59. Now no people do any more understand the language of sense, and yet the birds in the air, and the beasts in the fields, understand it according to their property.
60. Therefore man may well think and consider, what he is deprived of ; and what he shall again obtain in the new birth; although [perhaps] not here upon the earth, yet in the spiritual world; for in the language of sense all spirits speak one with another; they use no other language, for it is the Language of nature.
61. Our learned ones do term themselves doctors and masters, and yet none of them understands his mother tongue. They understand no more of the spirit than the country man does of his tool to the tillage of his ground; they use only the bare contrived form of the gross compounded words, and understand not what the word is in its sense; hence arises the contention and strife wherewith men contend and jangle about God and his will; men will teach what God is, and yet understand not the least of God.
62. The five holy speeches in the language of sense are God's Word; they are his operation through the sense tongue, viz. through the properties; as it cannot be denied that God gives power, virtue and life to all creatures and vegetables, for his holy name is through all. And Adam had this holy name as a proper possession, working, ruling and sensibly efficacious in his senses; and even this jewel he lost; which is now again restored and enkindled in the holy name JESUS.
63. Therefore none can with right be called a divine, or learned in the holy Scripture, much less a doctor of the same, unless that he understands the sensual tongue, and knows how the Holy Spirit has spoken by the sensual tongue in the holy penmen of the Scripture. If he understands not the divine sense in the holy Scripture, let him not undertake to be a master over it, to censure or interpret it, he is not at all learned therein; he is only a changer of letters [a chop-logic in the Scriptures], and understands not one letter in its sense.
64. Thus understand us herein concerning the children of Noah, viz. Japheth, Shem, and Ham, and their children and grand-children. They had lost the sensual language, and had made themselves a formed contrived one; and so spoke in a formed language which they themselves understood not in the true sense. Therefore God was hidden to them; for they understood no more the voice of the
Holy Spirit in their language, viz. the mental tongue of the five vowels.
65. And they looked about or imagined where God should be; and supposed that he must needs be something with form, and dwelling apart from them; and seeing they could not understand anything of God upon the earth, either what, or where, he was (and yet had heard so much of God spoken by their forefathers), thereupon they thought that he must needs dwell on high above the stars, and thought them not able to reach thither; therefore they undertook to build them a tower, whose top should reach to heaven, that so they might ascend up to him. Also they would thereby make themselves a great name, that [it might be said] they had built a tower even unto heaven.
66. Such a knowledge the formed understanding had of God; as still to this day such doctors are to be found, who know and understand no more of God's habitation and being, than these builders of the tower knew; and build in their art altogether (except the true genuine understanding ones) upon this high tower, and can never ascend up to God, and therefore they contend about the building. Everyone says how it might be built sooner and better, and yet they could never agree; for they have all built themselves even to death thereon, until the Lord sends a watchman, and shows them that it is in vain; that they shall not find him on high, but that he is even among them, under the letter, and they have not known him.
59. Now no people do any more understand the language of sense, and yet the birds in the air, and the beasts in the fields, understand it according to their property.
60. Therefore man may well think and consider, what he is deprived of ; and what he shall again obtain in the new birth; although [perhaps] not here upon the earth, yet in the spiritual world; for in the language of sense all spirits speak one with another; they use no other language, for it is the Language of nature.
61. Our learned ones do term themselves doctors and masters, and yet none of them understands his mother tongue. They understand no more of the spirit than the country man does of his tool to the tillage of his ground; they use only the bare contrived form of the gross compounded words, and understand not what the word is in its sense; hence arises the contention and strife wherewith men contend and jangle about God and his will; men will teach what God is, and yet understand not the least of God.
62. The five holy speeches in the language of sense are God's Word; they are his operation through the sense tongue, viz. through the properties; as it cannot be denied that God gives power, virtue and life to all creatures and vegetables, for his holy name is through all. And Adam had this holy name as a proper possession, working, ruling and sensibly efficacious in his senses; and even this jewel he lost; which is now again restored and enkindled in the holy name JESUS.
63. Therefore none can with right be called a divine, or learned in the holy Scripture, much less a doctor of the same, unless that he understands the sensual tongue, and knows how the Holy Spirit has spoken by the sensual tongue in the holy penmen of the Scripture. If he understands not the divine sense in the holy Scripture, let him not undertake to be a master over it, to censure or interpret it, he is not at all learned therein; he is only a changer of letters [a chop-logic in the Scriptures], and understands not one letter in its sense.
64. Thus understand us herein concerning the children of Noah, viz. Japheth, Shem, and Ham, and their children and grand-children. They had lost the sensual language, and had made themselves a formed contrived one; and so spoke in a formed language which they themselves understood not in the true sense. Therefore God was hidden to them; for they understood no more the voice of the
Holy Spirit in their language, viz. the mental tongue of the five vowels.
65. And they looked about or imagined where God should be; and supposed that he must needs be something with form, and dwelling apart from them; and seeing they could not understand anything of God upon the earth, either what, or where, he was (and yet had heard so much of God spoken by their forefathers), thereupon they thought that he must needs dwell on high above the stars, and thought them not able to reach thither; therefore they undertook to build them a tower, whose top should reach to heaven, that so they might ascend up to him. Also they would thereby make themselves a great name, that [it might be said] they had built a tower even unto heaven.
66. Such a knowledge the formed understanding had of God; as still to this day such doctors are to be found, who know and understand no more of God's habitation and being, than these builders of the tower knew; and build in their are altogether (except the true genuine understanding ones) upon this high tower, and can never ascend up to God, and therefore they contend about the building. Everyone says how it might be built sooner and better, and yet they could never agree; for they have all built themselves even to death thereon, until the Lord sends a watchman, and shows them that it is in vain; that they shall not find him on high, but that he is even among them, under the letter, and they have not known him.
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