Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence

fierceness in the anger of God, where man must press in, through the fierce [bitter] death, through the centre, into the second Principle, into the paradise of the holy element before God ; where then the fierce [grim] death cutteth off the earthly body (viz. the four elements) from the holy [one] element.

41. And the keeper of the garden is the Cherubim, the cutter off of the source [or quality] of the stars, which holdeth the four elements for a while, and then breaketh them, and with its bitter sharpness severeth them from the soul, and passeth away itself also with its sword. This [keeper] is here in the way, that we cannot come to the Tree of the eternal Life ; he is in the midst, and suffereth us not to come into paradise. The gross Garden of Eden (which is our earthly flesh) is the hedge [or fortification] before the garden.

42. Now if anybody would come into the garden, he must press in through the sword of death ; though indeed Christ hath broken the sword, so that now we can much easier enter in with our souls, yet there is a sword before it still ; but he that findeth the way aright, him it doth not cut very much, for it is blunt, and it is bent ; and if the soul goeth but into the gate into the centre, then it is presently helped by the noble Champion Christ ; for he hath gotten the sword into his

1 into MS l hands. He is the slain Lamb of the house of jurisdiction. Israel, in the Revelation of John, which took the

Oh. 20] ADAM AND EVE'S GOING OUT OP PARADISE 521

Book of the x first Principle, out of the hand of 1 shut, barred, or closed.

the Ancient [of Days] who sat upon the throne, with his four-and-twenty Elders, which [Book] had seven seals, or seven spirits of the 2 birth of God, and opened them ; where the Elders fell down before him, and worshipped the Lamb that was slain, and gave praise and honour to him which sat upon the throne, because the Champion of the house of Israel had overcome. The seven golden candlesticks are his humanity, the seven stars are his Deity, as the divine 3 birth s working or

. revelation.

in itself standeth in a sevenfold form, as it is explained in the beginning of this book, in the first four chapters.

43. Thus Moses hath a veil before his eyes ; and if thou wouldst see his face, then thou must only set Christ thy Champion before thee, that he may lift up his veil, and then thou shalt see that Moses hath 4no horns, but that he is a patient lamb, fast4 no harsh bound to the death of Christ, and that his veil was a the Book that was shut, so that we could not be well enough till the Champion came, and brake its seven seals with his entering into death, and there the veil [or covering] was done away ; and in that Book there stood the holy 6 Gospel of the kingdom of God, which our worthy Conqueror Jesus Christ hath 6 left US. 'instead of

, the law, or

44. Now when Adam and Eve went out of the read, or de-

. 1 clared it to us.

garden, they kept together, as now married people do, and now would make trial of their bestialp. 522 condition, [to try] what wonders might proceed from them ; and the spirit of the great world did well enough teach them, in their reason, what they were to do. And Adam knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bare a son, and called him Cain; for she said, I have a man from the Lord. These are sealed words which Moses writeth, that she said, / have a man from the Lord. [For] 1 the great then said the * major mundus, I have the Lord world, or .