By Jacob Boehme
...and of the Means of his Deliverance
NOW when Adam and Eve fell into this Vanity, then the Wrath of Nature awoke in each Property, and in or through the Desire impressed the Vanity of the Earthliness and Wrath of God into itself.
68. And then the Flesh became gross and rough, as the Flesh of a Beast, and the Soul was captivated in that Essence therewith, and saw that its Body was become a Beast, and had gotten the Bestial Members for Multiplication, and the filthy Carcase into which the Desire would stuff the Loathsomeness which it was ashamed of in the Presence of God; and therefore Adam and Eve hid themselves under the Trees of the Garden of Eden. Heat and Cold also seized on them.
69. And here the Heaven in Man trembled for Horror; as the Earth quaked in Wrath, when this Anger was destroyed on the Cross by the sweet Love of God; there the Anger trembled before the sweet Love of God.
70. And for this Vanity's Sake which was thus awakened in Man, God cursed the Earth; lest the holy Element should spring or shine forth any more through the outward Fruit, and bring forth Paradisaical Fruit. For there was then no Creature that could have enjoyed it; neither was the earthly Man worthy of it any more.
71. God would not cast the precious Pearls before Beasts; an ungodly Man in his Body being but a mere gross beastial Creature; and though it be of a noble Essence, yet it is wholly poisoned and loathsome in the Sight of God.
72. Now when God saw that his fair Image was spoiled, he manifested himself to fallen Adam and Eve, and had Pity on them, and promised himself to them for an everlasting Possession, and that with his great Love in the received Humanity he would destroy the Power of the Serpentine Property, viz., of the Vanity in the Wrath of God awakened in them. And this was the breaking of the Head of the Serpent, which he would perform, viz., he would destroy the dark Death, and subdue the Anger with his great Love.
73. And this Covenant of his Incarnation which was to come, he put into the Light of Life; to which Covenant the Jewish Sacrifices pointed as to a Mark or Limit, to which God had promised himself with his Love; for the Faith of the Jews entered into the Sacrifices and Offerings, and God s Imagination entered into the Covenant.
74. And the Offering was a Figure of the Restitution of that which Adam hath lost, and so God did expiate his Anger in the human Property, through the offering in the Limit of the Covenant.
75. In which Covenant the most holy sweet Name JESUS, proceeding out of the holy Name and great Power of JEHOVAH, had incorporated itself; so that he would again move and manifest himself in the Substance of the Heavenly World which disappeared in Adam, and kindle the holy divine Life therein again.
76. This Mark or Limit of the Covenant was propagated from Adam and his Children, from Man to Man, and did go through from one upon all, as Sin also and the awakened Vanity did go through from one upon all.
77. And it stood in the Promise of the Covenant at the End, in the Root of David in the Virgin Mary, who was, in the inward Kingdom of the hidden Humanity, (viz., of the Essentiality that disappeared as to the Kingdom of God) the Daughter of God s Covenant, but in the outward according to the natural Humanity, she was begotten by her true bodily Father Joachim and her true Mother Anna, out of the Essences and Substance of their Souls and Bodies, like all other Children of Adam; a true Daughter of Eve.
78. In this Mary from the Virgin (viz., the Wisdom of God) in the promised Limit of the Covenant, of which all the Prophets have prophesied. - the eternal Speaking Word, which created all Things, did in the Fullness of Time move itself in the Name JESUS, according to its highest and deepest Love and Humility, and bring again living, divine, and heavenly Substantiality into the Humanity of the heavenly Part, which disappeared in Adam, and from which he died in Paradise, into the Seed of Mary, into the Tincture of Love, into that Property wherein Adam should have propagated himself in a magical and heavenly Manner, into the true Seed of the Woman, of heavenly Substantiality, which disappeared in Paradise.
79. And when the Divine Light in the Heavenly Essence was extinguished, the Word of God, viz., the Divine Power of the Understanding, did bring in Heavenly and living Substantiality, and awakened the disappeared Substantiality in the Seed of Mary, and brought it to Life.
80. And so now God's Substance, wherein He dwelleth and worketh, and the disappeared Substance of Man, are become one Person; for the Holy Divine Substantiality did anoint the disappeared; therefore that Person is called CHRISTUS, the Anointed of God.
81. And this is the dry Rod of Aaron, which blossomed and bare Almonds, and the true High Priest; and it is that Humanity of which Christ spake, saying, that He was come from Heaven and was in Heaven; and that no Man could ascend into Heaven but the Son of Man which is come from Heaven, and is in Heaven.
82. Now when he saith, He is come from Heaven, it is meant of the Heavenly Substance, the Heavenly Corporeality; for the Power and Virtue of God needeth no coming any whither, for it is every where altogether immeasurable and undivided. But Substance needeth coming; the Power or Virtue needeth to move itself, and manifest itself in Substance.
83. And that Substance entered into the human Substance, and received it; not that Part only of Heavenly Substantiality, which disappeared in Adam, but the whole human Essence in Soul and Flesh, according to all the three Worlds.
84. But he hath not received, or taken upon himself, the awakened or impressed Vanity, which the Devil, by his Imagination, brought into the Flesh, by which the Flesh did commit Sin; though he hath indeed taken upon him the awakened Forms of Life, as they were gone forth from their equal Agreement, each of them into its own Desire.
85. For therein lay our Infirmity, and the Death, which He was to drown with his Heavenly holy Blood. Herein he took upon himself all our Sins and Infirmities, also Death and Hell in the Wrath of God, and destroyed their Power in the human Properties.
86. The Wrath of God was the Hell into which the Spirit of Christ went, when He had shed that heavenly Blood into our outward human Blood, and tinctured it with the Love; thereby changing that Hell of the human Property into Heaven, and reducing the human Properties into equal Agreement, into the Heavenly Harmony.
