22. But seeing that God out of grace does bestow upon us the understanding, therefore we will set it down for our fellow-scholars who are able to apprehend it; and yet herein we shall write nothing for the selfish wiselings of outward reason, for they have it already in the eyes of their reason, and cannot miss it, they can judge all things: what the Spirit of God reveals, that must be a heresy unto them, albeit they do not understand it: so that they remain without, and do not so much as once know God.
23. The firmament is the gulf between time and eternity: but that God calls it heaven and makes a division of the waters, gives us to understand that the heaven is in the world, and the world is not in heaven.
24. The water above the firmament is in heaven, and the water under the firmament is the external material water.
25. Here we must understand the difference between the holy [water] and the outward element- water: the water above the firmament is spiritual in the birth of the holy element; and the water under the firmament is mortal, for it is apprehended in the dark impression; the curse and the awakened vanity is therein, and yet one water is not without the other.
26. When I look upon the external water then I must also say, Here is also the water above the firmament in the water under the firmament. But the firmament is the middle, and the gulf therein between time and eternity; so that they are distinct. And I see with the external eyes of this world only the water under the firmament: but the water above the firmament is that which God has appointed in Christ to the Baptism of Regeneration, after that the Word of the divine power had moved itself therein.
27. Now the outward water is the instrument of the inward; and the inward water is understood [therein] ; for the moving Spirit in the Word is he which rules the inward water in the Baptism. Dear Christians, let this be spoken to you; it is the real ground.
28. But that Moses says, God created the firmament, and called it heaven, is the most intimate secret, of which the earthly man is not able to understand anything: the understanding is barely in the power of the water above the firmament, viz. in the heaven, or (as I might set it down) in the Spirit of God. If he be awake {ne}d in man in the water above the firmament, which disappeared in Adam, as to his life, that [man] sees through all; otherwise there is no understanding here, but all is dumb.
29. The creating of the heaven is understood, first how the speaking Word has amassed 1) the manifested powers of the spiritual world, wherein it is manifest, works, and also rules. Secondly, it is understood of the manifested powers of the external world, which the spirit has amassed into the essence of four elements, and closed into the external firmament, that the devil, viz. the prince of anger, cannot reach them;
by which he would work with the internal water: so that the powers of eternity do work through the powers of time, as the sun illumines the water, and the water comprehends it not, but feels it only; or as a fire does through-heat an iron, and the iron remains iron. So likewise the outward heaven is passive, and the inward works through it, and draws forth an external fruit out of the outward; whereas yet the inward heaven lies hidden therein in the firmament: as God is hidden in the time.
22. But seeing that God out of grace does bestow upon us the understanding, therefore we will set it down for our fellow-scholars who are able to apprehend it; and yet herein we shall write nothing for the selfish wiselings of outward reason, for they have it already in the eyes of their reason, and cannot miss it, they can judge all things: what the Spirit of God reveals, that must be a heresy unto them, albeit they do not understand it: so that they remain without, and do not so much as once know God.
23. The firmament is the gulf between time and eternity: but that God calls it heaven and makes a division of the waters, gives us to understand that the heaven is in the world, and the world is not in heaven.
24. The water above the firmament is in heaven, and the water under the firmament is the external material water.
25. Here we must understand the difference between the holy [water] and the outward element- water: the water above the firmament is spiritual in the birth of the holy element; and the water under the firmament is mortal, for it is apprehended in the dark impression; the curse and the awakened vanity is therein, and yet one water is not without the other.
26. When I look upon the external water then I must also say, Here is also the water above the firmament in the water under the firmament. But the firmament is the middle, and the gulf therein between time and eternity; so that they are distinct. And I see with the external eyes of this world only the water under the firmament: but the water above the firmament is that which God has appointed in Christ to the Baptism of Regeneration, after that the Word of the divine power had moved itself therein.
27. Now the outward water is the instrument of the inward; and the inward water is understood [therein] ; for the moving Spirit in the Word is he which rules the inward water in the Baptism. Dear Christians, let this be spoken to you; it is the real ground.
28. But that Moses says, God created the firmament, and called it heaven, is the most intimate secret, of which the earthly man is not able to understand anything: the understanding is barely in the power of the water above the firmament, viz. in the heaven, or (as I might set it down) in the Spirit of God. If he be awake {ne}d in man in the water above the firmament, which disappeared in Adam, as to his life, that [man] sees through all; otherwise there is no understanding here, but all is dumb.
29. The creating of the heaven is understood, first how the speaking Word has amassed 1) the manifested powers of the spiritual world, wherein it is manifest, works, and also rules. Secondly, it is understood of the manifested powers of the external world, which the spirit has amassed into the essence of four elements, and closed into the external firmament, that the devil, viz. the prince of anger, cannot reach them;
by which he would work with the internal water: so that the powers of eternity do work through the powers of time, as the sun illumines the water, and the water comprehends it not, but feels it only; or as a fire does through-heat an iron, and the iron remains iron. So likewise the outward heaven is passive, and the inward works through it, and draws forth an external fruit out of the outward; whereas yet the inward heaven lies hidden therein in the firmament: as God is hidden in the time.
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