116. I have therefore been desirous to warn you,
and tell you beforehand, that you must not look
upon flesh and blood in these high things, nor
upon the worldly wisdom of the universities, or
high schools ; but that you should consider, that
this wisdom is planted and sown by God himself
in the first, and last, and in all men : And you
need only to return with the prodigal lost son to
the Father, and then he will clothe you with a new
garment, and put a seal-ring upon the hand of
your mind ; and in this garment only you have
power to speak of the l birth of God. ' Or divine
17. But if you have not gotten this garment on,
and will prattle and talk much of God, then you
are a thief and a murderer, and you enter not into
the sheepfold of Christ by the door, but you climb
over into the sheepfold with Antichrist and the
robbers, and you will do nothing but murder and
steal, seek your own reputation, esteem, and
pleasure, and are far from the kingdom of God.
38 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 4
2Your university learning and arts will avail you
nothing : it is your poison, that you are promoted
by the favour of man to sit in great authority and
place, for you sit upon the stool of pestilence ; you
are but a mere servant or minister of the Antichrist. But if you be new born, and taught by
the Holy Ghost, then your place tfr office is very
pleasing and acceptable to God, and your sheep
will hear your voice, and you shall feed them and
bring them to the chief Shepherd : God will require
this at your hands, therefore take heed what you
teach and speak of God without the knowledge of
his spirit, that you be not found to be a liar.
Now here followeih the Chapter.
1 Or begetting. 18. The eternal * generating is an unbeginning
birth, and it hath neither number nor end, and its
8 indissoluble, depth is bottomless, and the band of life 2 incor-
• astral, ruptible i 8 The sidereal and elementary spirit cannot
starry, or airy
spirit of man. discern it, much less comprehend it ; it only feeleth
it, and seeth a glimpse of it in the mind ; which
[mind] is the chariot of the soul, upon which it
rideth in the first Principle in its own seat in the
Father's eternal generating [or begetting] ; for
4 weak, feeble, its own substance is altogether 4 crude, without
empty, and °
dry. a body, and yet it hath the form of the body in
3its own spiritual form, understand according to
the image ; which soul, if it be regenerated in
the light of God, it seeth in the light of the
Father, (which light is his glance, lustre, or Son),
Ch. 4] OF THE TRUE ETERNAL NATURE 39
in the eternal birth, wherein it liveth and
remaineth eternally.
19. Understand and consider it aright, 0 man!
God the Father made man ; the beginning of whose
body is out of the [one] element, or root of the
four elements, from whence they proceed, which
[one] element is the fifth essence [or quintessence]
hid under the four elements, from whence the dark
chaos [mist, cloud, or dust] had its being, before
the times of the earth ; whose original is the spring
of water, and out of which this world with the stars
and elements, as also the heaven of the third
Principle, were created.
20. But the soul was breathed into man merely
out of the original birth of the Father by the
moving spirit (understand, the Holy Ghost which
goeth forth from the Father out of the light of the
Father). Which original birth is before the light
of life, which is in the four l anguishes, out of which 1 Or aching
the light of God is kindled, wherein is the original
of the name of God ; and therefore the soul is God's
own essence or substance.
21. And if it elevate itself back into the anguish
of the four forms of the original, and will horribly
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.