Het tweede boeck des auteurs, handelende van de drie principien

f That is the poisoned power.

the infected Salnitre saltpeter, a divine-natural force and eats of the infected food. f Thus it is necessary that we learn to know ourselves, what we are, and how we might be delivered from the anxious and severe birth and be born anew, and live in a new man who is like the first man before the fall, in

g Or He who births us again out of wrath into love.

Christ g our regenerator.

h Or for what.

4. For even if I spoke, said, and wrote much and for a long time of our fall, as well as of the rebirth in Christ, and if I did not come to the root and ground of what the fall was and by what h we became corrupted: what the power is that God has a loathing for, and how such occurred against the commandment and the will of God, what would I understand of it? Nothing. How then should I flee that which I do not know? Or how should I prepare myself for the new birth and enter into it, if I do not know how, where, or by what means?

5. It is indeed true that the world is full of books that speak of the fall and of the new rebirth. But in the greater part of the books of the theologians, there is nothing other than the history original: "Historia" that it once happened, and that we shall be born anew in Christ. But what do I understand of that? Nothing, except only the history that it once happened, and happened again, and shall happen.

i Namely, of the dispute of the Learned.

k The evil beast, or the evil will.

6. Our theologians set themselves with hands and feet, and with all their power, with persecution and contempt, against this: that one must not investigate the deep ground of what God is. One must not curiously investigate the Godhead. But if i I shall speak plainly original: "duyts," literally German or common speech about this, what filth and uncleanness it is by which they hide the Devil and cover up the infused wickedness of the Devil in men, so that they know neither the Devil, nor the wrath of God, nor that k evil beast in man.

l Or remains hidden.

m Or the Devil smells this banquet, that it is his poison.

n Or obscure such with scolding and slandering.

o Or honored.

7. It is for this very reason: the m Devil smells the roast, therefore he defends himself, so that his kingdom might not become known l and that he may remain the Great Prince. Otherwise, if his kingdom became known, man might flee from him. Where is it more necessary for him to defend himself than on that side where the enemy might break in? He covers the heart, mind, and disposition of the theologians. He leads them into greed, pride, and unchastity, so that they themselves shrink from, fear, and are terrified before the light of God. Therefore n they cover it up, for they are naked, and they do not grant the seeing one the light. That is rightly called the Devil o courted.

p Or the dawn.

8. But there comes a time when the Morning Redness Aurora, the dawning light of wisdom p of the day

q Or the beast.

breaks forth. There that beast, the evil child, shall stand naked and in q great shame. For the judgment of the whore of the great beast begins. Therefore, you children of God, wake up and flee, so that you do not bring the mark of the great evil beast (fixed to your foreheads) before the clear light. Otherwise, you shall have great shame and mockery because of it. It is now time to wake up from sleep, for the Bridegroom prepares himself to fetch his Bride. Yet he comes with a clear, shining light. Whoever shall have oil in his lamp, his lamp shall be lit, and he shall be a guest. But he who shall have no oil, his lamp shall remain dark and they shall remain sleeping, and keep the mark of the beast until the sun rises. Then they shall be horribly terrified and stand in eternal shame, for the judgment is being executed. The children of God shall notice it, but the sleeping shall sleep until the day.

9. The birth of eternal Nature is like the senses in man, where a sense births itself from something and thereafter expands into infinitely many senses. Or it is like the root of the tree births itself, and thereafter from the same come the trunk and many branches and sprouts, as well as many roots from the single root. And all comes from the first single root. Note also this, as was told before: that nature stands in a sixfold form. Thus every form now births again out of itself a form according to the nature of its quality, which same form now has in itself the quality and nature of all the forms.

r Or only an outflowing stream or property.

s Or in the outflowing property.

10. But understand it rightly: the first form among the six forms births only a source-quality quel, an active property or driving force after its likeness, after the likeness of the same source-spirit r, and not after the first Mother, the harshness herbigheyd, astringency or sharpness s, but as a branch in a tree births another sprout out of itself. For in every source-spirit there is only one center, in which the fire-source rises, and out of the flash of the fire comes the light, and the first sixfold form is in the source.

t Or tart fountain-vein.

v Or they are members of the birth of their mother, the tartness.

11. But note the depth in a parable: I state it thus: the harsh-source herbe-quel in the origin t is the Mother, out of which the other five sources are born, namely, bitter, fire, love, sound, and water. Now they are v the same members of her birth, and without the same members she would also be nothing else than an anxious dark valley, where there would be no movement, nor any light or life. But now that the