the letter. If he be born universally out of the love, then he has the light of divine knowledge, viz. the sensual divine understanding, a tongue, tinctured from the divine ens of the five vowels, and speaks from the spirit of God, rebukes and teaches powerfully without respect of any man's person, and has no image [or mental idol] in him; for he teaches from the spirit of God, even what the same [spirit] teaches in him.
55. But if he be a master-builder of the tower of Babel, born of the spirit of the letters, viz. of the disharmony [or diversities], then he is a hypocrite and flatterer, a glozing fawner that will say anything to please those that are gainful and advantageous to him; a soother of those that do help to honour his Mailsim, and adorn his letter-god in the divided tongues; a scorner, evil speaker, and bold censurer of those that do not honour him in his form [and sect of religion];
a self-applauder, ambitious, proud, and under a glistering show of religion and seeming holiness, a covetous, malicious, envious one; putting forth himself with ostentation, that so he may be known and honoured; he will be applauded and set by, of man; attributes to himself understanding and wisdom; and boasts of wisdom and a rectified judgement and understanding, and yet has none of them; but he is only a builder on the tower of Babel, viz. of an external figure and form; a painted Christian; he will undertake to teach others, and yet he himself was never taught of God. He teaches only from the form of the compacted spirits of the letter, which have compacted themselves in evil and good; he takes these into his own power and ability, and compacts and sets the words together into an opinion.
56. And that opinion is the tower of Babel, and they which run after him, and associate, gather and bind themselves with him in the opinion, are the city, Babel, viz. the children of Nimrod; who will climb and ascend up to heaven upon this tower, and are continually a climbing up, their whole life, yet come not to heaven in the opinion; but when the time of the outward literal constellation is out, then this built tower falls down, viz. the outward man, together with his opinion, and all shatters and breaks to pieces, even to the only soul, which then stands naked and bare before God.
57. Here is now no remedy, unless that it has the one only spirit of the sounding letter, viz. the enformed Word of God in it, so that it is able in its desire to attract and draw the same to itself; and clothe itself therewith, that the same does cleave and break in pieces all the formed, contrived, compacted tongues and images of the letters, and introduce them into one only tongue and will, which is God, all in all. All things must enter again into the ONE, viz. into the universal; in the multiplicity there is nothing but strife and disquietness, but in the Oneness there is an eternal rest, and no enmity or contrary will.
58. Now when we do truly consider again what the tower and the city, Babel is, in its formed image upon the earth, and what and where it is, then we find it clearly portrayed before our eyes, that it is the great houses of the churches, cloisters, fortresses, and also the strong walls and towers of the cities upon the earth, wherein men hide themselves from force and power, and in the opinions play the hypocrites before God in the churches, cloisters and strongholds; and cry unto him that he should receive and accept of them in their contrived, framed and received opinion of the letter.
the letter. If he be born universally out of the love, then he has the light of divine knowledge, viz. the sensual divine understanding, a tongue, tinctured from the divine ens of the five vowels, and speaks from the spirit of God, rebukes and teaches powerfully without respect of any man's person, and has no image [or mental idol] in him; for he teaches from the spirit of God, even what the same [spirit] teaches in him.
55. But if he be a master-builder of the tower of Babel, born of the spirit of the letters, viz. of the disharmony [or diversities], then he is a hypocrite and flatterer, a glozing fawner that will say anything to please those that are gainful and advantageous to him; a soother of those that do help to honour his Mailsim, and adorn his letter-god in the divided tongues; a scorner, evil speaker, and bold censurer of those that do not honour him in his form [and sect of religion];
a self-applauder, ambitious, proud, and under a glistering show of religion and seeming holiness, a covetous, malicious, envious one; putting forth himself with ostentation, that so he may be known and honoured; he will be applauded and set by, of man; attributes to himself understanding and wisdom; and boasts of wisdom and a rectified judgement and understanding, and yet has none of them; but he is only a builder on the tower of Babel, viz. of an external figure and form; a painted Christian; he will undertake to teach others, and yet he himself was never taught of God. He teaches only from the form of the compacted spirits of the letter, which have compacted themselves in evil and good; he takes these into his own power and ability, and compacts and sets the words together into an opinion.
56. And that opinion is the tower of Babel, and they which run after him, and associate, gather and bind themselves with him in the opinion, are the city, Babel, viz. the children of Nimrod; who will climb and ascend up to heaven upon this tower, and are continually a climbing up, their whole life, yet come not to heaven in the opinion; but when the time of the outward literal constellation is out, then this built tower falls down, viz. the outward man, together with his opinion, and all shatters and breaks to pieces, even to the only soul, which then stands naked and bare before God.
57. Here is now no remedy, unless that it has the one only spirit of the sounding letter, viz. the enformed Word of God in it, so that it is able in its desire to attract and draw the same to itself; and clothe itself therewith, that the same does cleave and break in pieces all the formed, contrived, compacted tongues and images of the letters, and introduce them into one only tongue and will, which is God, all in all. All things must enter again into the ONE, viz. into the universal; in the multiplicity there is nothing but strife and disquietness, but in the Oneness there is an eternal rest, and no enmity or contrary will.
58. Now when we do truly consider again what the tower and the city, Babel is, in its formed image upon the earth, and what and where it is, then we find it clearly portrayed before our eyes, that it is the great houses of the churches, cloisters, fortresses, and also the strong walls and towers of the cities upon the earth, wherein men hide themselves from force and power, and in the opinions play the hypocrites before God in the churches, cloisters and strongholds; and cry unto him that he should receive and accept of them in their contrived, framed and received opinion of the letter.
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