Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence

100. And thou Cainish church (with thy laws and pratings, thy acute comments, and expositions of the writings of the holy men [or saints] who have spoken in the spirit of God) should look well upon thyself, and do not build thy voluptuous and soft kingdom so much upon those things ; forCh. 20] ADAM AND EVE'S GOING OUT OF PARADISE 547 lthey are most of them 2in paradise; they speak i they that out of the root of the holy element through the ^& 3 out-birth of the four elements, and many times jj c£d8pirit apprehend (in the out-birth) the fierce wrath, 2 wl»>n 'they which men had awakened ; therefore look to it,' 33?i?tt.ta that thou build no stubble, straw, or weeds there- T^infe. upon. If thou hast not the spirit of understanding out of the holy element, then let them alone, do not Maub them with the four elements, or else 'defile them those things stand in Babel, it is not good to build the four elements thereupon ; for the Cherubim standeth between, and he will cut off whatsoever doth not belong to the sheepfold ; thou wilt have no benefit of it, for thy labour [or work] stayeth 5 in the Land of Nod. 5 in gelf

101. 0 Cain \ look but upon thy kingdom, and consider what befell thy great [grand] father Cain, who built this kingdom, who cried out, Woe is me ! my sins are greater than can be forgiven me, when he saw himself (with his kingdom) to be without God, in the abyss of hell. And if the loving Word of God had not recalled it, (when it said, No, Whosoever killeth Cain, it shall be avenged sevenfold ; and God made a mark upon him, that none that met with him should kill him) he had been quite lost. Those are wonderful words, Moses' face is so very much under the veil ; for the veil is rightly the Cainish church, which covereth the kingdom of Christ.

102. Here is the clear and plain ground and

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root of the false Cainish church ; for Cain had made himself a lord of this world, and built [or relied] upon himself. Yet now he had in himself nothing for a propriety, but the first and the third Principles ; for as to his soul, he was in the first Principle, as all men [are], and as to the body, he was in the third Principle in the kingdom of this world. And now he should with his soul go out of the kingdom of this world, and press into the second Principle, (viz. into the trust in God, into the Word of the Promise) to God, as Abel did, and labour with his hands in this world, and plant and build ; but his mind should be directed to God in confidence, and should commend 1 rule or the * kingdom of this world to God, and carry himself therein as a travelling stranger, which only with this strange body is in his propriety, as to the body, and a stranger only as to the soul, and besides, as an ashamed guest, like a prisoner in it, whose only study should be, to get again into his true native country, out of which he is gone forth with his father Adam; but he let the second Principle, the kingdom of heaven go, and yielded himself wholly with his soul into the kingdom of this world, where he would be lord ; and so the anger took hold on him, for he went out from the Word, the promise of grace.

103. And then the Word stood against him, in the centre of the heaven ; and he stood (in the

Ch. 20] ADAM AND EVE'S GOING OUT OF PARADISE 549