger stands open in his testaments towards the wicked; but towards the saints, the heavenly loving kindness, and in it, the power of Christ in the holy name Jesus, stands open. What good then does the holy things do for the wicked, who cannot enjoy them? Or what is there, that can take away his sins, when his sin is only stirred and made manifest by this means?

The sacraments do not take away sin; neither are sins forgiven by them. But it is like this: when Christ arises, then Adam dies in the essence of the serpent; as when the sun rises, the night is swallowed up in the day, and the night is no more: just so are sins forgiven. The Spirit of Christ eats of His holy substance, the inward man is the receiver of the holy substance; he receives what the Spirit of Christ brings into him i.e., the temple of God, Christ’s flesh and blood. But what does this concern a beast? Or what way can it concern the devils? Or the soul that is in the anger of God? These eat of the heavenly blood, which is in heaven, but they dwell in the abyss, or bottomless pit.

And thus it is also in the office, or ministry of preaching: the un-Godly man hears what the outward soul of the outward world preaches; that he receives, i.e., the history; and if there is straw or stubble in that which is taught, he receives the vanity of that. Yes, if the preaching is mere slander, railing, and uncharitable abuse, as is sometimes the case, then his soul receives the venomous poison, and the murdering cruelty of the Devil from it, wherein it tickles itself, and is pleased with learning how to condemn others.

Thus, if the preacher is one who is dead, and has no true life in him, but sows only venom and reproach proceeding out of his evil affections, then it is the Devil that teaches, and the Devil that hears. Such teaching is received into a wicked heart, and brings forth wicked fruits. By which means the world has become a mere den of murdering devils. So that if you look among the herd of such teachers and hearers, there is little to be found but reviling, slandering, and reproaching; together with contention about words, and wrangling about the husk.

But the Holy Ghost teaches in the holy teachers, and the Spirit of Christ hears through the soul, which is the divine house of the divine sound, or voice in the holy hearer. The holy man has his church in himself, wherein he hears and teaches. But Babel has a heap of stones, into which she goes with her seeming holiness and hypocrisy. There she loves to be seen in fine clothes, and makes a very devout and Godly show of it; the church of stone is her God, in which she puts her confidence. But the holy man has his church about him everywhere, even in himself; for he always stands and walks, sits and lays down in his church. He lives in the true Christian church; yes, in the temple of Christ. The Holy Ghost preaches to him out of every creature. Whatever he looks upon, he sees a preacher of God in it.

Here now the scoffer will say that I despise the church of stone, where the congregation meets; but I say that I do not. For I have only discovered the hypocritical whore of Babylon, which committed whoredom with the church of stone, and termed herself a Christian, but is indeed a strumpet. A true Christian brings his holy church with him into the congregation. For the heart is the true church, where a man must practice the service of God. If I should go a thousand times to church, and to the sacrament every week, and hear forgiveness declared to me every day, and yet, lack Christ dwelling in me, all would be false, only an unprofitable fiction and graven image in Babel, and would not have the forgiveness of sins in it.

A holy man does holy works from the holy strength of his mind. The work is not the atonement of reconciliation, but, it is the building, which the true Spirit builds in His substance; it is his habitation. But fiction and fancy are the habitation of the false Christian, into which his soul enters with dissimulation. The outward hearing reaches only to the outward, and works only in the outward; but the inward hearing goes into the inward, and works in the inward.

Dissemble, roar, cry, sing, preach, and teach as much as you will; yet if your inward teacher and hearer is not open, all is nothing but a Babel, a fiction, and a graven image, where the spirit of the outward world, models, and makes to itself a graven image in the resemblance of the inward; and makes a holy show with it, as if he performed some divine or holy service to God; whereas many times in such service and worship, the Devil works mightily in the imagination, and very often tickles the heart with those things wherein the flesh delighted. Which indeed often happens to the children of God, as to their outward man, if they do not take great heed to themselves; so prolifically does the Devil overwhelmed and sift them.

 

Chapter 7

Of unprofitable opinions, and contention about the letter.

A true Christian, who is born a-new of the Spirit of Christ, is in the simplicity of Christ, and does not have any strife or contention, with any man about religion. He has strife enough in himself, with his own bestial evil flesh and blood. He continually thinks himself a great sinner, and is afraid of God: but the love of Christ by degrees pierced through, and expelled that fear, as the day swallows up the night. But the sins of the impenitent man rest in the sleep of death, and bud forth in the pit, and produce their fruit in hell.

The Christendom that is in Babel, striving about the manner how men ought to serve God, and glorify Him; also how they are to know Him, and what He is in His essence and will. And they preach positively, that whosoever is not one and the same with them in every part of knowledge and opinion is not a Christian, but a heretic. Now I would like to see how all their denominations can be brought to agree as one, and how it can be called a true Christian church; when all of them are scorners, every one of them, reviling the rest, and proclaiming them to be false. But a Christian is of no denomination: he can dwell in the midst of denominations, and appear in their services, without being attached or bound to any. He has only one knowledge, and that is, Christ in him. He seeks only one way, which is the desire always to do and teach that which is right; and he puts all his knowing and willing into the life of Christ. He sighs and wishes continually that the will of God might be done in himself, and that His kingdom might be manifested in him. He daily and hourly kills sin in the flesh; for the seed of the woman, i.e., the inward man in Christ, continually breaks the head of the serpent, that is, the power of the Devil, which is vanity.

His faith is a desire after God and goodness; which he wraps up in a sure hope, trusting to the words of the promise, and lives and dies in them; though as to the true man, he never dies. For Christ says, whoever believes in me, shall never die, but has pierced through from death to life; and rivers of living water shall flow from him, i.e., good doctrine and works. Therefore I say, that whoever fights and contends about the letter, is all Babel. The letters of the word proceed from, and stands all in one root, which is the Spirit of God; as the various flowers stand all in the earth and grow about one another. They do not fight with each other about their difference of colors, smell, or taste, but allow the earth, the sun, the rain, the wind, the heat and cold, to do with them as they please; and yet every one of them grows in its own peculiar essence and property.

Even so it is with the children of God; they have various gifts and degrees of knowledge, yet all from one spirit. They all rejoice at the great wonders of God, and give thanks to the most high in His wisdom. Why then should they contend about Him in whom they live and have their being, and of whose substance they themselves are? It is the greatest folly that is in Babel for people to strive about religion, as the Devil has made the world to do; so that they contend vehemently about opinions of their own forging, i.e., about the letter; when the kingdom of God consists in no opinion, but in power and love. As Christ said to His disciples, and left it with them at the last, saying, love one another, as I have loved you; for by this men shall know, that you are my disciples. If men would as fervently seek after love and righteousness as they do after opinions, there would be no strife on earth, and we should be as the children of one father, and should not need any law, or ordinance. For God is not served by any law, but only by obedience. Laws are for the wicked, who will not embrace love and righteousness; they are, and must be, compelled and forced by laws. We all have but one order, law, or ordinance, which is to stand still to the Lord of all beings, and resign our wills, to Him, and allow His spirit to play whatever music He wills. And accordingly we give to Him again as His own fruits, that which He works and manifested in us.

Now if we did not contend about our different fruits, gifts, kinds and degrees of knowledge, but did acknowledge them in one another, like children of the Spirit of God, what could condemn us? For the kingdom of God consisted, not in our knowing and supposing, but in power. If we did not know half as much, and were more like children, and had a brotherly mind, and good will, towards one another, and lived like children of one mother, and as branches of one tree, taking our sap all from one root, we would be far more holy than we are.

Knowledge serves only to this end, i.e., to know that we have lost the divine power, in Adam, and have become inclined to sin; and that we have evil properties in us, and that doing evil does not please God; so that with our knowledge we might learn to do right. Now if we have the power of God in us, and desire with all our hearts to act and to live aright, then our knowledge is a matter of pleasure, with which we rejoice. For true knowledge is the manifestation of the Spirit of God through the eternal wisdom. He knows what He wills in His children; He showed His wisdom and wonders by His children, as the earth puts forth its various flowers.

Now if we dwell one with another, like humble children, in the Spirit of Christ, one rejoicing at the gift and knowledge of another, who would judge or condemn us? Who judges or condemns the birds in the woods, that praise the Lord of all beings with various voices, every one in its own essence? Does the Spirit of God reprove them for not bringing their voices into one harmony? Does not the melody of them, all proceed from His power, and do they not sing before Him. Those men therefore that strive and wrangle about the knowledge and will of God, and despise one another on that account, are more foolish than the birds in the woods, and the wild beasts that have no true understanding. They are more unprofitable in the sight of the holy God than the flowers of the field, which stand still in quiet submission to the Spirit of God, and allow Him to manifest His divine wisdom and power through them. Yes, such men are worse than thistles and thorns that grow among fair flowers, for they at least stand still and are quiet, whereas those wranglers are like the ravenous beasts and birds of prey, which frighten the other birds from singing and praising God.

In short; they are the branches or sprouts of the Devil in the anger of God, who, none the less, must by their very tormenting be made to serve the Lord; for by their plaguing and persecuting, they press out the sap through the essence in the children of God, so that they move and stir themselves in the Spirit of God, with praying and continual sighing, in which exercise of their powers the Spirit of God moves Himself in them.

For thereby the desire is exerted, and so the children of God grow green, flourish, and bring forth fruit; for the children of God are manifested in tribulation; as the scripture says, when you chastised them, they cry fervently to you.

 

Chapter 8

Wherein the Christian religion consist; and how men must serve God and their brethren.

All Christian religion wholly consists in this, to learn to know ourselves; where we have come from, and what we are; how we have gone forth from unity, into dissension, wickedness, and unrighteousness; how we have awakened and stirred up these evils in ourselves; and how we may be delivered from them again, and recover our original blessedness.

First, how we were in the unity, when we were the children of God in Adam before he fell. Secondly, how we are now in dissension and disunion, in strife and contrariety. Thirdly, where  we go, when we pass out of this corruptible condition; where with the immortal, and where with the mortal part. And lastly, how we may come forth from disunion and vanity, and enter again into that one tree, Christ in us, out of which we all sprung in Adam. In these four points all the necessary knowledge of a Christian consisted. So that we need not strive about anything; we have no cause of contention with each other. Let each one exercise himself in learning how he may enter again into the love of God, and his brother.

The testaments of Christ are nothing else but a loving bond or brotherly covenant, with which God in Christ bound Himself to us, and we to Him. All teaching, willing, living, and doing, must imply, aim at, and refer to that. All teaching and doing otherwise, whatever it may be, is Babel and a fiction; a mere graven image of pride in unprofitable judging, a disturbing of the world, and the hypocrisy of the Devil, with which he blinded simplicity.

Every preacher void of the Spirit of God, who without divine knowledge, sets himself up as a teacher of divine things, pretending to serve God thereby, is false, and does but serve his belly, his idol, and his own proud insolent mind, in desiring to be honored on that account, and esteemed holy, or a divine, in holy orders. He bears an office, to which he is set apart and chosen by the children of men, who only flatter him, and for favor have ordained him. Christ said, whoever enters not by the door, that is, through His Spirit, into the sheepfold, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a murderer, and the sheep will not follow him, for they do not know his voice. He does not have the voice of the Spirit of God, but the voice of his own learning; the man teaches, and not the Spirit of God. But Christ says, every plant, which my Heavenly Father has not planted, shall be plucked up by the roots.

How then will he that is un-Godly plant heavenly plants, when he has no seed that is alive in its power, in himself? Christ says expressly, the sheep do not hear his voice, they do not follow him. The written word is but an instrument with which the Spirit leads us to itself, within us. That word which will teach, must be living in the literal word. The Spirit of God must be in the literal sound, or else no one is a teacher of God, but only a teacher of the letter, a person knowledgeable about  the history of the Gospel, and not of the Spirit of God in Christ.

All that men will serve God with, must be done in faith, i.e., in the Spirit. It is the Spirit that makes the work perfect, and acceptable in the sight of God. All that a man undertakes and does in faith, he does in the Spirit of God, when the Spirit of God cooperates in the work, then it is acceptable to God. For He has done it Himself, and His power and virtue is in it: it is holy. But whatever is done in self, without faith, is but a figure and shell, or husk of a true Christian work.

If you serve your brother, and do it in hypocrisy, and give to him unwillingly, then you do not serve God. For your faith does not proceed from love, nor does it enter into hope, in your gift. Indeed you serve your brother, and he for his part thanked God and blessed you, but you did not bless him. For you gave him your gift with a grudging spirit, which did not enter into the Spirit of God, into the hope of faith; therefore your gift is but half given, and you have only half your reward for it.

The same is true of receiving a gift. If any gives in faith, in divine hope, he blessed his gift by his faith: but whoever receives it unthankfully, and murmured in his spirit, he cursed it in his use or enjoyment of it. Thus it is, that everyone shall have his own; whatever he sows, that shall he also reap. So likewise it is in the office of teaching; whatever a man sows, that also shall he reap. For if any man sowed good seed from the Spirit of Christ, it sticks in the good heart, and brings forth good fruit; but in the wicked, who are not capable of receiving the good seed, the anger of God is stirred. If any sow contentions, reproaches, and misconstructions, all un-Godly people receive that  to themselves; which also will stick in them, and it will bring forth fruit accordingly. So that they learn to despise, revile, slander, and misrepresent one another. Out of which root the great Babel is sprung up and grows; wherein men, from mere pride and strife, contend about the history of the Gospel, and the justification of a poor sinner in the sight of God; thereby causing the simple to err and blaspheme, in as much, that one brother reviled and cursed the other, and excommunicated, or casts him to the Devil, for the sake of the history and letter. Such railers, and revilers do not fear God, but raise the great building of dissension. And seeing that corrupt lust, lies in all men, in the earthly flesh still, therefore they raise and awaken abominations even in the simple children of God, and make the people of God, as well as the children of iniquity, to blaspheme. And thus they become master-builders of the great Babel of the world, and are as useful in the church, as a fifth wheel on a wagon; yes, and what is worse than that, they erect the hellish building too.

Therefore it is highly necessary for the children of God to pray earnestly, that they may learn to know this false building, and go away from it with their minds, and not help build it up, and persecute their fellow-children of God. For by helping to build it up, they keep themselves back from the heavenly kingdom, and turn aside from the right way.

According to the saying of Christ to the Pharisees, woe to you Pharisees; for you travel land and sea, to make one proselyte, and when he is one, you make him two-fold more the child of hell than yourselves. Which is truly too much the case with the modern factions, and denominations among these criers, and teachers of strife. I desire therefore, out of my gifts, which are revealed to me from God, that all the children of God, who desire to be the true members of Christ, be faithfully warned to depart from such abominable contentions and bloody firebrands, and to go forth from all strife with their brethren, and strive only after love and righteousness towards all men. For he that is a good tree must bring forth good fruits, and must sometimes suffer swine to devour his fruits, and yet he must continue to be a good tree, and be always willing to work with God, and not allow any evil to overcome him. And then he will stand and grow in the field of God, and bring forth fruit to be set upon God’s table, which he shall enjoy forever. Amen, all that has breath, praise the name of the Lord. Hallelujah.