THE FORBIDDEN FRVIT. OR A TREATISE Of the Tree of knowledge of Good & evil, of which Adam at the first, & as yet all Mankind do eat death.  
Moreover, How at this day it is forbidden to every one as well as to Adam; And how this Tree, that is the wisdom of the Serpent planted in Ada is that great Image, and that many headed Beast; mentioned in Daniel and the Apocalypse, whom the whole world doth worship.  
LASTLY, Here is showed what is the Tree of Life, contrary to the wisdom, righteousness, and knowledge of all mankind: With a description of the majesty and nature of God's Word.  
By AUGUST: ELUTHENIUS. Translated out of Latin into English.  
Printed in the year, 1640.   

CHAPTER I. What is the Tree of knowledge of Good and evil.  
I Will not much contend with them that would have the Tree of Knowledge of Good and evil, acco●ding as it is in the Scriptures to be a natural Tree, which being planted in Paradise, had that nature devinely given unto it, that who should eat thereof, their eyes should be opened to view themselves, and they be made Gods, and so know both Good and evil: perhaps God would teach Adam both inwardly and outwardly, and what he forbade or taught him inwardly in his heart, that he would propose outwardly to his eyes for greater testimony: but yet I desi●e of them, that they would grant this unto me, that as the thing was done outwardly, so the same to have happened inwardly in the heart of Adam, that there he was tempted by the seed of the Serpent to have the guiding of his own will and nature, not to be so void of knowledge and action, as to be subordinate unto God. That I should so think, two reasons or causes do especially move me.  
The 1. is, that the Seed of the Woman was to break the head of the seed of the Serpent; but as a natural and living Serpent, whose head was broken, of that Seed we do not read of any: but as even then the Seed of the woman was spiritually in the heart of Adam, so in the same manner was the seed of the Serpent, for man at the first was created good, not of God but of nothing, and for that cause doth he turn himself always from God, and bend downwards to his own nothing and vanity again; which nothing I with the ancient Fathers, but especially Taulerus, do judge to be sin, Satan, death, & hell; and this perhaps was that devil, inhabiting in Adam, as also in Lucifer.  
The other reason is this, which the scripture doth testify of the city of God and the Heavenly Jerusalem, that Paradise to be in us: but God alone and his omnipotent Word is our Paradise, the Tree of Life, and the Temple wherein we inhabit, walk, serve, pray, &c. as we are on the other part the Temple of God and his Paradise. In like manner the Beast (which even now the whole world both great and small) do worship in their hearts, of which the scriptures make mention in the Apocalips, as also the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil is in us, for the exterior world, & whatsoever outwardly is to be seen or is done, is only an accident and a certain signifying figure of the true and interior nature: and there is nothing true in all those things which are seen with the eye, that is substantial; for it behooveth that the form of this World perish, because it is nothing else but an imaginary world, and a figure of the right true eternal and by itself the constant world; therefore it is expedient that all these things in their course be done over again, which throughout all the Bible are related outwardly and significantly to have been done, and yet to this day after their manner, the history of the Bible, Moses, and the Prophets, are spiritually and truly of force, but all things are brought into the truth by Christ, and it it is expedient, that all the prophecies, which have been from the beginning of the world, which God hath spoken by the mouth of his Saints, be again reiterated: Therefore that Tree was nothing else than the nature, will, knowledge, and life of Adam, whereof he ought not to eat. That is not to attribute any part of it to himself: But freely and willingly submit himself to God; and know nothing but what God would know in him; do nothing but what God would do in him; speak nothing but what God would speak in him, &c. Whereby without any impediment God might exercise his kingdom, will, nature, and power in him, that being void of will, wisdom, and knowledge, he might have nothing of his own, or arrogate any thing to himself, this God would, this was pleasing to him, and thus he commanded. To this opinion the German Divinity ascents: Theologia Germanica, 3470. cap. Which saith that this tree is nothing else but our own will & knowledge, of which alone in the Earthly Paradise of the world of our hearts, we are not to eat, but acount it is forbidden, unless we desire to die, or eat death from it. And now when Adam was fallen, and had eaten of this tree, then was it planted in his heart, & the same was derived into all his boughts and fruit, so that the same case, word, precept, and interdict, is common to all his posterity, we all have eaten death, whosoever are in Adam, and this uncorrected poison have we received from the Serpent, being evil eggs of an evil Bird.  
Hence may every man easily perceive, how each man is the greatest enemy to himself, and what he ought to esteem of himself, his will and understanding, wisdom and knowledge, since it is the counsel, seed, wisdom, knowledge and head of the Serpent, which by Christ is to be broken in our hearts: it behooveth that all things (which Circumcision in the old, and baptism in the new Covenant doth signify) which are hereditary and natural from Adam should die in us: that we should labour to unlearn, and put of all things, as if they were death and the devil; that is our will, wisdom, and righteousness, &c. with which as with figleaves Adam strove to cover himself: for this is sin, and the sting of sin and death, that is to eat of this forbidden Tree, and to arrogate any thing to a man's self, as his will, nature, and understanding, or himself; But alas, alas who knows this, or believes this, who abandons or is weary of his own will, understanding, or knowledge, when will men give a farewell to them: Give a Farewll say i, why every one delights himself in his own imaginations, & sweetly slumbering recreats his soul in his own wisdom, knowledge, works, &c. the Tree is fair to the eye, and pleasant to the taste: Here all mankind as Adam himself do taste death; But yet no man knows, no man thinks of this, but every man judgeth it to be right, and the flesh esteemeth it to be the Tree of Life. That is to follow its own pleasure and opinion of Good, which is false: To know much, to find out much, to learn many sciences, and finally to become a God; Neither do any consider, that this was Adam's estate and morsel, that bitter morsel of death.  
How do we speak and talk of Adam's misery, and yet not mark that the same is fresh in us; We can talk of his eating, and wonderfully detest it, when notwithstanding we do the same that he did.  
O man, who art thou that thus preparest a staff for thine own shoulders, and pronouncest a Sentence against thyself, while thou condemnest thy Father Adam, and yet considerest not that thou thyself art ensnared in his net.  
Here propound and consider what our will is, our knowledge is, our wisdom is, &c. in which we so insolently boast ourselves, yea and by which we imagine and suppose that we can come unto God, when notwithstanding it is nothing, nothing else but death itself, and the bitter Fruit of the forbidden Tree.  
Is there any amongst all men who understand this? Who can away with this? To deny, put off, fearful to rest in their own will, wisdom, knowledge, &c. No: do not most choose and extol them as true gold and eternal Life, when notwithstanding they are nothing but eternal death.   

CHAP. II. Why the Tree of knowledge of good and evil is mortal & forbidden.  
THIS may be easily answered by that which hath been before related. God (as right it is) would be in us both Lord and Master; and in the same, will work, do love, omit, think, &c. therefore should we be free from all these things of this kind: so that we should know, or do nothing, but what God himself would know and do in us. Which reason even against its will, doth confess to be equity to him that concludes and proves it by truth; for what is more equal than that the Potter have so full a Dominion over his pots, that none of them challenge any the least authority to themselves, since they were not their own makers; the same is our condition: God alone is called the God of understanding, knowledge, wisdom, &c. wherefore he alone will know all things in us, and by consequence nothing but himself; if therefore any man will taste of the Forbidden Fruit, and so know himself, be made a God, be of himself, stand upon his own bottom, and so be his own God; it is necessary that together with Lucifer, he fall into the hell of death, and like the Dragon be cast down from Heaven, because the Fruit of that Forbidden Tree is death. Wherefore God would know only himself in us, and for that cause would have one to know no other science, esteeming this only necessary to life: and will teach the same to us, it so be we will obediently attend him: That is know only God, praise him, pray to, and hear him, which things I say he himself would work in the obedient: For this cause the Wise Man saith: (Wisdom 5.) Lord to know thee and understand thee is all righteousness. In which he justifies many, and by consequence much more his own: Let not the Wise Man boast himself in his wisdom, nor the strong Man in his strength, but in this let every man boast that he knows me, isaiah. 53. Ier. 9 Which thing God by the mouth of his own Christ, Ioh. 17. calleth eternal Life; For from this knowledge, root, and Tree of Life, proceeds all whatsoever can be called good or is truly good; This is the only and true Key of David, which so openeth that no man shutteth, &c.   

CHAP. III. Of the abuse of all things, how all things are unclean to the unclean flesh: yea those things which in themselves are clean; and wherefore that curious flesh desireth to know much; and on the contrary, how men ought to know nothing but God, and for God, and use all things in God.  
THAT lost nature of man, who in the Scripture is called the Flesh, is an instrument so impotent to all things, so vile, & obscure, that it knows neither to have, speak or do any thing, but abuseth and defileth it by touching, because he converts all things (which are from God, in whom truly they are) to himself as his proper own: although he ought never to be his own. No not in that which is his own, but therein to be subject to God. Neither ought he to challenge to himself that wisdom and knowledge that is in him; but to have all things ●●se in his God, as if he himself had them ●●●t. But this he doth not; but arrogates ●●mselfe to himself, and will needs be, ●●ve, and know himself, and this is the fall ●nd degeneration of Adam, and his posteri●●, in, and with all things with them.  
Again, the true and only use with, and ●n all things, is thus: God would that Adam ●hould know nothing but what he would ●now in him, should be nothing but what ●e would be in him; should do nothing but what he would do in him; should have nothing but what he would have in him; This would not Adam, but all those things ●e arrogated to himself, as his own, or ●ather he himself would be all these things; This is the fall of Adam, and the abuse of all things in all things, by all mankind, to the ●nd of the World.  
The abuse is, I say, to arrogate any thing to man's self, as his own, & not to possess the same freely, as though he had them not; but to steal and use them from God, in and ●o himself. As for Example: if having Money, Wife, Children, knowledge, life ●t self, yea myself, I challenge these to my ●elfe as my own.  
But since God exacts them, if follows the I would therefore detain them, and as mu●● as in me is, not yield them unto God, b● knit my mind unto them, that I may keep defend, and never loss or forsake them (when notwithstanding they are God's an● not mine) this is the Fall of Adam and b● theift, being the abuse of all things inbred i● the flesh: until man be translated into ● new kind of estate or condition, wherefore it is behooveful that we be borne a new● do vomit up the Fruit of the Tree o● Knowledge of Good and evil: And al● these things which we having stolen from God as thieves, do challenge to ourselves and so forgetting them restore them again● to God; this truly is the resurrection and conversion of Adam; and by this means alone shall the Fall of Adam be repaired & amended.  
Therefore the true and only use of all things, known alone to the regenerate and new man is this: That I be altogether free from all things, and alone subject to God: and being void of name, will, and knowledge, etc, remain nothing in myself, no● vindicate, deliver, or claim any thing to myself (because whatsoever I have, am, know, do, &c. all are of God,) no more than the Cow doth for her milk, the Tree for it fruit, the Bird for its long; but wholly referring all things to God, and have know, do ●ove, and be nothing but in him; Thus the redeemed, free, and perfect Christians, have, know, do, &c. all things they possess, wife, children, life, knowledge, wisdom, substance, &c. yea and themselves altogether freely in the Lord: neither do they attribute any thing to themselves; even as if they were nothing, had nothing, knew nothing; for they know that God it is, who is, hath, knows, and doth all those things which they are, know, or do; so the Christian hath his wife in the Lord, that is doth not challenge her to himself as his own, but freely designeth her to God, whose she is, and from whom she is lent unto him, whom he is willing to restore whensoever it shall please God to requir her, & as he never challengeth her to himself as his own, even so he ever enjoys her in God, and in, and for God, loves her; This Paul & David calls it, to sing, rejoice, marry, & have in the Lord: that is to reduce all things unto God, in him, know, love, have, be, do all things, neither detract any thing from God as my proper own and right.  
And whosoever have not thus their knowledge, Wife, Children, and themselves in the Lord, they offend in this: because they love them, it being a carnal Love out of God; And so far are all things unclean to the unclean, that even his prayers are sin unto him, yea his praises of God, Fasts, Orations, Supplications, God despiseth according to the Prophet: And although he be bountiful to the poor, yet he doth it in vain. Briefly, what he doth, he doth it in vain, it is not pleasing but displeasing unto God: Whether he love or hate his Wife, Children, and Neighbours, whether he chide or pray, all things are unclean unto him, Wife, Children, fields, Lands, Money, poverty, riches, fame, infamy, life, deathknowledge, learning, yea God himself. And lastly, he is unfit for any thing that is good. By himself, he is evil, sinful, and nothing. And what show of goodness soever is in him, it is stained by an hypocritical eye and affection; Therefore it's no matter what he hath, knoweth, or doth, he is a vessel of no price, an evil Tree; unprofitable for any good work, since both his mind and conscience is depraved.  
Therefore before all things it is necessary, that with Nicodemus they be born again, that all things with them may be ●n new unto them, the flesh must be changed into the spirit, & so cease to be flesh. For it is so impure and every way desirous of its own gain, and so infected and depraved with the poison of sin, that it draweth all things to itself, seeketh itself in all things, and arrogateth that to itself as its own, which it knoweth, loveth, or doth, and hath all things under a false pretence, & out of a love to itself. Neither doth it love any thing but what is pleasant and profitable for itself. But a Christian loveth an unprofitable, sick, and loathsome Wife for God, and hath her not for his pleasure or profit only, but for God's will & pleasure.  
The natural and fleshly man doth nothing but out of a love to himself, and whatsoever he doth, he hath an eye and reflecteth upon himself, and in what he sees, he can find to delight himself in, he is willing to meddle with that.  
Hence it is that the house of sorrow, poverty, banishment, troubles, sicknesses and reprehensions, and whatsoever he sees harsh unto him, he hates no less than the devil doth the cross of Christ Jesus; But whatsoever is excellent, great, pleasant, beautiful, &c. to this he cleaves as fast as the clay to the wheel; Whereby he may enjoy what he saw and desired in them.  
Briefly, he doth nothing but out of a love to himself, and in what he doth he challengeth the chief part to himself; I say, that in all his actions both with God and Man, he respects nothing but his own profit and pleasure, which if he be deprived off, he loseth his cheerfulness and alacrity of spirit, and becomes sorrowful & desists to work any further, what therefore can be done by such a man as this but what is unclean.  
But the regenerate man being borne of God▪ doth quite contrary in all his actions, he is desirous of the common profit, being altogether so affected and disposed as God his Father; He doth nothing but most freely subjected unto God, suffieth him to do and care for all things in him; so that it follows that in this man is the mere nature & work of God; and he or rather God in him repairs to the humble poor, sick, and to those that are in the house of sorrow, to help and comfort them: by whatsoever God hath either given him, or doth work in him as his substance, milk, and consolation, and in all those things he looks upon no other thing but only God; who rather in him only looks upon himself; Neither is it the Man, but God in the Man, who communicateth to other necessities, loves, prays, hairs, whorships, honours, wills, and possesseth.  
Thirdly, Adam would know, and therefore labours for much knowledge, and so eats of the forbidden Fruit, that he may live and become a great one, even God; and for this only end the whole World now a days applies itself to all studies; because it desires not to die in obscurity and oblivion, but to live and flourish, not in the lower degrees of estimation, but in the chiefest seat of reputation and honour, and with all to know all things that possible it can, that so it may be made famous, and thereby be glorified and delighted therein; wherefore every day he works more and more to increase his knowledge, by which he may be more and more eminent, greater, and more like unto God; that if it were possible to know more than God, that with Lucifer be might be equal with him; But that this ambition was the fall of Lucifer no man will consider; but every man in those prosecutions, disputations and studies for knowledge seeketh for life, when indeed there is in them nothing but bitter death; which both in Lucifer, as also in Adam most manifestly doth appear.  
Truly it is a wonder that of this forbidden Tree of Death; every man should be so much desirous to eat; God's will is that we know nothing, but what he will know, write, and teach in us; and that being void of all knowledge, prudence & wisdom in ourselves, we become fools, we remain under him as fools and babes; but we busy ourselves about the obtaining of many thousands of Sciences, and treasure them up unto ourselves, as if in them our life consisted, that like to God we are ignorant of nothing, and all flesh desireth rather to be like unto God then to Christ.  
But on the contrary, God's will it is, that before this bee, we as Christ was, be deprived of every thing that is our own, and be wholly subject unto him: Have, know, do, love, be nothing, but what God hath, knows, doth, loveth, is in us; For by this privation and denial, will God draw us unto himself, make us like God, and teach all men wisdom in him, and not out of themselves.  
Therefore the knowledge of Christ in Men is quite contrary unto this; For he hath known nothing, doth, or wills to know nothing, but only God, this is his rejoicing, for this only cause doth he learn sciences, or rather doth God in him; And to this with all his endeavour and strength doth he apply himself: that as in Adam he was made something, even so in Christ and with Christ he may be brought to nothing again; and all his knowledge and sciences, even as it were foolishness & deadly poison, he may vomit up again, & esteem as nothing; that he may wipe out of the tables of his heart all human arrogancy, having action, knowledge and science: to the end that nothing may remain there, but only that which God teacheth and by his own finger writeth.  
Briefly, a true Christian is a certain bare naked thing, who with Socrates knows nothing but this, that he knows nothing; In these blessed and unknowing fools, God will know all things, if so it be, man know how to empty himself, and to cast away the baseness of his old rags; But the fl●s● for this only cause doth learn that it may be something, or rather be all things, know, have, and do all things; whereas the spiritual man learns only for this cause, that before God he maj be made nothing to himself▪ & all other creatures whatsoever, that thereby God may be all things in him: know, have, do, love, and live in him; this is behooveful to be known; this is the true use of all things, and for this only end ought we to labour to know any thing.  
But every fleshly minded man, who belongs to the kingdom of Satan, and lies captrivated under his power, thinks far otherwise; and defendeth quite contrary; and therefore is in the sight of God foolishness, wickedness, sin, and Satan; From whence it is that he esteemeth their wisdom to be foolishness, their life to be death, and righteousness sin, accounting their love no better than hatred.  
Fourthly, the natural man hath many goods, wife, Children, life, riches, knowledge, wisdom, will, glory, honour, name, and all things as his own proper, these he arrogates to himself; to these he applies his mind; these are pleasant, profitable, and dear unto him. But if they be taken from him, and God exact his own, than the thief appears, neither will he willingly send them again: he turns himself, and seeketh for all safegards and ways of escape, and means whereby he may retain them still, and award God the proper owner of them, who now exacts them of him: the whole World lies sick in this misery, and those things that are God's, are abused by men. And what is common to all, or rather accommodated from God, he labours as much as in him lies to make it his own, and whensoever he is to restore it again, he doth it very unwillingly.  
But if it be so, that that which he hath stolen from God, is now no longer profitable or delightful unto him, he than surrenders it of his own accord. And if it so be, God giveth it again into his own bosom, and if it be God's will, he shall retain it longer, yet will he not retain it, if he be able to resist it, by compulsion; if he have it, it is with great resistance, so that before God he rather wilful casts them away, then retains them.  
So is it that the flesh, which hath all things out of God, offends in all; and because it apprehends all things out of God, it necessarily follows, that although it have all things, yet hath it nothing. For what can it have who wanteth God, the essence of all things, and in whom all things subsist: Surely they can be no other than like Tantilus Sicicus, & Medea's. Again, what can he want who hath God, and in him all things, since that God is all in all.  
Hence it is, that often times those that seem to have all things, have truly nothing, and those that have nothing, may truly be said to have all things.  
On the contrary, the new Man hath nothing but only God, wherein he can glory; neither doth he any way claim any thing to himself but God; As for that which God gives him, he useth it for God's sake as his gift and reward, ready to render it every moment, as it shall please God to exact it; For he can willingly restore that which he did never claim as his own, but as God did give, or rather lend it unto him; so that he willingly permits God at his pleasure to assume it from him. Briefly, he useth all things as the traveller doth his inn, or a friend money, committed to his custody, ready every hour to restore it back.  
This Paul terms so to have any thing as not to have it, or as though thou hadst it not: (which in the eyes of the World is accounted mere folly) that is that thou arrogate nothing unto thyself; offend in nothing willingly, forsake all things and with God (as a true wife with her husband have all things common) Wife, Children, Money, life, and all things else he loveth in God, and for God; and therefore keeps them, loves them, hath them, and takes them as lent from God; ready to yield them to God again, whensoever he requires them; all the gifts of God, as Wife, Children, and all other things he loveth only for the giver's sake, & the giver above all his gifts; and although some things are contrary to his nature, as the cross, death, exile, &c. yet he loveth all things alike, and this it is to have, know, love, and mary in the Lord.  
But the world and worldly minded men, are carried headlong unto the gifts of God, as the Sow unto the Dunghill; Never do they any whit respect the giver but the gift; with the which they commit adultery, challenging by right unto themselves; and so long as it is either pleasant or profitable unto them, so long they dearly esteem it: and willingly will not permit God to have it again; whatsoever is contrary unto them therein, that they unwillingly suffer, though it come by divine providence; unto them; for incontinently they look about them which way they may pull their necks out of the yoke: and therefore whatsoever they undertake, do, speak, &c. that they altogether abuse; and in the abuse it is altogether unfit for any good: until they cease to be that which they are, and being translated into Christ, become in him new creatures.  
Here it will avail nothing to patch up with God, for if thou stop one hole, or fill up one crevist, an other will presently be made; therefore it is necessary that men be borne again, and altogether forget this Tree of Knowledge of Good & evil. And briefly, be quit contrary to what he is or hath been. He is flesh born of flesh unto death, and therefore it is behooveful, that he be made spirit borne of spirit unto life. Which before he be all things are unclean unto him; as he is himself, although all things in themselves are very good; yet are they perverse & evil unto him, as all things seem blue to him that looks upon them through a blue perspective: all things degenerates into the nature of the possessor, and therefore all things by Adam are made vanity, although by themselves (as ever they have been) they are good: For all food is savoury according to the pallet & temperature that receives it: even so is every thing according as he that possesseth and hath it, is clean to the clean, unclean to the unclean; it cannot be otherwise but that all things be unjustly done, loved, prayed for, known, and retained; which an unjust man doth love, pray for, know, and retain, as the very words themselves declare; For how can it be that a wicked man can do any thing justly, a foolish man speak any thing wisely, an unclean man do any thing purely, a lying man speak any thing truly.  
Fiftly, the natural man, as before hath been said, is Flesh, borne of the flesh, altogether of an unclean nature, perverse, & adulterous, the servant of Satan sprung of the seed of the Serpent, seduced and turned away by his word, and the tree of knowledge; & so infected with poison, that betwixt Lucifer and Adam there is no difference: for as all true Christians are of Christ the sons of God, gods & God himself, so are all the sons of the devil, the devil, being of the same kindred & offspring, appertaining to the same kingdom and covenant, as Princes and subjects to the same, being all in the same estate of condemnation, neither is there any remedy to prevent this jail; but that a man put of the old man, so as he be no longer man, but a new offspring & creature born of God. Hence we may easily gather what is the natural prudence, justice & knowledge of man, to wit, foolishness, sin and enmity unto God; because that all flesh is an enemy unto God, friends unto Satan, and altogether of the same wit, nature, will, & birth, & as it were his flesh & blood; In so much as he is nothing but an enemy unto God; can perceive nothing that is divine; would be nothing but with out God, or rather his own God.  
Attributing all that is good to himself, as Adam and Lucifer did, the Father of the flesh; these are the Fruits of the forbidden Tree.  
But the Christian is borne of God, is a spirit and life, altogether of divine nature, and nothing else but the image of God; or if you will a visible and corporal God; who being made one with God, is of the same nature: rich in love, desirous of the common profit; attributing nothing to himself; like to God; free, strong, void of propriety, ambition, and anger.  
Briefly, or in a word, whatsoever can be said or may be said of God, may in its kind be said of the true Christian, since now it is not, he that lives but Christ lives in him: Not now he is any thing, but God is all things in him: that is, whatsoever he speaks, teacheth, hath, wills, &c. and although they unwillingly carry the old man about them, yet never do they live unto him, but always contrary, earnestly endeavouring themselves against him, until they have quit put him out.  
Therefore to conclude this chapter, the true use of all things is known only to the sincere Christians, and the abuse to the natural man: Not yet justified, living in himself: who can neither use, speak, teach, do, love, know, have, or not have any thing truly; But with all hath a defiled, both conscience & mind.  
Hence it is that he is altogether unfit for any good work, like a black Collier; and in all his actions like a stage player, foolish, blind, dumb, deaf, abscene, and wicked. In a word, whatsoever evil man hath, or title can be invented, it's proper unto him, until he return from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and evil; unto the Tree of Life, and eating thereof, and he be delivered from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of Light: Otherwise the flesh doth always retain its proper nature, and hath in all things a false and ungodly cause and end, for which it doth every thing that it doth. In a word, he altogether aims at himself, yea under a pretence of God; although he think himself to know, love, and desire God only for God, without any respect had to himself. No man hath yet truly learned to know himself, the flesh being so cunning and crafty to excuse itself, no man knows whether or no he sins in all his works, so unsearchable is the craftiness of the heart; yea no man truly understands, that in all his works, as in his loving, doing, speaking, knowing, praying, giving, willing, having, possessing, &c. he mortally sins, until he be redeemed and pulled out of the dregs of Adam, & translated into Christ, he become a new Creature; Of which things read Paul & Boch●us, de consolalatione Philosophiae, the third book and the tenth proof: How we must live unto God, and so be made blessed in him.   

CHAP. IV. how Man being of God could sin; and what it was that moved him to sin.  
ADAM was not taken out of God, or made of a Spirit, but of nothing of the Earth; if he had been taken out of God, he could never have fallen by sin; as those that are borne of God cannot sin, Jo. 3. but God created him of nothing, and then left him to himself and his own arbitrament whether he could return to his own nothing again, or according to the order of his kind be drawn unto God. Sin in Man and in the devil is nothing else but that they do avert themselves from the condition of their creation, and that which they are unto their vanity and nothing again; the essence of Man and Satan is very good, put this is their nature acquired in their fall, that they strive to be not that which they are, to wit, nothing, but that which ●hey are not, & so do turn themselv; from As if it so were, that that nothing of theirs were something in itself.  
This is sin, this is that devil in all our hearts, which stirreth up all sin in us: For as soon as Adam by the instinct of the Serpent fell away from God, and returned unto his nothing again, he was indeed made nothing: which thing Satan, who before had fallen into his nothing, did spin and weave into the heart of Adam, by the external object of the tree; and he made the Fruit of the Tree so pleasant to behold, that no sooner they beheld it, but they were inflamed with a desire to eat of that Fruit; For which cause it is written (Ier. 9) that death enters in by the windows, that is by the sight of the eyes.  
And this moved the schoolmen to define sin to be nothing, that is, no Creature of God: Neither that death which it produced: both which came into the world by the malice of Satan; & for the same cause sin brought man back again into his first nothing; wherefore the devil and Adam are run out of the sight of God; He not acknowledging them for his own: neither having any commerce or society with them: So long as they do not acknowledge their vanity; therefore since man by sin is made nothing before God; and yet will not acknowledge himself to be nothing, but even then esteem himself to be something, it is necessary that so long he be expelled out of the presence of God, till he be made nothing in his own heart: then doth God love his hand, and creates him again of nothing: For God knows not how to create any thing of something, but of nothing, for that is his nature: He that yet is not nothing, he cannot hope that he shall be something; wherefore behave thyself to Godward quietly, like a liveless trunk, as thou didst in thy creation: Suffer God to do; Fast, Feast, and Rest, and do thou nothing at all; lest it happen that thou be taken with a desire of the forbidden tree, or any other thing; or esteem thyself to be something according as the Law commands, yet doth it not cease to curse and condemn us, until it hath brought us unto that spiritual Sabbath; that so forsaken in ourselves, we do no more work to our new birth than we did to our firs● creation, but only suffer; So that our actions are only to do nothing, and be like a stone or trunk; For this desire to be something is always that which brings to nothing.   

CHAPTER V. wherefore the Tree of the knowledge of good & evil was created, then forbidden to Adam, and now to us, since God knew that both he & we should eat death from the same, and what is that tree.  
Wherefore was Adam and Eve forbidden this Tree, seeing to know Evil● is not evil, but to do evil. If Adam had not known good in himself, God had been alone good in him, and he had not arrogated any thing to himself, but had been as free from pride therein, as a bird is in her song, a horse in his strength, a Cow in her milk, and a Tree in its fruit; but as soon as he knew good, and considered it what it was; as a beautiful woman doth her beauty, he arrogated it to himself, and therein became a thief unto God.  
This God foreknew, and therefore was unwilling that Adam should know good, that so he might walk in his innocency, and be ignorant both of Good and evil: For this cause God said unto him, thou shalt not eat of it, as if he had said beware, lest thou thyself desire to know what is Good or evil; but suffer me to be all things, and be thou quiet in all things, that that good which I am, and desire to work alone, I may work it in thee, to my own praise in thee, according as I do it in the rest of the Creatures; And thus he was forbidden to know evil, for God knew, that as soon as Adam had smelled what evil was, it being of its own nature, like to him nothing, would be pleasing to him, and so it would come to pass that he would desire and affect the same.  
Besides this another evil hath rises from hence, that that evil which man according to his nature delighted to do he denyeth that he hath done it. Thus pulling his own neck out of the yoke▪ he accuseth the Serpent that it was done by it.  
Again, the good which God doth in him, and which is not his own, he falsely contendeth that he hath done it himself being deceived with a presumptuous opinion of his own power and strength▪ this being the perverse estate and condition into which Adam did fall willingly; therefore after that Adam was fallen into this perverse wisdom, by eating of the forbidden Fruit, and his own arrogancy, he was so depraved, that whatsoever he thinks, speaks, or doth, is displeasing unto God; and we all in him have eaten death, and fallen into the same estate and condition; but after we are raised from death, and redeemed from it again, by means of Christ, there is the same reason that the Tree of knowledge of Good & evil, should be also forbidden us, lest afterward we fall into the same estate again: wherefore the next way of coming unto God is this: that now Adam with all his Children abstain from this tree, that is, deny it, vomit up the Forbidden Fruit, and repent himself of his wit, as if it were foolishness.  
But when we eat of the Forbidden Fruit or Tree, God forgives us, but upon this condition, that for ever afterward we fast, and always repent ourselves of our first eating.  
This tree is planted in every one of our hearts, & is nothing else but our own wit, reason, flesh, knowledge, and will, to which as long as we adhere, and are not made foolish in ourselves, and as little Children, we can have no pardon from God; wherefore we must either abstain from this wisdom, and become little Children again, or else want God; and that prohibition of God, eat not of the tree: if thou do thou shalt die; is the same with that saying of Christ, except ye renounce yourselves, and hate your own life, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of God; For what was spoken unto Adam, the same also was said unto us; neither is our estate to be amended any other ways then that of Adam's; the hearts of all are like to a vessel which smells of that matter and meat which Adam did first power into it.  
Therefore as Adam declined from God and inclined towards himself, and made himself as it were a wise deaster, and admired himself like a little God, the same is also fresh in every carnal heart.  
Now therefore, we must labour as it were to go backward, and that inbred wit of Adam's is to be rejected & esteemed of us no otherwise then foolishness.  
Here many things are to be unlearned, and this we are to learn & know, that all our conceit & opinion of wit is foolishness, and that which separates us from God, and hinders us so that we cannot attain the true wisdom indeed; and we must labour to be freed from the bondage of ourselves. And to this work we should all apply ourselves; to wit, quietly to rest ourselves, not in knowledge, but in God known; and so affect knowledge only as an Index, which only shows and paints out God unto us, and is of God; That is the Fruit of the Tree of Life, and not of the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil; to wit, that we permit God to be, know, love, & have all things in us, so that he speak, work, know, and love in us nothing but himself, when, where, and wherefore he will.  
Julian th' Apostate ignorant of this secret, against whom civil writes, was greatly offended at this: that God would have man to know neither good nor evil, or rather that he would have Man to have, teach, be; and will nothing at all, &c. He (I say) was offended at this.  
But if the matter be brought unto the light of truth, we shall find that all this happened because of us: even as a Father forbids and detains a Sword from his Son, knowing that if he had it, he would hurt himself upon it, or otherwise abuse it; In the same manner God denied unto Adam, and also unto us, that Tree of Knowledge, for our profit and good; Neither did he envy us therein, but only did it to prevent the future evil, into which he foresaw we should fall; For he knew that as soon as Adam, like God should know Good and evil, he would challenge the same to himself, & desire to be his own God; otherwise God had not cared though Adam had eaten of that tree for satiety. For as soon as Adam had eaten of it, there followed thereupon self-love, and arrogating all things to himself, praise, and all other vices.  
So God in all his commandments hath respect not so much to himself as to us and our salvation, which not he but we enjoy: as Job himself doth manifestly confess, that God is neither hurt by our sins, nor profited by our righteousness, but still remaineth an eternal, perfect, and impassible God, to whom nothing can be added or any thing detracted; though we try, yet can we not make a Heaven, neither put the sun out of them; nor dry up a fountain; but all these things remain in the same estate and condition wherein God hath placed them: He that assumes to throw a stone against Heaven, it will fall upon his own head,  
Therefore we can make God neither richer nor poorer, greater nor lesser, no he is no way advantaged by us, though we all adhere unto him; only he hath a care on us to help us; we never deserve to be what we are, therefore we ought to attribute the cause of all our good to him only, and give him the glory: he hath an open hand more ready to give than we are to receive; rich to all those that call upon him; Neither doth he desire any thing at our hands but only this: that we quietly receive of him that which he is willingly pleased to give, for he that with quietness doth not receive, can have no h●pe that he shall receive; all our wit we ought only to employ to this end, to the denying of ourselves.  
This should make us nothing, children, fools, and prostrate low at the feet of God.  
And to the effecting of this denying of ourselves, all our knowledge ought to be directed; but that knowledge only which proceeds from God, can effect it; it can make a man nothing, a Child, a fool, and casts him down at the feet of God; But that knowledge that puffs up a Man, making him great and wise in his own conceit, such being the wisdom of the World, comes not from God, but is rather the serpent's Seed & forbidden fruit. Now every one that eateth of the forbidden Tree, for no other cause eateth he thereof, but only that he may obtain a great name, honour, titles, and glory, that he may have pre-eminence to be counted the light of the World. And by this means he eateth death in stead of life. This the holy Scriptures testify unto us, for whereas we ought to know and learn nothing, every man learns to know and be wise in all things.  
Now here some man might inquire, why therefore did God create the Tree, if he foreknew that both Adam and we would eat death thereof, and not rather hinder our sin?  
I answer, that God at the first made us of earth, and assuredly did know that we would not constantly abide in the estate of our creation, and yet he suffered Adam to take his course, & make trial of misery; that forced through sorrow & death he might haste to God again; for so it was to be that God would create him again out of sorrow, and make him again a new, not as before of nothing, but with grace of himself; this God foresaw from all eternity, and therefore suffered his fall, and gave way that man should first taste of the bitterness of death, before that he would give him the sweetness of eternal life, by which he might know the better what he hath in God, and what that life is compared with death, which before he tasted.  
Besides it was meet that God suffered the freedom of sin, rather than restrained it, as well for many other causes as more special for this, that otherwise it had been coaction and force, and not liberty, and also the goodness of God & his mercy, having no other object, could never have been manifested in his Creature: therefore it behooved that things should come thus to pass by the providence of God, and yield without necessity or any fault in God; Read Brentius lib. 4. & Ambros. in Rom. 9   

CHAP. VI. Of the 2 kinds of knowledge, and Will, and how the one always resists the other.  
THere is nothing under the sun but it may be said to be twofold, that is Just and wicked, Good and evil. Now just, and also that which is evil and wicked, may in like manner be said to the twofold, the one according to the judgement of God, and the other according to the estimation and opinion of men.  
And now seeing God is a spirit, and Men flesh, contrary to the spirit, it follows, that all their judgements, wills, knowledges, and actions, be contrary and repugnant one to the other. Whence it is, what man calleth good, right, sweet, light, life, knowledge, wisdom, justice, &c. God esteems that to be evil, wicked, bitter, darkness, death, foolishness, and sin, according as the Scriptures testify of God and of the World.  
Therefore there is nothing in the world but it may be called good or evil, according as the judgement of men are disposed, to whom it is proposed. What God is unto the world, the same is the devil unto God; and so on the contrary; So that nothing can be called evil, but all things are in their order right and good, and evil and wicked, according as the Touchstone is, by which they are examined.  
If I say, that the Word of God is false, foolishness and heresy, the same is true in the judgement and opinion of the world; and thus all things are twofold, either good or evil; & good is twofold, as also evil: the one truly good or evil in the sight of God, the other apparently good or evil in the sight of Men or their opinion; so that there is a twofould fasting, praying, willing, &c. to wit, one that is really good in the sight of God, so as is God himself, the author and teacher of all goodness; the other in the sight of the World good, but in truth evil and wicked; for what seems holy in the opinion of Men, is profane in the sight of God.  
So there is a twofold knowledge and wit, the one divine of the Tree of Life, the other human of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and evil. Human wisdom is a Fruit of the Forbidden Tree, and the root thereof is the seed of the Serpent, and so is mortal.  
These are all the arts which natural Men have found out, if no: without God, yet surely not in God.  
Briefly, all wit and arts, which God himself doth not plant in the hearts of Men, by the power of his spirit and Word, but acquired and gotten outwardly by the industry and help of men are death itself, or rather a deaster; if man do any manner of way, trust or hope in them, for they do make man no more acceptable to God, or any way more righteous before him, then do his meat, drink, or clothes, for all these things are out of man; and a certain superstition and worshipping of a false God, if thou restest thyself in them; thou mayst seem to thyself to be nearer unto God, because thou knows and understands many things, being more wise and acute than some simple good man, who cares only to know God; But in very truth, thou art no better than a fool, who art ignorant of these; For by how much thou art wiser than others hereby, by so much thou art worse; For since it is so, that all the knowledge of this World, and all the righteousness of the flesh is Devilish, according as saint James giveth this and other more opprobrious names unto it.  
It follows, that by how much a man offends and grows higher, and increaseth in this wit, by so much is he the worse and more Devilish, so that a good and simple man, who cares and desires to know nothing but God, if he be compared with him in respect of him, he may seem to be a Saint or God, and one of those is worth a thousand of others, as holy Scriptures do testify, one righteous man is more worth than a thousand wicked men.  
The other wisdom, which in the eyes of the world is foolishness, is that denying wisdom, the fruit of the Tree of Life, which whosoever hath, he shall never die.  
This springeth up in man out of the seed of the Woman, and is given and taught of God alone, being in its own nature, full of love, working divine solace and is called in the holy Scriptures the Knowledge of God; because it knoweth nor acknowledgeth nothing but God; This teacheth and professeth only God in the hearts of his servants; it arrogateth nothing to itself, but as it merely knoweth God; So it renders all it receives, to him again; This renews man, justifies him, enlives him, and makes him like unto God, but it is to be found in no man's heart, but only in his who hath given a farewell to all Earthly pleasures, arts, will, and wit, because that since it is so that these two knowledges are so contrary one to another, as fire is to water, it cannot be that they should live together in one heart, but the one will expel the other, as the day the night, and the night the day; wherefore all fleshly knowledge, will, and wit, must be quite unlearned, and we must become little Children and fools again, according as the holy Scriptures testify unto us, if we would have the true knowledge & wisdom of God to dwell in our hearts; For God requires a free and empty soul, which he would fill with his knowledge and goodness, and embrace as a pure & unspotted spouse, possessed with no other love but his: He would be the only Father of the Family, and cannot endure Satan in his kingdom to be near unto him, who is altogether light and void of all darkness.  
Now this wisdom being human, and a Fruit of the forbidden Tree, so is it fleshly puffing up the possessor of it, so as it makes him provide self-loving, desirous of his own profit, bold and wicked.  
In a word, it makes a man a Lucifer, and so contrary and abominable to God, that he cannot or will not flow into his soul.  
And indeed nothing so much hurts man as his own knowledge, wit, and righteousness, &c. which makes the word of the everliving God to appear foolishness, and God himself, to seem Satan unto him.  
Therefore as it hath already been said of wit and knowledge, the same may be said of the will of God and man.  
The one cannot endure the other; No more than the spirit can endure the flesh, life death, fire water; Therefore the wisdom of God aims at the utter destruction of Adam's life, nature, will, and wisdom, labouring to pluck us from the dugs of human wit, by which we are nourished.  
We must therefore learn to forget, and unlearn whatsoever Adam knew, or doth know, wills, loves, &c. and all things must be made a new in Christ, this is the wisdom of God.  
Now let us see how far we are from this, if a man have but only a thought to learn his way presently, he thinks it is well with him, and without any repentance he doth sweetly delight himself in his own knowledge, art, and will, and all men will be good Christians, and if God will, will compose whole books and volumes of Christ, which they neither do nor have known; and by this means they do so wearily employ and vex their minds through Satan's motion, with so many questions, arts, and idle disputations, that scarcely can they have so much time as to think of the knowledge of God; Whereas the true knowledge of God is not learned by prying into, running over, reading, or hearing a company of doubtful questions; as the 1. Chapt. of the German theology & Taulerus in many places elegantly doth teach; but by patient and obedient remaining, harkening and attending to that which God doth work in us; For he that would be divinely wise, and learn the knowledge of God, its needful that he hear and learn the same from God himself, he having detained it to himself, so that it can by no means be taught of man; For as human arts and sciences proceed from men, and is their work; so divine science is from God, and is the work of his only word.  
For as John Stapitius saith in a little book of the love of God: that those things that cannot be known but by sense and experience, neither can they be taught by, or learned from others. As for Example:  
No man can teach another to see, hear, taste, and touch; in like manner, and much less can any man teach another, to believe, love, hope, repent, so that divine truth and theology may rather be said to be experience then Arts: no man can learn of himself the knowledge of God, love of God, Faith, and such like, because the natural man cannot perceive things divine; nay the Letter of the Scriptures is not able to do this: it doth not beget in man any new nature, it but shows unto him what a one he ought to be, and what he ought to do; But yet he is, not such, neither can they make him such, but rather kill him and slay him by showing unto him his want and misery.  
Therefore is the position true, that faith & love cannot be conceived in the heart of man by the Letter of the word; Otherwise it would be that none should be more faithful than the Learned; and yet for the most part none are more perverse.  
The letter of the word indeed proposeth faith unto us, but cannot write it in our hearts, that being the work of the holy Ghost. Therefore that of Saint John is always true: as the anointing teacheth you; As also this, he that hath heard and learned of the Father cometh unto me; For faith and love cometh into no man's heart but his who is endued with the Holy Ghost. From whose inhabiting in our hearts, the light of faith and the knowledge of God deduce their original; yea love itself is not begot or infused in us, but by the holy Ghost and an affect of the love of God towards us. Wherefore the conclusion is this: that whom the Holy Ghost doth not comfort, teach and direct, he cannot be comforted, taught, and directed to the obtaining of Life.  
Now all men will say and confess, that the world is darkness, man's wisdom is foolishness: yet if so be you will indulge nothing unto him, but will tax his will, wit, and designs, and say they are all foolishness and darkness, there is no man will confess it of himself, or that it is earthly, but every man will eagerly and earnestly contend, that his wit is heavenly and divine, especially if it be any way exercised about Religion, when in very deed it is nothing else but the wisdom of the flesh; Yea even that use of the holy Scriptures, which is in the world, which are wrested and turned as every man likes to either hand; neither can these bare words, these words of God, containing in them the knowledge of God, which are common in every man's mouth, profit him any whit: these must be tried according to the will of God, and accordingly used. Otherwise these very words will become a very snare of Satan, and in stead of the word of God the word of Satan to him. It is not to say how well the wisdom of the flesh knows how to change itself into each shape, and to flatter itself with a form of the word of God; what cannot men pretend and undertake, to say in the name of God: pretending indeed nothing less than the mere honour, praise and righteousness of God.   

CHAP. VII. The Testimony of the Scripture, how we ought to evacuate the Seed of the Serpent his counsel & word, and so vomit up the Fruit of the forbidden Tree, and purge the same away as deadly poison by the Fruit of the Tree of Life.  
THis we oftentimes read, that our wisdom is foolishness with God. Which form of speech we steal from Paul, & babble of it, when indeed we neither know our own nor Paul's meaning touching it. No man remembers to renounce & give a farewell to his own wisdom. This forsooth every man thinks is spoken of the wisdom of Turks and infidels; As for his own wisdom, his reason being corrupted and holding some tenants, gathered from the holy Scriptures (though he miserably wrest them to his own turn) yet he thinks his wisdom to be the wisdom of God, and divine.  
This every man witnesseth in his own writings, in which for the most part he goes on securely, without any doubting upon the seeming approbation of the Scriptures, to his tenants and opinions; Not considering that this is the very presumption of the Turks and infidels, with all Sects of false Christians, whom I have known every one hath, or would seem to have the Word of God to be the foundation of their tenets, as the Turks and Jews think at this day, their faith is grounded upon the Word of God.  
Hence it comes to pass that every man is deceived in himself, and shut up to himself, from the knowledge of himself. This being it which God foresaw, when he said that the serpent should bite the heel of the woman, that is secretly and craftily lay snares, and deceitful gins in the hearts of men.  
Therefore know whatsoever natural man, though wise man in the judgement of the World, yea Adam with all his offspring the whole nature of men unregenerate knows, speaks, doth, thinks, lives, &c. all this is human, the wisdom of reason, and the counsel of the flesh, & the knowledge of that deadly and forbidden Tree: only that rare phoenix, which the Scriptures call the new man, or the regenerate that hath the knowledge and wisdom of God, being taught it from above; All other things are the inventions of men, the wisdom of the Serpent and Fruit of the forbidden Tree.  
Now we have said before that the wisdom of man must be forgotten, and we must learn to unlearn it: For as the flesh, even so the wit of the flesh, and the righteousness thereof is nothing but foolishness and wickedness in the sight of God. And on the contrary, the wisdom of God, and his righteousness, is foolishness and wickedness in the sight of the world and to the flesh. So that all arts and sciences, being only fleshly, are altogether vanity, filthiness, and a Fruit of the forbidden Tree, from the which all men eat death.  
It is no purpose for a man in word to deny his own wit, and yet in his heart to extol the same as the wisdom of God; Or, secretly to be elevated therefrom, these are but the findings out of the deceived heart of man; outwardly sugared over by Satan with fair words; And whosoever rests and depends upon these fair pretences, he builds upon hell, which will all damn. For as meat, clothes, time, place, person, and such like do make men neither less or more acceptable to God; So all human arts and sciences do not make the possessor thereof one jot the better in the sight of God, if he look at them, and (as Adam did) arrogate them to himself.  
Therefore the most learned and wise of this world are in this respect in no better a condition than the foolish Idiot that is.  
It is necessary therefore that those wise men go out of themselves, and learn to become fools, by going out of their wit, will, knowledge, &c. if they desire to be endued with divine knowledge from above:  
Therefore even as the natural man voluntarily for his own bellies sake doth torture himself day and night, in the finding out of so many covetous, curious, and with God unprofitable arts; Even so it is necessary that with the same pain and labour he learn to forget and forgo the same, and become a child and fool again; For it is a greater difficulty, and more labour by many degrees to unlearn his fleshly wisdom, and forsake that good he hath got already, then from the beginning to learn it for his profit.  
In so much that this is true, who once hath played the ass, will scarcely learn to leave those doltish tricks.  
O how difficult is it for them to become fools, who have grounded themselves in a presumption of their own wit.  
And yet it is necessary that this they must be, or otherwise they shall be nothing less than that which they desire to be.  
Therefore so requisite is this denial, hatred & forgetfulness of himself, that without it no man can be the disciple of Christ; that is, no man can be endued with divine wisdom, unless in his affections he hath excluded, and given a farewell & adieu to his own.  
Wherefore what wonder is it if the worldly Man, who is busied about the things of this life, be altogether ignorant of the knowledge of God; For since he is not obedient to that wisdom that is spiritual, neither can perceive any divine thing, nor receive the spirit of truth; nor for the wisdom of God exchange his own; For he neither cares to nourish that wisdom in his heart, neither desires to learn it, and because he desires it not, he cannot learn it.  
And now it is requisite, that as saint Paul says, if any man will be wise, with God he must be a fool in the World, that thereby he may become truly wise: That is; he must cease to think, as the world doth labour to get a new mind, and deliver over his senses & thoughts to be renewed by God.  
The cause of which Paul immediately annexeth to the same: For the wisdom of the World (saith he) is foolishness to God.  
And in his Epistle to the Romans he calleth it death and enmity to God. And the same Paul bids adieu to all his own wit which he had learned at the feet of Gamaliell, above all his equals and accounts, all his own righteousness and knowledge as dung and dross, in respect of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ.  
And elsewhere he glories in this that he had learned to unlearn and forget all things, and now desired to know nothing but Christ & him crucified.  
In the same manner all the Apostles become little Children again.  
Besides, Nichodemus, and all other whosoever, (as Christ had said unto them) unless they be changed, and become as little Children, they cannot see the kingdom of God.  
And a little after, Christ saith, that the kingdom of God is of such little Children.  
This is the reason why the Scriptures admonish us so often to beware of our own wit, lest we do any thing that seems good in our own eyes; As also that we resist our own wills, neither that we suffer ourselves to be led, and guided by our own affections and desires; and also those that trust in their own hearts & obey their own cogitations, are foolish and wicked, also that we seem not wise in our own conceits, nor magnify ourselves but fear, and in fear and trembling work out our own salvation.  
And lastly, that we trust not, nor lean not to our own wit; For what is or can be more wicked than what flesh and blood hath found out.  
Truly the flesh cannot of its own nature seek God, and have him in estimation, unless it renounce itself, and hate its own life and soul; that is all its own works; though it gloze them over with a pretence of the word, honour and glory of God; for he cannot be believed, loved, prayed unto, or found but only in God.  
Therefore all the endeavour, study, art, & diligence of is altogether void of God, and want his grace and spirit. For the word of God requires an humble, submissive trembling, and abjected mind; and a soul poor in spirit, & free from the bondag of the creatures; & like to tender wax or clay, pliable in the finger of God to receive the figure and stamp of his image imprinted upon it.  
To these fools and Children, such as fear God, and are separated from the dugs of the World, doth he open his secrets, and teach his divine wisdom & knowledge; if there be any man that fears God, to him the Lord will show the way that he may choose, and he walk in the truth, and his posterity shall inhabit the Land: He says not to the Learned, and to the wise of the World; as also in an other place; the Lord reveals his secrets to the righteous. For this cause Christ the son of God gives thanks to his Father, that he had hidden his secrets from the prudent and wise of the World, and had revealed unto Children and Babes; That as we have already spoken out of the mouths of sucking Babes; Such as were Moses, Jeremias, Amos, and the Apostles, &c. he might speak his praise, and extol his kingdom and Glory.  
Again, the rich & proud he sends away empty, and filleth only the hungry with good things.  
Now, no Money-master nor rich covetous churl is more swollen up with the vain confidence of his riches; nor any woman more proud of her beauty, than these wise men pride and boast themselves of their wisdom and knowledge; persuading themselves that this is the divine wisdom and riches of the soul, which neither thieves can steal, nor rust canker it, nor moth corrupt it, when notwithstanding it is nothing but mere death, foolishness, and enmity against God, and in a word the knowledge of the forbidden Tree.  
Therefore the holy Scriptures speak expressly of the wise of the world, these righteous men, famous for their arts, priding themselves in their own hearts, who are arrogant and proud, and are endued with nothing less than the spirit of God, who abides only in simple Doves.  
By this it appears that no kind of men are farther from the kingdom of God, and do less square and agree with his word, and more disagree from his will, than those who lean and trust to their own wisdom, knowledge, reason, and will.  
Christ in the holy Scriptures speaketh not so much against Publicans and common sinners as these, who being puffed up with a conceit of their own righteousness, reflect upon themselves with a self pleasingnes; with these can Christ lest accord, & unto them doth so often threaten woes in the Scripture, and says that adulterers and Publicans shall enter before them into the kingdom of Heaven.  
These are those wicked men against whom David so fervently and often prays, and of whom Christ hath so little hope, and unto whom he with his Apostles and Steven give so cutting language; who being men of a wicked mind, would seem nothing less; But those things which are written concerning wicked men, they ignorantly interpret of others, these are such whom the whole world esteem and accounts to be the shining lights thereof; Such were Nichodemus and Paul before his conversion; these are those who in David, Moses, Christ's, and all other times of the church have been the righteous Scribes & Pharises with the people; who having a show of piety, have so lived, as that they were esteemed Patrons and Examples for others to imitate; These righteous men of the world, the Scriptures call wicked; who want nothing but only this that they have wicked minds, void of Faith and grace; yet they so cloak their wickedness with a form of godliness, that they seem nothing less.  
Neither think we that the times of Christ and David were only pestered with these kind of people; But we may rather conceive, that if those golden days of theirs were full of such, these Iron ages of ours are much more abundant.  
All times and ages have had their Dissemblers, Pharises and Scribes, these our last ages since are the worst, for seldom comes best things last; For the world as it grows more aged, so it grows more wicked, as both the Scripture and experience do testify.  
Wherefore it is behooveful that every man endeavour that he be not of the number of those men, who wresting the word of the Scriptures apply and interpret them on others, as most men do; but in them behold himself as in a glass, if he desire to see a wicked man, and one that is a capital enemy against God; And let him but question with his own conscience, it is as good as ten thousand witnesses, and then he shall easily know what a one he is.  
For this cause the Scriptures are so fiery against these Godly Wise Men of the World; Yea denying all good to them, God in his just judgement striking them with blindness; So that they err in their own way, hiding himself and his word from their understanding.  
Besides, the Scriptures do brand them with a thousand infamous names; Calling them Wolus, a generation of vipers, bears, Bulls, sons of Belial, painted sepulchers, who are glorious in show in the sight of men, and set forth themselves as righteous before men by their sage manners, modest habits, and grave gestures, when in the sight of God they have their hearts full of nothing but filthiness and sin. Of whom Christ saith, that unless we be more righteous than they, and exceed them, we shall never enter into the kingdom of God. Nevertheless they would not seem to be what they are indeed, but cover themselves with a show of Sanctity. Wherefore it pleaseth the spirit of God to check and rebuke them to the discovering of their secret holds, and visards of their faces; But he who accuseth himself, and denyeth himself before God, and in his presence, shall obtain pardon, as the Scriptures testify; which reprehend those carnal spiritual spirits, or men, who place their state with God, and will be ignorant of nothing, and they are admonished by God in Solomon's Proverbs, that they would desist from this their arrogancy; Otherwise they shall be so oppressed with the glory and Majesty of God, that they shall not be able to endure and stand; But those who humbly submit themselves, and creep unto God, and willingly know nothing, nor are nothing but what God knows and is in them, they in not seeking find that which the other seeking with great auxiety of mind shall never obtain; For all things are theirs, and they know what God is, hath or knows, because they in God and God in them inhabits and dwells:  
Hence it is that Paul saith, the spiritual man searcheth all things, yea the secret things of God; which is denied to the foolish flesh, according as we may read in the Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, for in counsel of the wicked there is no health, no word of God, knowledge, or love.  
To the same purpose is that saying of Solomon, God made man at the first upright, but he found out to himself many inventions, many difficults, many labours, with which he doth weary and vex himself; God that is good, simple, & just, commandeth him that he should know nothing but him, and follow and be obedient to him as all the rest of the Creatures; He should (I say) be so obedient to him, as to do, know, will, love, omit, and speak nothing but only what God doth know, will, love, omit, and speak in him, by which as in all other creatures so in the heart of man he might enjoy a plenary kingdom, and ruling and governing him according to his own will, neither should man have any title, claim, power, or privilege over himself.  
Satan suggestion it was that man found out so many ambushes & curious questions, with frivolous difficulties, by which he is degenerated from that simplicity wherein God created him, and subordinated him, being transported with an ambitious desire, to become a Lord & God to himself; and so remained in the power of his own will; but how just this is, let man that hath reason judge, that the clay should desire to know or be any thing contrary or besides that which the maker thereof would have it, know, or be; such similitudes doth not yet fully express the matter.  
Therefore it happens deservedly unto us, that our wisdom, knowledge, and will, should bring upon us all punishment due unto sin, and also make us utterly disquieted, bringing unto us nothing but torture and vexation, since besides and contrary to the will of God we have deserved them.  
Hence it necessarily followeth, that sin is the punishment of itself, and fools are destroyed by their own wisdom and knowledge.  
This is that which Solomon experiment'ly complains off, when he says: where there is much knowledge, there is much vexation; And he that increaseth learning sorrows. And these wise men are fools, for whosoever endeavoureth to be wise above measure, this man shall endure greiffes and sorrows; and by how much they become more wise, by so much they are more disquieted: For God will have us to find rest in him only.  
Neither must we rise, come, go, or do any thing before him; For whosoever cometh before him is a thief, and whosoever speaketh or doth any thing of his own accord, without him, is a devil.  
Therefore it is that all men are deluded, deceived, and fooled by their own wit; yea even because they profess themselves to be wise, therefore they are foolish.  
And as God did the Caldean, Philosophers, and wise men, so he suffers those to be seduced by their own knowledge, and to be wearied with their own inventions, actions, and arts.  
Hence it is that Christ would not have his disciples desire to be esteemed somebody's, or covett that men should call them Masters, Lords, Doctors, or Rabbins, but only Ministers, Brethren, and witnesses of him, Ioh. 15. Ye are my witnesses.   

CHAP. VIII. Of the great Deaster of human wisdom and knowledge; and how all men do kiss their own hand, and all the World adores itself, and its own work; that is, inventions, actions, and deliberations of Fleshly reason and wisdom.  
What other thing is the worshipping of Images, Superstition, and the Institutions of men, than the reason, wit, art, invention, and prudence of man.  
Therefore the worshipping of Deasters is nothing but the adoring of the images of God, not according to his Word as he doth teach, figure and form it to us, but according to our own opinion and self conceit.  
Again, what other thing is sin then our own will, wit, and counsel, sown unto us with the Seeds of the Serpent. Consider the institutions, practice, and Life of all Mankind, when and how you will, you shall find it nothing else then human wisdom; here every man would be his own God, guide, govern, teach move, revenge, defend, excuse, and enrich himself; and every man sets his own brain, will, and reason in the place of his God, so that sin & the fall of Adam is nothing else but the human affectation of the art, reason, & knowledge of the flesh; and therefore deservedly is termed foolishness and enmity, deadly and Devilish.  
All men ought with Christ to become nothing, and with a continual decrease & depression of soul, become asses, fools & children; but now it is quite contrary: every man labours that he may be wise, great, illustrious and mighty; so many arts and sciences are learned of men, that they may be great, famous, and excellent in the eyes of the world; and may obtain titles of honour, & names of respect.  
Hence it is that young men are inflamed with a desire of glory, & labour not only to be famous in schools, but to be admired in the pulpit also; and for that end they seek out learned Tutors, who may make them expert, quick, and acute in all kind of literal deceits and exercises of arts. By which it is as clear as the sun that the whole world is contrary and enmity to God. Here every man kissing his own hand and adoring his own wit, esteeming it to be his light & his God; Even it that was the only sin of Adam; and it from whence other sins came & have their original, as Job confesseth; (Job. 33. 31.) For to admire & worship himself, and to be led by his own will; In a word, to stand on his own bottom, & to desire to be something of himself without God, is that one mortal sin, which is the fountain of all other; for the lusts of the flesh, and the wit thereof is very dead.  
And man like a log, is no better than dead; but while he doth nothing, knows & desires nothing, but keeping a holy Sabbath or rest; dies wholly unto himself; and being void of will or wit, resigns himself over unto God, and permits him to know and do in him, what, when, and how he will.  
And now the whole world lies overwhelmed with this sin; in so much that it doth no other but adore the work of its own hand, that is its own invention, counsels, comments, and wisdom. To this purpose all things are directed, intented, and wrested; yea the very Scriptures themselves, the word of God; that it may be agreeable to our corrupt reason, and not hinder the course of our carnal and fleshly wit, and knowledge, but all these things must be unlearned and cast away if we will see God. And therefore the Scriptures urge so often times, that we should become fools, little Children, and purge ourselves with the Fruit of the Tree of Life, that we may vomit up that poisonful wit and knowledge of the Forbidden Fruit.   

CHAPTER ix.. That the Tree of the knowledge of Good and evil, planted in the heart of Adam, is the Seed, word, and spirit of the Serpent and that great D●●aster, Antichrist, sin, death, the devil, & that Beast, which is mentioned in Daniel, and the Apocalips, which is the greatest and commonest Idolatry.  
1. What is that Beast of which Daniel writeth, which speaketh against the highest, and slayeth the Saints of God?  
2. What is that Serpent who deceived Adam & Eva?  
3. What is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and evil?  
4. What is that impudent King and Antichrist, of whom Daniel and Paul speaketh, 1 Thes. 2?  
5. What is that many headed Monster, mentioned in the Apocalypse, whom the whole World doth worship?  
6. What is sin? What death? What the devil?  
I answer: it is every man's own carnal wit and reason, righteousness, and the like; For which cause Paul calleth it death, enmity, & foolishness unto God; and Saint James calls it earthly, human, and devilish, because these three are one; For whatsoever is human, is worldly, & Devilish; and whatsoever is Devilish, is Earthly. For the devil and Man, Adam and the Serpent, are sworn Brethren, yea both one; For the Serpent hath so shed his wisdom, and feigned righteousness into the heart of Adam, that the Seed of the Serpent and his word are incorporated and made man, so that now the same thing may be said of both.  
And even as those that are borne of God, and in whom the Word of God is incorporated, are called God, or one spirit with God: So all men borne of flesh and blood, before they be regenerate & planted into Christ, may be called Devils; and so whatsoever is Earthly, may be said to be Devilish, and whatsoever is Devilish, may be said to be Earthly.  
Again, what is the Fall of Adam but only the wisdom of the Serpent and Fruit of the forbidden Tree? What is that old Dragon, who ascends out of hell? and with his tail draws a great part of the stars of Heaven after him? But only the wisdom of the Flesh, which doth extol itself against God, and desires to become a God unto itself?  
What are the thoughts of the Flesh? What is sin? what pride? But the wisdom and Fruit of the Forbidden Tree.  
What are the Decrees of Men? The works of reason against God? Men's inventions, knowledge, and books? But only the are of the devil, Eaten of the Tree.  
What is all the worship of Images and all false Religions? as of Jews, Turks, infidels, and all false Christians. What are all Sacraments, Assemblies, and Ceremonies? But an apple of this Forbidden Tree: which bearing a show to be of the Tree of Life, offers unto Men, pleasant Fruit to his eye, that is, reason which whosoever eats, he shall find to be deadly.  
No man can fully express that idolatry, with which all the corners of the world and hearts of men are stuffed up; and who is it that doth not adore himself, and says to his hand, wisdom, and reason, his art and his knowledge, thou art my God, in thee I trust, in thee i hope.  
Indeed men say not this with their mouth, but surely in their lives, works, and hearts, they plainly testify as much.  
Hence all men deny that there is a God, and testify the same by their works; For if they think there is a God, wherefore do they not resign vengeance unto him? Wherefore are they so doubtfully distracted? Wherefore do they forge such wicked deceits, to deceive one another? Wherefore do they so war upon one another (whether with right or injustice it matters not) and contend together for mine and thine? Why do they lie, cog, and flatter one another? Wherefore do they labour night and day to get and heap up riches? Wherefore are they so forgetful of the word of God, and so little esteem his precepts and commandments? But that they think God cares not for them, or that he cannot or will not revenge them; therefore it is necessary that they help and revenge themselves; or that they think that while to long to wait and expect the help of God, before that he take vengeance and punishment they themselves shall be overthrown; And because they think that nothing but poverty comes upon them, if they have any commerce and communion with the truth of God; therefore it is necessary that they help themselves, and labour for their living, by lying, cogging, deceiving, and usury, and the like; this makes a man rich and honourable. As for the word of God that is but a late help, and deficient in adversity; it stands us in hand, therefore to adore ourselves, speak big & swelling words; elevate ourselves as much as we can. Who but myself is God? saith the world in the course of her Life.   

CHAPTER X. An answer to certain objections, that we ought to be wise, and not fools; and how we ought to be wise, and how foolish.  
But you will say, that the learned shall shine as the stars or sun in Heaven, and in a thousand places we are commanded to apply our hearts unto wisdom, as in the Proverbs and Eccles. wise men are commended?  
To which I answer, that it is rightly spoken, if it be rightly understood, to wit, of the tree divine & heavenly knowledge, which God himself doth work & teach in those that are poor in spirit; I say, it is understood of the wisdom of the tree of life; and not of the deadly and foolish wisdom of the Flesh, which is the knowledge of good and evil; and the Scriptures will have us to acknowledge our folly, and to be made fools in our own judgement, (and indeed we are so, but we would not be accounted so) and forget all things whereby we may become truly wise, and receive the influence of divine knowledge into our souls; For we are all foolish & wicked, and we will not see and perceive it, nor believe it; and therefore God would have us by confessing our folly in true simplicity, to give a farewell unto it, & by submitting ourselves over unto God, be made truly wise and learned by him.  
Hereupon it is that Solomon calls them fools, whom Paul calls wise & prudent; Solomon calls them what they are indeed in the sight of God; but Paul calls them what they seem to be in their own eyes, and in the sight of men: We must unlearn, and therein strive to be fools in that wherein we learn and strive to be wise in; But as it is given us of God, so it can be learned from none but God; and as the love of God shed abroad in our hearts, begets a mutual love of him again; Even so God's knowing of us, begets in us a knowledge of him, as Paul witnesseth to the Gal: after that ye knew God, or rather are known of him.  
As also to the Phill. I desire to know▪ as I am known. And also 1. Ioh. 3. He first loved us. Also in another place: if any man love God, he is borne of God. Out of all these places I gather, that God is never known, loved, sought, or found of us, until we be known, loved, sought and found of God; as Christ saith to the Pharises: the kingdom of God is in you; and Paul to the Athenians: he is not far off from every one of us; for in him we live, move, & have our being. But this is most miserable and lamentable, that those who profess themselves to know God, know him not as they ought; as Paul testifies of the world: If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. And again: if any man seem to know any thing, he knoweth nothing as he ought.  
We should know this, that by nature we know nothing, but are altogether blind, dead, and foolish in spiritual things; and this knowledge should make us nothing, foolish and Children in our own eyes; But we desire to know, and seem wise, whereby it comes to pass that we know not how, or for what end we ought to learn knowledge, for wisdom is not given unto us for this purpose, that thereby being puffed with pride, we extol ourselves, and become something in the eyes of the world, but on the contrary to make us nothing. This is the knowledge of God, that makes us fools and Children to ourselves and the world: it doth not puff us up, making us seem wise in our own opinion; Noah, for that is the knowledge of the Serpent, both most devilish and deadly.  
Thus you see that the whole world knows not what, how, and for what end they should desire to know, but always strives against God in their knowledge; and know not of what things they ought to be ignorant off, but chiefly are desirous to know those things they ought to be ignorant off; and so by their own art and knowledge make themselves fools.  
Briefly, that which they do know and do desire to know, that they should learn to unknown; and what they resist to know that they should learn to know, otherwise God will never acknowledge them for his own, because God hath determined never to acknowledge, crown or reward any thing in us, but his owns gifts and works, that is never to love or accept any thing in us but himself: For he alone is the Light, Life, the way, and the truth, so that whosoever is not in him, or he in them, they always wander in the paths of error and shadow of death. Now every man knows what it is to walk in darkness. The walls of Jerusalem were not to be opened before the sun did rise; even so should no man intend to go forth before the son of righteousness arose in his heart; since all things depends upon him, and be should be our Teacher and Example, by whose instruction we should learn, and by whose Example we should walk, as the Scriptures testify.  
It is an easy thing to say, that the world is in darkness, and uncapable of the spirit of truth: but no man will either acknowledge or believe himself to be the world, or that the whole world to God is all flesh as the sons of Adam all were natural men, with the universal righteousness, reason, and wisdom therein; but by the world men think to be understood, the Turks, Gentles, & Heathens; and I know not what people of the farthest parts of the world, attributing so much to arts, tongues & Scriptures, which they almost prefer above the spirit; and if a man do read and have a Bible, they think it enough, and that by which they may easily obtain the Holy Ghost; not considering that either the Holy Ghost must be their guide, and enlighten them in the knowledge of the word, or otherwise it is but a dead Letter; and is so far from bringing Life with it, that it mortifies & kills the Reader: as Paul implies, where he saith, the spirit quickens and not the Letter.  
The Jews in ancient times, and so men in these days do boast themselves of the word of God, & are strongly persuaded, that out of it they are able to gather Life to their souls; but they are far deceived.  
Wherefore Christ says: In whom think ye to have Life. As for the Scriptures his testimony of them is this, that they are them which testify of him.  
Therefore all arts and knowledges are no ways the cause of Life; but the knowledge of Life to know him in and with God; wicked nature hath always a perverse end, proposed to itself, and therefore it desires to know all things, not for God but for its own sake; therefore all things are to the flesh (as it is its self) vain and perverse, if the learning of so many arts had been necessary to salvation, God had created and taught them in the beginning; Neither would be have suffered that men should so long have wanted that, without which they were not able to attain to Life; but because they were formed out by men, and still are found out by them, though no man be any whit the more unhappy, if so be he never know any thing of them; Yea he were more happy if he could unlearn them, though with greater difficulty than he learned them; you may by the Tree conjecture what the Fruit is, what human arts and sciences are: to wit, the Fruit of the forbidden Tree; How then can they conduce any thing unto Life, being the only precepts & in, ventions of men.  
Therefore very well in praise of that word of God doth Cornelius' Agrippa call all arts and actions of men mere ignorant fables and foolishness, in his book de vanitate Scientiarum. The beginning and end whereof we have put in this book, that we may not seem alone with Ernestinus to contemn arts and praise folly.  
Wherefore if thou lean unto arts, please and boast thyself in them, having any hope or accounting thyself any thing better for them, they will prove death unto thee, for they do no more conduce to thy happiness then garments, time, place, or such like circumstances: But as they are the inventions of the flesh, so do they produce no other thing in thee then the works and Fruits of the flesh, to wit, self-love, pride of spirit, contempt, disdain, security, & such like; And this is verified by experience, for no men are more perverse, crafty, & covetous, than these worldly wise and learned men be, being men drowned in their own self-love, esteemed of themselves worthy to be beloved and reverenced of all; full of rash judgement, lovers of all pleasures, and so full of all vices: that the whole world gives credit to no men less, speaks worse of no men more: being full of taunting & reproaching proverbs against them; such as these, the better learned, the worser mannered, the better scholar the worser Christian. No man 'scape scotfree out of the claws of a priest. He that will have an honest house, must keep it free from priests, Apes, & Doves. A monk dare do as much as he dare think. These & such like proverbs are common in every man's mouth; which arise from this that they are so swollen with the poison of the fruit of the forbidden tree, so puffed up with the false opinion of their own wisdom and righteousness, that no rich man is more insolent by reason of his riches, than these perverse wise men are by reason of their arts & knowledge; So that it is as easy to remove Cyrus out of his kingdom, as one of these wise men out of his opinion and tenant; And truly it cannot be but by how much a man is more wise in the art of the forbidden tree, by so much he is more miserable, as Christ witnesseth in the gospel: that the multitude of their arts and knowledge is an impediment why they come not into the kingdom of God, and publicans and harlots enter in before them.  
Therefore these men are to perish with their arts, & to depart empty, and so far is any of them from leaving his art, wisdom, knowledge, & righteousness, that he esteemeth these to be the good and riches of the soul, which neither thieves can steal, nor moths corrupt, when in very deed they are nothing but the inventions of Satan, fruits of the forbidden tree, and the death of the soul; For the life of the soul is the true knowledge of God, which himself doth work & teach in us, to wit, the fruit of the Tree of life, whose fruit is that it makes a man gentle, loving, humble, lowly, meek, &c. By this let a man examine himself, with what wit and righteousness he is endued; For if day by day, he be less in his own eyes and in the judgement of the world; if he seem still more foolish in himself, and a Child in his own thoughts, his knowledge is divine the seed of the woman, a Fruit of the Tree of Life; but if he find contrary effects in himself, than is all his wisdom Devilish, the seed of the Serpent and Fruit of the Forbidden Tree, and so the death of the soul.   

CHAP. XI. Of the Tree of Life, what it is? why Adam was excluded from it, and not permitted to eat thereof.  
I also grant thus much, that this Tree was visible in Paradise, and had this divine virtue bestowed upon it, that whosoever eat thereof, should live for ever; But whereas Adam before had eaten of the Forbidden Tree, and had incurred death, therefore he should not eat of this Tree of Life, lest otherwise he should have lived for ever; and in a word, God should have been false in his word, which was that he should die the death, but God who is Life itself, would not for ever be angry with his Creature, but was unwilling that man should for ever live in that misery, into which he had cast himself, and therefore drove him out of Paradise, and afterwards showed him the way by which he should return into Paradise again, and eating of this Tree live for ever; and then guarded the Tree of Life with a Cherub and a flaming sword, lest man in his exile should have presumed to have come to this Tree, and have eaten thereof.  
The will and counsel of God was that it was better that man should die in the flesh, and so put of this miserable life, and change it for a better, then live in it for ever.  
Therefore God who cannot nor will not hate us, dealt every way most merciful with us, if so be we would truly consider of it.  
Now do i think that the same also happened in the true Paradise of Adans' heart, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & evil, is the Seed, Knowledge, and wisdom of the Serpent: And the tree of Life, is the Seed of the Woman, and the wisdom of God; and these two Trees are, as God and Satan; so contrary one to another, that the one brings Life unto us, and the other death.  
Therefore he that eats of the one, its impossible he should eat of the other, because they are divided by a flying Cherub and a flaming sword; which I interpret, sin and disobedience, which sometimes in the Scriptures is called a partition wall.  
For he that eats of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and evil, that is he that is possessed with a diabolical wisdom of the Flesh, he cannot eat the Tree of Life; that is, he is departed from divine knowledge and wisdom that proceeds from God: For these two wisdoms are incompitable, they cannot be in one and the selfsame heart, being as contrary one to the other, as heaven to hell; He that eateth of the Tree of Life, and is partaker of divine knowledge, he cannot die, neither sin; For this Fruit eats the eater of it, and changeth him into its own nature, into Life, as the Scriptures do testify of those that do eat the flesh of Christ.  
For it is one and the same thing, to eat Christ, to live in his word, to eat of the Tree of Life, to believe in God, &c. as it is also the same thing to be in Adam, to live in Adam, to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, of Good & evil, to obey the word of Satan, and be God.  
Therefore those that eat of this deadly Tree, and adhere to the word and wisdom of the Serpent, and are borne of Satan, these cannot do any thing that is pleasing unto God. As on the contrary the other doth not any thing that is displeasing unto him.  
Therefore he that would be the one, must bid adieu to the other: He must put off the wisdom of the Serpent, and Vomit up the Fruit of the Forbidden Tree, who would eat of the Tree of Life.  
Adam must die in us, and the wit of the Flesh must be unlearned of us, if we would have Jesus Christ to live in us, and obtain the direction of the holy spirit; For the death of the one is the life of the other; the infirmity of the one is the strength of the other.  
No man can serve two Masters, neither is it possible to unite Adam, God, & the devil together.   

CHAP. XII. The praise of the Word of God, on which alone man ought to build, rest, reside, and it only know, if he will remain unshaken in adversity, have his Faith manifest and approved, and find quietness to his soul.  
INdeed there be many arts profitable to the body, which God the belly hath created, and yet doth daily find out, which truly bring much profit to the kitchen; and only serve, worship, & obey their God the belly most zealously, as it is expedient they should. But as the common proverb is, that which is profitable to the body: doth often hurt the soul, and that which is the bellies and flesh, as life, food, and plenty, is often times the death of the soul, and a mere poison unto it, because the spirit is contrary to the flesh.  
Hence it comes to pass that table or belly arts, because they be the Fruit, offspring, and wit of the flesh, are altogether vain, famine, and death unto the soul. And on the contrary, that only art, the end whereof, was not for God bellies advantage; which the whole world doth so much slight and little regard, that only true wisdom and theology, to wit, God and the knowledge of his Word in him; together with the knowledge of him divinely infused into our souls, is the sole art only necessary to man's salvation.  
Therefore the true, heavenly, & divine art, the true tree of Life, of which whosoever eateth hath everlasting life.  
Furthermore I say, this art is the food, Wine, milk, excellency, defence and all whether the profit, pleasure or advancement of souls; All other arts being vain, doubtful, and the poison of the soul, hurtful and deadly to the Spirit of Man, if he lean upon them, rest in them, glory in them, or build his happiness upon their sandy foundation. In a word, they are the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good & evil, of which whosoever eats, as i have amply proved, he shall die the death.  
Therefore I desire that we would not be to righteous nor wise in our own eyes; As Solomon (Eccles. 8. as also Proverbs 3.) doth faithfully instruct us: that we should esteem nothing to be our wisdom, righteousness, or any other virtue in us, but only to know God in and with himself, and love, praise, worship, fear, honour, and understand him as we ought. Which thing must necessarily proceed from God himself, being the work of his eternal, and in itself everlasting and immutable word, which without spokesman from him proceeds out of his mouth: that he speaks in our hearts, teacheth himself in our souls, imprinting and engraving his Image in us, thereby enlightening so our understanding, that to speak in a word, he so teach, love, know, understand, pray unto, hear, guide, govern and worship himself in us.  
All other things whatsoever are to dull, and all the virtue of things are to base, that they should be able to teach us God, and give us everlasting felicity; or that God by them should give it unto us.  
God will be himself, teach himself, give, and convey himself into our hearts: Neither will he suffer his honour to be given to any Creature, that by it we should be saved or sanctified; but he that heareth and learneth it of the Father cometh unto him.  
He will himself be the Master of spirits; and so a spirit shall be taught of a spirit. And all those that are divinely instructed of the all-knowing and understanding God, shall be said truly to be learned and wise.  
The flesh hath teachers, who belonging to the old covenant, have commerce with the flesh. The new covenant, because it is spirit and Life, and in like manner hath a spiritual and new birth of God to be instructed, hath also a spiritual word and Master to instruct it, which is the word and spirit of Life.  
Therefore if any man would know himself, submit himself quietly to the direction, and permit himself to be spoken too, sought and found in him; He surely should be elevated to a wonderful Light; if any man I say doth follow the instruction and Doctrine of the Father in himself, he verily should find God in God and with God. But the world busied and accupied in the Creatures passeth away in a confusion, and not considering the hidden and secret treasure that is closed in his heart; Neither seeks for this precious pearl, but covered all over with the earth of the Creatures, remaineth in darkness with the multitude of his arts and sciences; weary, ignorant, and void of all true arts and sciences; yet doth he in the mean space learn art after art, further and further searcheth into the my fiery of knowledge.  
And to use the words of Saint Paul, is always learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth; but the more he learneth, the more perverse he is; and to such a madness doth he come at last, through his overmuch wisdom, that he quite forgets what to say, babble, determine, believe, and what opinion to hold; and so he together with his frail foundation and fickle arts, staggers here and there, slides out of one error into another, until he become vain in all his imaginations, and like to Foxes, caught with all their tricks and turnings; is thereby miserably ensnared in the nets and snares of his own arts and sciences. But the Christian like to the cat, hath but one way, knows but one art, whereby he is able to save himself, yea that a chief one, viz. his God, in whom he hath all things, knows, loves, and comprehends all things; And therefore he scapeth, when the Fox though he know many sleights, & those crafty ones indeed; yet often together with his sleights, he falleth into the power of the Gods and the hands of the hunter.  
Therefore thou canst boast of nothing, nor build upon any other thing whatsoever, but only that sure foundation and art, which is God himself, & his holy word: For all other things forsake man in adversity, except the hope and confession of God; this is the true preacher in our hearts, if any man will attend and harken to what he shall speak in him, he hath planted in us the seed of the woman near unto the seed of the Serpent, for opposition unto the same; yea he hath confirmed his Spirit, finger, word, and Image in us; His Spirit he hath clothed in us with Flesh, and hath placed it captive in the midst of its enemies in the Tabernacle of the Flesh, that it may prevail and overcome, and subduing the Flesh may with itself carry it unto God, deify it, engraft it, & unite it unto God; For this is the fight between the Flesh & the Spirit in us, of which Paul speaketh off.  
Therefore if any will yield himself over in the midst of his enemies to the holy Spirit, & glory in God, as in a most fortified camp in him: God would (without doubt) once come and vanquish his enemies, and so he should know all things to eternal Life.  
But the World doth not attend unto God in himself, always occupied with the sound or noise of the Creatures, passeth on with tumult and confusion, and so knows nothing, hears nothing, learns nothing, though in the mean time it compasseth, searcheth, and inquireth out a thousand unprofitable arts, and continually learns, and the longer it learns, it is the more unlearned, until sliding into error at last, it falls quite down.  
But if men as Christians do, would abide with God privately in the school of their hearts; and with Marie would sit attentively at the feet of their Lord, 
Luke 10.  and would both hear and learn what God would be pleased to speak, 
Deut. 11.  teach, & enterprise in them, verily they divinely instructed, would at last vomit up all their arts, as ignorant and folly. And with Paul would forget them, deny them, and account them as dross and dung.  
Standing water is easily made bright with the beams of the sun; and a rolling stone gathereth no moss; but the roaring Rivers of this world must necessarily be either lukewarm or cold.  
Therefore it is behooveful, that before all things we turn unto God in our souls, and compose ourselves with him in quietness; daily talking with him, hear him, and learn of him. Which thing the whole world is ignorant off; it knoweth not how to hear the word, the Master, the teacher, and how to learn of him in himself; but always it flies out of its own heart into the mouth of man; who when they be altogether liars, filthy, vain, it comes to pass that they are always deceived; are always learning, and heaping many arts; when notwithstanding with all their arts they are ignorant and foolish, because that which they know, is but merely surreptions, thievish, untried, taken upon trust from others, of which they themselves never had experience; but if any to please the people have profunctorily believed, yet together with the people they believe some other thing.  
Then truly like Bees they fly out in swarming sometimes, prosecuting a poor weasel, making dear enquiry into a matter of little moment, and fall into some matter of dispute, upon whose, foundation and ground they are altogether ignorant off, until they be satiated with it, than they fall upon some other thing.  
So in times past all Israel (in whom all the whole world is figured) together with their Kings and priests did fall, until they wholly erred from the Faith, and once taken were led away captive.  
Read the people painted in my book of the World.  
Now i call with Paul the word of God: that foolish and offensive speech, which to weet doth bring with it the cross, grief, and death of the flesh, and maketh all things which seem something to be nothing, and only looketh upon & regardeth those men who are nothing in themselves, which in the eyes of the world seem the greatest folly that can be. Neither can it be persuaded, that letting pass that which it sees, it should embrace that which it neither hath not sees; for it would rather have one bird in hand then two in a bush. Neither doth it doubt so it might keep it to prefer a temporary life before a thousand eternal lives.  
And therefore the Word and the preachers of the word have been persecuted for fools.  
Now the word of God is of such a nature and force, that though it hath a vulgar stile so simple in the language of truth, yet it overthroweth all things whatsoever rise against it, it dulleth the edge of all wit, and these enticing and corrupt contemplations, together with the more eloquent kind of lying, it doth bring into such straight, that it maketh them to blush for shame; although (as it is always the properties of lies and ungodliness) they will not confess themselves to be overcome; For the word of God doth say such strait siege to the heart of Man, that every one, if he do not speak against his own conscience, is forced thus to think, and so to determine as the word doth speak, that so it is, and otherwise it cannot be but a lie.  
On the contrary bursts in with a long Circumlocution, and one lie doth almost weigh ten lies, that it may seem to be true and have a shadow thereof.  
But the word of God, as I have already said, doth proceed after a most simple manner, but it doth so gird a man, that will he or not, he becometh, amazed, and with admiration astonished & affrighted, doth say, this is the finger of God.  
No man ever spoke thus; for this word hath such a sharpness, sting, and strength, that it pierceth even into the heart, and seperateth the flesh from the spirit, so as the mind being captivated without all controversy, assents to the same, and confirms the truth thereof with all assurance; not so crafty subtlety can be objected against the truth, but that may be battered, weakened, and refuted with one word; neither can any thing so acute be produced, which weakened with the like acute, may not be overthrown, only the word of God overcometh with such force, that even the mind of the enemy is overcome and taken with it; the outward man alone, and the face of the flesh, which would not be bridled, seeks out all kind of ambushes, tricks and turnings, to escape this thunderclapp. And falsehood, for shame covers its face with its hands, and thereby thinks that the whole body is covered, that it cannot be seen.  
Moreover, it is behooveful, that all other traditions of arts, words, and spirits, be examined by the word of God, as by an index, golden rule, and touchstone.  
I call that the word of God, which is the Spirit and Life, (not the Letter) written without ink and paper in the hearts of believers, which speaks unto the souls of all those that are obedient unto it. This i call the Word of God; Not the Scriptures. For if we speak properly, the Scriptures or Letters are not the word of God, but the mind, spirit, and that true divine meaning, which Paul calleth the sense of Christ and mind of the Spirit, and Christ the Word of God.  
This I say is the word of God, as saint Paul doth testify: The Letter (Saith he) doth kill, but the Spirit, that is the true and spiritual meaning thereof, which only spiritual men are endued with, which doth quicken.  
These alone have the Key of David, for the opening of all the seals of this closed book; to all other the book is Sealed with seven seals; Of which mention is made in Dan. 7. Apoc. 5. and Mat. 13. by way of parable; and the veil of the Letter doth hang before their eyes, until they turn unto God, and seriously will obey his will.  
The spirit of understanding entreth into no froward scorner, who in the letter only desireth to show his nicety and Clarkeship. For the truth is, that word of God, and his secrets, are made manifest to them that fear him.  
Therefore many in our times are snared, who betwixt the writings and the word of God do know no difference, and so do they esteem the Scriptures for the word of God, so as beside it they know no other.  
But it appears by the Testimony of many divinely taught, that the scriptures are nothing but the husks, the shell, the sheath, the lantern, the shrine, the letter, the cave, the veil of the word of God. From whence it ariseth that they appear so sinister, and in show often repugnant, and are hidden from wicked men.  
But the Word of God placed in and under them, is the kernel, the life, fullness, and thing itself, or substance: For otherwise those learned men the Scribes and Pharisees had been blessed and happy, if the Letter had been the word of God, viz. the light, &c. because they had so well conned the Scriptures, that most part of them they could say by heart, yet were they for all that most miserably to perish with this Art; and so death is eaten by the Tree of good and evil, while yet men think thereby to have Life.  
But Christ doth more ingenuously testify, that they know not the Scriptures, that is what in the Scriptures is the word of God; for what otherwise belonged to the Letter and grammatical sense they writ, but knew not the mind of Christ, which was the force and meaning of the Letters; and the Letters in my judgement are of sett purpose, so sinister and darkly dictated by the Holy Ghost, comprehended and declared, that those impious Swine and dogs may not understand them, according as Christ out of Esay doth allege them, and giveth this reason, why he speaketh so obscurely by similitudes, and demonstrateth the same thing more significantly in John, lest we should make an idol of the Letter; And that we should think some other thing more necessary to salvation than Bibles: to weet, that of God we should desire the Light of his word, which is hidden in this lantern; and also that true teacher the Holy Spirit, which may direct, lead, and instruct us in the holy Scriptures, and may open the seals thereof, declaring unto us the mystery of this shrine, that is his divine word, Law pleasure, will, and meaning, hidden under the dead Letter.  
Many think it enough that they have Bibles, and know how to read; Here forsooth they find the Holy Ghost, the word of God, that double Sword of the Spirit; yet wrapped up, and closed in the sheath.  
But who can understand, gain, find, and brandish the same? He answers by the Prophet Esay: young Children, who will be afraid at this killing Letter, they are sore out of heart, tremble and die for fear.  
Therefore it is not enough, although it is good, to have Bibles. What to have Bibles? All the Pharises had the same, could say them by heart, and yet they lived no less blind and dead.  
These very Bibles are the Tree of Good and evil, of which they did eat death, although to the godly who consult with God about the meaning of them, and renouncing themselves, pray unto him for the obtaining of his Spirit, they be the Tree of Life; God will give his glory to none other, no not to the Scriptures, but hath made them dark unto us, and hath reserved the interpretation to himself, that he may teach, enlighten, rule, and guide, how, when, and as he will; and his will is, that we always wax stronger, and by degrees come nearer to the knowledge of the truth, if so be we would do the same by his help; but he hath not sown his word by the way side for dogs and swine, but hath covered it, the same being hiding in the Letter, that we may not rest ourselves contented in the Letter, but dig up the hidden treasure; and with all Religion pray for grace and understanding, and consult with his Holy Spirit, that he may take us into his tuition, guide us, teach us, lead us unto the Tree of Life, the Fruit whereof may feed us up unto eternal Life.  
And this is the trial of all Arts, Doctrines, and Spirits, that they be compared and agree with the word of God, that that which is divinely unto us, we find to be true by his word in our hearts. In a word, that our spirits may confirm the same so to be by its testimony, as we have divinely learned the same, and that we sustain for the defence thereof to die.  
Therefore it is likely and so it shall be indeed, what Doctrine soever cometh from god, the same is not repugnant to the word, which divinely taught, we have in our hearts, but agreeable, thereunto giveth testimony that we know his word, as we are known of God, and comprehended as we are comprehended of him, otherwise how could we say Amen, and assent if the contrary should be fall in us.  
Therefore they are much deceived who think that nothing is the word of God, but what altogether differeth from our minds; and therefore compel themselves only to believe those things which in their inward man they can perceive, feel, & comprehend to be far wanting in them, and contrary to them.  
Indeed the word of God invadeth our hearts with an exceeding force, because it is spirit, our hearts are flesh; but where the believing heart addicts itself to the worship of God, the word is soon incorporated in us, and our heart made one with it, is converted into spirit; so as now the truth it feeleth, yea and what more it witnesseth that to be true, which the spirit doth speak unto it; and is so bound that it necessarily must assent unto it; Neither doth it so compel or force itself to believe, but it is so compelled, that it cannot but believe, and would a thousand times make a loss of its body rather than believe otherwise.  
So again the mind cannot be believed, and as long as the mind doth not assent, it is a sure argument, that as yet is hath not comprehended, nor as yet is the word incorporated in thee, nor the son of God borne.  
For he who comprehendeth the word as he is comprehended, feeleth the same, yea testifieth, & knoweth that the same is true.  
Wherefore compare, or examine all learning with the testimony of the spirit. For if thou art a believer, God dwelleth in thee, and thou art sealed with his word and Spirit, but if thou dost not believe, this examination nothing belongeth unto thee; For it is spoken to the believing Thessalonians, try the Spirits.  
If in a wicked man the spirit were to be compared with his heart and with the letters, he could never rightly judge how he doth understand them, because he taketh that to be the word of God whatsoever pleaseth his wicked and perverse heart and eyes.  
On the contrary, it is commanded to the Saints, that they try and prove all Spirits and Doctrines by the word of God, which divinely taught, they have approved in their souls; not to the wicked who are unfit to every good work, and whose judgement God doth not approve off.  
But if they say, they are to be brought to the touchstone of the word the holy Scriptures. I willingly grant the same, so that you understand that of the mind of the Scriptures, which is the only word of God; which also only those who are of God do understand, but if the Doctrine and Spirit be compared with the Letter of the Scriptures, it will be compared diversely, every one according to his own understanding, in which they are deceived; neither is this the true trial, as more clear than Light we may see it; Since all desire the Letter to be this judge, and think them of themselves to be the same.  
Therefore that which hath not the examination I speak off, which I but now spoke off, is as easily confuted as it is admitted, as Gregory saith.  
Here are cashiered all the arts, explanations, orations, and comments of men, which are boughs and fruits of the forbidden Tree, in the Paradise of this World, from which as yet all men do eat death, and yet nevertheless with Adam and Eva think themselves to eat life, and hope to be Gods. Therefore all men's arts are no other than a plant of the devil, who thinketh by this means to change men into Gods, & from hence promiseth life & immortality, when nevertheless death is before their eyes, so soon as they have eaten of this fruit.  
Now that Sentence standeth firm: Every plant that my Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be cut down.  
Therefore all those Arts must again in their original be brought to nothing.  
That i confess is the only Scope of the holy scriptures, which is the word of God, known of them who are of God; But that the literal and grammatical sense is, this I do not think, which wicked men do understand, and also follow, and yet by Christ are denied to understand the Scriptures, but as they expound themselves in the Godly, out of the Doctrine of the Holy Ghost; And this meaning cannot be comprehended in open Commentaries and rules, but the Holy Ghost will have this book & mystery reserved to himself, neither will he have it imprinted but will show, teach, & open to all, according to the measure of every man's faith, as much as is necessary, neither will he have it so committed, that one may teach another, and so encroach upon the privilege of God, but will teach it himself, that all and every one of us may be divinely taught, and may glory that we have learned the Word of God from God, and not from men, with pleasant docility, yet so as men ought, and every one may one to another give that testimony which he hath learned from God.  
So it cometh to pass, that with Christ and his Apostles we are witnesses of the Word, not Ministers of the Spirit; For who hath commanded the Wind but only the Master of the wind.  
To this belongs that which Job, Jeremy, and Esayas say, that we shall all be taught of God, so as it shall not be necessary for us to be taught of any other, but that so its true as the holy unction shall teach us.  
And whereas God is only true, and all men are liars, it cannot be but it must be a lie and error whatsoever cometh not from God; and that cannot come from God which all wicked know and understand. Since they are not of God, but are separated from him by the partition wall of sin.  
Now what cometh not from God is sin, and not good; and what shineth not from his Light, is altogether darkness, although it seem to be Light and wisdom, as Esay upbraideth the Caldean Philosophers, their own wit hath deceived them, and they were wearied with the multitude of their own inventions, &c.  
God speaketh this against all arts, except the art of God, formed in us by his word; which exhibits unto us nothing to be meditated upon, and viewed in the Light but only God, to know and understand God, because that word is verily God, without any distinction of nature; there as God cannot be defined, described, or divided; but if we speak properly, God is all in all things, and yet nothing of all these things which can be felt, conceived, or comprehended by sense, reason, or understanding, spoken, written, or heard; so is the Word of God infinite, infallible, incomprehensible, eternal, by itself existing, and far exceeding all the writings and words of men, because it, as God cannot properly be written, read, or spoken. Since it is God, and was before writing or man was, and shall be when man is deceased & writing are ceased.  
Therefore all things are subject unto vanity; For which cause the nature of all things are called vain and vast, by reason of the accident of vanity, although in itself it be good; only the word of God, which in itself is perpetual and semperternall, can neither be written in Letters, nor expressed in word, endureth for ever.  
Hence it comes to pass, that whatsoever is spoken or written of it, as that which is not of God himself, remains but as a shadow, a figure, and testimony thereof, and is not properly God and his word.  
Now no man can speak or utter this word, therefore it is necessary that it speak itself, in an obedient and willing heart; and for this cause it is required of every man, that he submit himself under the potent hand of God, void of his own will, free and clear from his own heart, and subordinate to the will of God, that God or his word may speak, teach, seek, love, find, acknowledge, beseech, hear, praise, honour, fear, and adore itself.  
This alone is the art of God, which he himself doth teach in us, without this all other arts are nothing; For besides this to know all things, is to be ignorant of all things. All arts without this art is vanity, which yet is better conceived in heart than it can be uttered in word; yea it cannot be expressed or declared in word, therefore no man can teach the same to an other, but it is to be taught and manifested by God, to the teaching of which whosoever are sent, they are not Doctors or Masters, but only witnesses of that word, which by the virtue of God is before in our hearts.  
Therefore it hath many names, which oftentimes are used one for an other; so that as sometimes the Father, sometime the son, and sometimes the Holy Ghost is called the fountain of Life or Truth; So the word of God is sometimes called the Seed of God, sometimes his soul, sometimes his soonn, sometime his arm, sometimes his hand, sometime his right hand, sometime his Law, sometime his will, sometime his image, sometime his inspiration.  
And hither may be referred all the names which the Scriptures give to the Father, son, and holy Ghost, and the word of God, which are all one, and referred unto one, serve to the signification of the same thing.  
And this Word which in the New Covenant is called Christ, is the essence of all things which are, and all things are created by it, and also are preserved, nourished, and sustained by it, and in it.  
So that all things have their being rather in the Word then in themselves.  
And if God should withdraw this word to himself, as was the estate of them before the beginning of the world, while yet the world was not made of him, so should all things necessarily in the same moment be turned to nothing again.  
Therefore doth God even to this day preach this word unto us, and yet it is ineffable, as Taulerus saith, though in him all things have their essence and being in & from God.  
Wherefore to commit and consecrate a man's self to this living word of God, is the only life eternal; and that true one art and part of Mary which cannot be taken from her; all other arts are vain and must perish with the inventors and professors, only to know God, & obey his word, which the Scriptures calls to eat Christ, to believe in him, to put on the new man, to adhere unto God, to be born a new, to live to the spirit, to hear and receive the word of God, to be baptised, to be engrafted into Christ, to receive Christ, and many other terms: is not only of itself immortal, but preserveth all from death, who are endued with the same. No man can consume this bread, but it preserves him the eater thereof, from eternal death, and hunger unto eternal life.  
This treasure can no thief take away, no rust or moth corrupt. In a word, this eternal word is to a Christian all things▪ in adversity a Sword & Weapon against all dangers, meat to him that starves, clothing to the cold, for want of divine grace, and a sure sanctuary to every fugitive.  
But he that knoweth all things, and is ignorant of this, knoweth nothing; even as he who knoweth and hath all things, and wanteth God, possesseth nothing; and if it could be, that any man could know all arts, which all men at any time have known and understood; if he were a Pandora, or a Hippias, knowing all things, yet were he not therefore any whit better in the sight of God; yea i dare say, he should be so much the worse, by how much he had glutted himself of the tree of knowledge & eaten death; for the more poison is received, the speedier will the destruction be.  
And even as this was the fall & death of Adam, viz. to become a god, & to arrogate to be something in himself, & to know, i will not say to be ignorant of nothing. That fall cannot be forgiven, or repaired, unless thou vomit up all that diabolical art and curious knowledge; and besides eat of the Tree of Life, which shall work in thee an utter forgetfulness of all those arts, and make thee a child, a fool, and reduce thee to innocency under God, that at length thou mayst know that which God would know in thee; so he himself should teach and suggest in thee by his word, according as it is said; otherwise all things are unprofitable, yea though a man know all things, they are not only unprofitable, but also a hindrance to this art of God. He that is ignorant of this, in vain hath he learned & known all things else besides.  
In the word of God alone, which proceedeth out of the mouth of god, is seated the rule of all things, the Scope, Doctrine, art, life, and truth, teaching what is to be done, what not to be done, what to be spoken, what not to be spoken, whether to enter, from whence to depart and come out.  
All other arts they be variable whatsoever they be to time, fortune, vanity, death, and oblivion; and not only these arts, but also the Letters, books, forms, masters, tongues, which we use, do perish, and others after them, which succeed in their places, so that nothing is constant & of long continuance in the earth, but all things according to their visible nature, are frail, mutable, and momentary. How often are the tongues themselves changed; how often the forms being removed, do new succeed in their place▪ (as I have said before) Orthography is not ever like itself, and the same with all people in all times; yea the true pronunciation of the Latin tongue (as Cornelius Agrippa in his book, called De vanitate scientiarum, formerly alleged by us) is perished, and nowhere extant. Moreover, the ancient Letters of the Hebrews are gone, so that there is no memory left thereof, but only those which Esdras in their place invented.  
Add moreover, that the tongue is made very lame by the Chaldeans, which also hath been incident to perish of other tongues; So that no man there is who can find out their ancient form and dialects; Besides this new words do always creep in the old word, being grown out of use. And again, the old words are received, the new being thrust out; so far forth, that nothing is durable or constant in this life. And if any man would observe, he shall find that our mother Tongue in England is daily changed: that at this day they speak otherwise then they did a few years since; yea and such a curiosity & nicenesses there is in the word and tongues, that what men have a while made use off, suddenly they cast away, as disdaining the same; Every man endeavouring to bring out some new and rare thing, that he seem not to imitate the words of any other: insomuch that the chief inventor of words do now obtain the chief praise and estimation of Art. And by this means all things are confounded in the earth; and what now is new, is presently grown old, and anon become new again; and the hearts of men, the kingdoms, peoples, and Languages of the World, like to the course of the year.  
In times past France spoke the Dutch language (as Beatus Rhenamis writing of the German affairs, most elegantly proves) but now it hath gathered a proper speech to itself out of Italy, German, & Spain, but most specially from Italy; which thing of the tongue was caused, perhaps by their war, because divers people being mixed together, they made and used a mixed kind of Speech.  
Hence it came to pass, that as yet they retain some of the german words: as Suppen Sacken kushen, which they almost according to the Nether Germains pronounce, after the bastard German Souper, Sacen, Cuysten.  
This I speak that we may see, that nothing is constant or new in the earth, and that is true which Terence writ: Nothing is spoke now which was not spoke before; So nothing is done which was not done before. So that Cornelius Agrippa thinks the invention of Gunpowder, and ●uns was no new invention; of which opinion in the Historian Volatiramis; and this may be gathered out of the sixt of Virgil's Eneads, where thus he writes of Salmon:  
I Salmon saw with pain & torment late Who would loves flame & thunder imitate, For carried by four steeds, with torch in hand Through Elis city & all Grecian Land Did ride in triumph, and command that all Sh●uld give him honour and a deity call; O mad man, he who with his chariot's noise Would imitate the mighty thunder's voice,  
And Solomon shows the same all along in the 3. chapt. of Eccles. as also to the first: that what hath been that shall be, what hath been done, the same shall be done, neither is there any thing new under the sun.  
There is something which is as if it were new, yet was that in ancient times which hath been before us. There is no memory of former ages, neither shall there be of those that are to come; amongst who are to be; and a little after things past, and things to come, are all forgotten, and the wise together with the fool do die. In which words what other thing would the preacher show then that all arts are subject to oblivion and death; Neither can they always remain in the soul, but together with the body departs or perisheth by death. For nothing (I say) can adhere unto the Image of God, (I mean the soul which is like unto God) and consist in death and fire; but what is only God and his word, this is the only endure able creature, and the meat of eternal Life: Not that opinion and Art of Philosophers, but the true good of the mind and soul, which can happen to no other thing but the word; although I do not deny but that word appeared to some of the gentiles, and taught them; because God is no respector of Persons, but as a common Light of souls, as the sun is the Light of the whole world; neither is the hand of God shortened, nor his eye envious, that he should not look upon the whole world. With the same love, eye, and grace since we are all alike the same workmanshipp of God, all of the same love, estimation, and authority with him.  
Hence thou mayst collect, that all arts (invented by men) are death, and fruits of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and evil. For as soon as Adam had eaten of that Tree, the same day he died in the eyes of God; as the history declares; although afterwards according to the flesh he lived many years; as from heavenly matters the same day was his eyes shut up, and he eat death, although in his own judgement his eyes were opened, and he seemed to himself to be a living God, knowing Good and evil: Then began he to exercise his art, his cunning to expound, dispute and seek out a malicious subtle and captious meaning in all things, and also to deal deceitfully with God, and in all things to hide himself, to cover himself with fig leaves, to kiss his own hand; in a word, to worship himself, by inventing many arts amongst his posterity.  
And out of this root spring up all the precepts of men, their expositions, their arts; and so excellent a foundation have they, as both the inventor and the author of them was the devil; and the first scholar that learned them, did eat death therefrom.  
And this Science and Art is utterly to be abhorred, being no other than a diabolical persuasion, conceived in Adam, formed and hid in the seed of the Serpent; And yet all the World, as Adam did, thinks that Life is placed in it; neither doth it receive any instruction from Adam▪ neither indeed understand the history of Adam's fall, or his rising again; and that whole matter at this day doth live yet, accounting it but a history long since acted & done, and afterwards dare say the word of God endureth for ever.  
Therefore we must needs confess that nothing is past which in its kind is not yet extant.  
Whole Moses is urged upon Christians, neither is one jot of the word of God lost, which shall not be fulfilled in every moment in spirit & truth.  
Therefore the fall of Adam happeneth daily; daily doth Adam in his posterity eat of the forbidden fruit; And therefore his sons in Adam, as in the root, are damned & dead.  
Now this our fall as Adam's, is amended and repaired, if we spurt out and vomit up this knowledge of good and evil as poison, and become as Adam was before his fall, Children, fools, and innocent Turttles, that we may eat of the Tree of Life, and suffer the Seed of the woman to be engrafted in us. This is not the seed, the art, wit, and counsel of the Serpent; but the seed, word, will, the mind of God, the Tree of Life, which whosoever eateth, and suffreth himself to be fed therewith, is endowed with eternal Life.  
Now in us there is a Medicine with poison; For as by sin the Tree of knowledge of good and evil was planted into the heart of Adam, so by his conversion, rising again, and seed of the Woman, the Tree of Life is planted by the Tree of death in the heart of Adam. From these two Seeds & trees so different, do spring different Fruits, so as one is poison and death, the other is Medicine & Life; and if any man would know that plant, which is called Man, he may easily know what he ought to think of his own art, knowledge, wisdom, and righteousness, how that this pleaseth all men, and is of great respect with them; For what is current with the world but its own coin? What but the wisdom, art, and righteousness of the Flesh, seemeth holy in the sight of men: only the Holy Ghost can reprehend the world of sin, righteousness, and judgement.  
It is wonderful to behold how the world doth daily yet eat death of the forbidden Tree; which tree you may call (as the German theology doth) our own will; and although God do daily cry aloud in them, and moreover provideth by the witnesses whom he sendeth to teach them externally, that they abstain therefrom, or otherwise they shall reap death therefrom, yet none believeth but all follow that Serpent, which secretly in our heart doth speak thus: Not death shall you reap by any means, but if you know many arts, you shall be like unto God, and live for ever; (this the whole history of the Bible remains in force at this day;) & from hence ariseth a certain art and curiosity, enquiring & searching out; Neither will any submit himself docibly and simply unto God, and obey his word.  
But every man will be his own, yea God's Master too, and teach both himself and God, bring him into the school, and there prescribe unto him, with whom, where, what, wherefore he shall do, speak, permit, or omit.  
Hence it cometh to pass that wisdom is justified always of her Children; and those men skilled in a thousand arts, and above measure crafty, God cannot satisfy, neither can he obtain his kingdom, or get any love or right at their hands. Since they will be altogether Gods, and kiss their own hands, will, wisdom, prudence, and reason.  
The art of the devil, which is sucked out of the Duggs of the Serpent, hereupon we compose many books, desiring to teach the whole world, not knowing how to teach ourselves.  
From hence it comes that the proud devil, alas! is buried deep in Learned men, whom their deadly knowledge doth so dangerously puff up, that they think themselves worthy all honour, both from God and men, and oftentimes if not in word, yet indeed they make their estate as Lucifer and Adam did.  
No man understandeth how we daily become Lucifers and Adam's, but think that to be the relation of a thing long since done in Adam, and condemn his wicked pride and fall, when nevertheless we all stick fast over head and ears in the same, and yet deride others who in this kind are foolish.  
Divines preach much the word and his precepts, but when they are to be kept, indeed they are wanting in this; yea what themselves do sometimes teach they will not suffer others to practise, but contented merely in the bare words, so making the word of God nothing but a mere Art, a matter of talk and disputation, & had rather be called knowers and fearers of God, than lovers of him, that not in vain is the proverb, which is verified by experience, teaching and confirming the same: The greater scholar the worser Christian.  
The grammarian is careful that he err not in his speaking, but little regardeth the error of his life.  
In like manner the Poets had rather be lame in their lives then halting in their Verses. Philosopher's would know all things, but not themselves. The Historian describeth all peoples, but neglecteth himself. The Orator is more solicitous that he speak not rudely, then that he believe not, or live wickedly. The logician will sooner forsake the truth, then leave his opinion and conclusion. They that have any thing to do with geometry, do sooner measure the Earth than their ways. The Musician taketh more care that his Song be not dissonant then that his carriage be consonant. Astrologers travel over the whole Heavens, and foretell things to come, but see not the ditch under their feet.  
The Cosmographer relates of all mountains, valleys, Woods, and Rivers, but that makes him not one hair better in the sight of God. The physician healeth sick men's bodies, but neglecteth the healing of his own soul. Lawyers are alone expert in the precepts of men, but negligently violate the laws of God, so as the proverb from hence hath risen. Neither doth the physician live, nor the civilian die well, because physicians of all men are most intemperate, and Civillians the worst Christians; and for that cause (as Baldus being an expounder of the Law himself doth say) the most part of them are taken away by sudden death.  
Other Arts-men i will not here mention, but refer you to Cornelius Agrippa, chap. 100  
So the devil doth compass us about with the rope of folly; insomuch that sometime with one question, sometime with another art, we be so amazed; in the mean time we neglect the only science of God, in which all things consist, even as the adulteress Medea▪ when her husband Jason pursued her, cut her Children in pieces, & dispersed their members in the way, that Jason might be busied in the gathering of them up, while she escaped out of the country.  
Alas, shall death, sin, and the devil thus please us? shall we always thus seek God in hell with the devil? Light with darkness? The living among the dead?  
One thing is necessary, and this no man will desire; many things are unprofitable and unhealthful, yea deadly; yet these are greedily desired off, and devoured by all men.  
In the word of God alone, and no other thing, are all things placed, neither therefore will it profit thee to have all things, to know, will, speak, surpass in measure, dispute off, number, paint, adorn, judge, teach all things, &c. To know all things, is nothing else then to know the arts of the devil, eaten by his counsel of the forbidden tree; only to know the word and will of God, and to live according unto it; to be fruitful in good works, is the true art and eternal Life, eaten of the tree of Life; in vain, it is to know all things, yea rather it is bitter death, as hath been sufficiently spoken off before.  
Since therefore all the arts, wit, and righteousness of men, springeth from the tree of knowledge of good & evil, or rather from the devil; and therefore is the fall and death of Adam; it necessarily followeth, that the more any man is learned therein, and experienced▪ the higher he hath ascended, the worse and more perverse he is; as he who hath made the greatest proficiency in the wisdom and knowledge of the devil.  
And again, the more foolish a man is in this art, and in the wisdom of the flesh and the Serpent, and the more be hath unlearned, forgotten, and emptied himself thereof, the more righteous he is, and wise before God: For we must altogether forget and unlearn this fleshly art, this curious sagacity, this Devilish righteousness; And in steed thereof must learn the only new, contrary, and divine art, wisdom, and righteousness, by the eternal word, by the Seed of the woman of the Tree of Life, of which whosoever eateth, shall have eternal Life. For this cause the Scriptures do so vehemently urge new birth, childishness, foolishness, hate of a man's Life, deny all of himself; which would not be, if there were any thing that is good or acceptable to God in man before.  
No man thinks of this, but all men being puffed up with their own arts, wit, righteousness, goodness, &c. being secure and without conscience or Religion, and yet do eat death of this forbidden tree, that is of their own will, wit, reason, knowledge, goodness, and art, by that Seed of the serpent, implanted in them. But God doth exact nothing but the knowledge of himself, and that we would be obedient to his word, and submit ourselves to be taught by him, which the Scriptures do sometimes call faith, which bringeth us unto God, begets us anew, and regenerates us, that thence do flow the waters of Life, the fruits of the spirit, love, peace, joy, a guiltless mind, and all other good things, which the Scriptures do sometimes call faith, which bringeth us unto God, begets us a new, and regenerates us, that than do flow the waters of Life, the Fruits of the Spirit, love, peace, joy, a guiltless mind, and all other good things, which the Spirit of God effecteth and poureth into us.  
Therefore theology is the true magic, the worship, & science of God, which God doth equally exact from us all. And this is the same which God doth exact, teach, and effect by his Word in them, who offer and submit themselves to that his word and clemency to be taught.  
Therefore doth he so frequently and often admonish us, that he might make it known, that in him alone is Life and all other things to be found, and that he threatneth and inflicteth great punishment on them that despise him, as many places of the Scriptures do witness, though the word of God is not tied or bound unto them, as we will prove anon; yet they give good direction and testimony to the mind, if any man can have the same & use it aright; and yet do much more, abuse the Scriptures then rightly use them. Nevertheless they are not to be forsaken any more than a man's wife, Children, meat, drink, &c. all which may be abused, but yet we must learn to use them rightly.   

CHAP. XIII. Of the majesty, of the free, constant and eternal Word of God, how it can be bound to nothing, included in nothing, nor buried in the Letter; and also the difference betwixt the internal and the external Word.  
THE word of God is as God, infinite, invisible, ineffiable, a Spirit and Life, which no mortal man can speak, see, or hear, but as far as is lawful to speak of it after the manner of men, and by similitude.  
The word of God is nothing else than the glistering, the essence, the Image, the form and splendour, as well imprinted like a seal into all Creatures, as more specially into the hearts of the faithful, which in all things is the cause of their being, in all believers teacheth, in all wicked men reproveth, exhorteth, and contendeth and reprehendeth the world of sin, and which in the beginning did enlighten & inform the hearts of Adam, Abel, Noah, Loathe, Abraham, Job, Mercury, Termigestus, Plotimus, Cornelius, and all other upright-hearted gentiles.  
For though God giveth being, in, above, below, without, and beyond all Creatures, and is the essence of all things that be; yet in nothing is he so clearly to be seen as in Man, whom therefore he created after his own image, and perfected in Christ.  
Therefore as brightness doth so proceed from the Light of the sun, as yet it is not separated from the sun, but for all that remains in the sun, though it fill the whole world, and enlighten the same; So is the son in like manner whole in the Father, and in all the Creatures, as the Light is in the sun and in the whole World:  
Therefore it is called the brightness of his majesty, and the image or figure of his divine essence; Of the same nature, substance, and essence with God; So as nothing can be spoken of the Father, which may not also be verified of the word: God is nowhere and everywhere, in all places, in all things, and yet incomprehensible above and beyond all things; Limited to nothing, so far forth that the heavens and earth are not able to contain him, nor all the Creatures. So is the word.  
Even as the Light of the sun hath an original, from whence it proceedeth, and a force & action into which it tendeth, which original is the sun itself, and which external active force is the heating or enlightening of the whole world, or as the word of every man hath original force and spirit, which original is man, whose expression and image the word is, and of the same essence with him.  
And thirdly, it hath an active force or spirit, which qualifieth this word, and makes it either cheerful, or angry, or sorrowful or displeased. So the original of this divine word is the Father, or the action, or active force, or virtue of it is called the Holy Ghost.  
As therefore the sun, is light, and that active force of that Light, is the same; and as man his word, and the active force of that word, is the same; So the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, are one God. Wherefore nothing that appertains to their essence can be spoken of one, which cannot also be verified of all, that is all three; and as they are of the same essence, so of the same condition, disposition, and nature.  
As therefore God is in nothing, and yet in all things; so also is his almighty word, which is the same: as God is so in all things, yet that he can be included in nothing, and so above all Creatures, as the Earth, Heaven, or any other Creature is not able to conceive or circumscribe him. And so in all Creatures, as nothing is without him, or rather nothing there is that is not full of him. So is also his Word.  
As God can neither be spoken or written, nor any man is able to declare what God is, but all things which are said of him, are but Images & shadows. I will not say as Taulerus and Dr. Eickarius say, seeing if we speak truly and properly, the whole nature of God is far otherwise then man doth or is able to speak of him.  
Lastly, as God is a thing opposite, and contrary to human cogitation, and far otherwise than he is conceived to be in the thoughts of man; So also is the divine word of God.  
As there is nothing so little in which there is not God; and again, nothing so great that can receive or circumscribe God. As nothing is so little but God is less, and nothing so great but God is greater, beyond, without, below, & above all Creatures; So also is his divine word.  
As the free, almighty, eternal, immutable, omniscient, incomprehensible, invisible, and unconceivable God is the being of all things; So as as all things consist rather in him then in, and by themselves (as Taulerus and the german theology in a 1000 places do avouch) and is none of these things which can be seen or comprehended by sense or expressed by word; So his divine word is free in all, and beyond all, bound unto nothing, neither tied to the prison, or letters, or cover of the Letter, concluded, included, and so tied unto it, that otherwise it is nowhere; even as the following Position and Sentence of a Learned man divinely instructed do show.  
As the word is covered and hidden by the Letter, so it is opened and revealed by the spirit.  
Hence it cometh to pass that the Letters be as a closed or sealed book; so as the dark Letter, except it be opened, doth slay; but the Spirit doth quicken, and the Letters are as a certain Image, void of Life and Spirit: that is a printed and dead expression of the Spirit; therefore they want Life, (except the soul of the spirit be present) and do err.  
Therefore the Letters cannot be the word of God. Since the word is far otherwise an other thing than the letters; For it is a spirit, truth, & life; but the letters are contrary: flesh the letter & death; yea the letters if they want the Light of the word, are an offence; & if they want the soul of the spirit, are a stumbling block.  
Therefore the Letters are an otherwise thing then the word; that is, they are not the Sword of the Spirit, but a sheath; For as the womb of the virgin conceived the word, so the Letters.  
For the word is clothed both with flesh & with the Letters, that seed of Abrahem layeth hold of the Scriptures or Letters, (for they are both one,) and again is apprehended by them; but the spirit is not apprehended in the flesh or Letter of the Scriptures.  
The cause thereof is this: the flesh or Letter cannot contain, conceive, or comprehend the majesty of the word; yet even as it was so in the flesh, that the majesty thereof did not appear; so it is in the Letter, that true neither to all, or to any one that reads, is it obvious and apparent.  
This is witnessed by all Learned men in the mere Letter, since the world began, who neither could know, find, or comprehend Christ in the flesh, nor the word in the Letter; which they should have done, if Christ in the flesh, or under the misery of the flesh had been known unto all, not hidden but manifested; and the Letter had been not the covering mystery, but the true living and enlightening word of God itself.  
As therefore the flesh was not the word, but the cover thereof, and a certain great mystery; So the Letters are not the word properly, but the shell, the bark and cover thereof.  
The word was made fleshly assumption, not mixture, and so the same word is made Letters, yet not so as the same can be said of the Letters, as of the word, but as in a certain seal.  
Therefore so far are the Letters from being the word of God, that they only be the figure and bark thereof.  
For the word is not that which is spoken by the Letter, but that which is expounded by the Holy Ghost, and understood only of the faithful.  
Therefore the Letters do paint out, & shadow out; and after a certain manner set forth unto us the word, and express something, but are not the word, although they be spoken and expressed.  
For the word did not assume the flesh that it is not out of the flesh. So it did not so fall into the Letter, that it is not out of the Letter; For there was the word when there was no Letters; and the same will remain after the Letters are perished.  
Therefore as the word was never included and circumscribed in the flesh, neither is it in the Letters.  
For so it was in the body, as it never yet left heaven, and in the same manner it is so in the Letter as yet it is everywhere.  
Therefore the word is in the Letter altogether, but not all. Hereupon we see that the letters have been exercised with a continual increase and addition.  
Therefore the Letters are the Image of the word, and not the word itself; And if they be, they are altogether a written, and a dead, & not a living word; For there is a twofold word, one that quickeneth, viz. the Spirit, another the Letter, which is said to kill and slay.  
The living word is that which inwardly teacheth, and maketh us to fructify; the dead word is that which in the Flesh and Letter is proposed unto us.  
The living word is a true Light, which enlighteneth all men, and therefore a regenerating spirit, because it reneweth all things. In a word, it is the power and might of God, which giveth unto us that knowledge, sense, soul, and Life, which is from God. A certain brightness of the face of God, which enlighteneth us from above, & imprints in us the unction of the Holy Ghost, by which it teacheth and instructeth us in all things; But the dead word are the Letters, that sealed book, and dead Letter, sense, and will, which is the word of the flesh, not of the Spirit of God.  
The true and living word is that which God begetteth in us, and the spirit of God effecteth in us; But the dead and literal word is that which the Letters show unto us and men propound.  
Therefore he doth not always want the word who hath not the Letters: For he may have the interior who wants the exterior word, to wit, the Law of God written in our hearts.  
Hence it comes to pass, that no man hath absolute need to be taught of an other, or to admonish his brother concerning the knowledge of God.  
For all these shall know, from the least to the greatest, and are all the Disciples of Christ divinely taught.  
This writing is not printed with ink and paper, but written with the finger of God in the tables of our hearts.  
This is the Doctrine of the truth, and the inspiration of the Spirit, to wit, the prophetical breathing, the inspiration of the Spirit, and the true art of God.  
Moreover, he may have the living word of God who wants the dead of the Letter; and the thing itself who wants the sign, that is the Life of the word, though he wants the dead Letter; For two things are chiefly to be considered in the word.  
The first is the disposition and nature of the word, which is a certain Light intended for the enlightening of men.  
The other is the action of it, that is the spirit, which giveth action and operation to the word. For the word hath not only a knowledge, but also a certain action, it is not only a Light and splendour in us given from above but also Life.  
The interior word containeth both of these which sometimes is called the kingdom of God, sometimes the Spirit, sometimes Christ dwelling in us. For it is not only a Light, way, and guide, but also Spirit, truth, and Life; that is, which not only teacheth man that he may understand, but also moves him that he works.  
But the exterior word is far from this privilege, and hath far a different nature; For it is nothing else but a certain form & figure of the interior, i will not say a shadow. Therefore the interior words, as it is the only lively, so it is the only true word, as being the truth and life.  
But on the contrary the exterior is nothing but a killing Letter, and a deceitful figure of the word.  
Hence it ariseth, the Letter, (as Christ) becomes a certain snare to wicked men, a stone of offence, darkness, not Light, death, and not Life.  
Therefore it is necessary, that beside the exterior word, the interior be sought after and known: Since the exterior deceiveth a man with its shape, is death and darkness, unless the Light & Life of the spirit be together present with it.  
Moreover, the exterior suffereth a man to be sluggously and idle, except the power of the interior be present with it. Therefore the interior word may be without the exterior, as the exterior without the interior.  
Therefore it doth not necessarily follow that a man hath the word of God, because he pretends and hath the letter; as on the other side it followeth not, that he who wanteth the exterior word or letter, wanteth also the interior, true, and heavenly word, which is God himself. For he doth not always want the word who hath not the Letter; For the Letters doth only give a testimony of the word, so far are they from being the word itself; yea they are scarce the Image of the living word; Much less are they it, which neither can be written nor expressed by words both which is incident to the Letters.  
Therefore the Letters are far from being the word of God, yea all the word, though sometimes they be called the word of God; as the image and picture of a man is called sometimes by his name, even as God is sometimes called man, & the word flesh: not that God is man, or the word or spirit is made flesh, by imitation, appellattion, and permixion; So as what is said of one, may be verified of the other, or so as God cease to be God, and to be truly changed into man, as that water in Cana Galilee was changed into wine.  
Or so as the word is so flesh, as not now it is not the spirit, or the word but flesh, in no wise.  
The word is not so in the Letter, that they be one and the self same thing, or so as the word should have changed itself into the Letter; and yet well and rightly the Letters are called the Word of God; so as God is called Man, and the Word flesh; although to speak properly, neither is the word of God changed into Letters, nor God into Man, nor the word into flesh.  
Therefore both these may be true, the Letters are the word of God, and the Letters are not the word of God.  
Now although the Letters are sometimes in some respect the word of God, yet truly are they not the sole, nor altogether, nor all the Word of God; yea if we speak properly, they are not the word of God, which either can be spoken or written; and that the Letters are not the sole word of God, may be made known by this: That many things besides the Scriptures are revealed & inspired unto many, and many things are spoken and written by them which are not contained openly in the letters, yea which sometimes are contrary to the dead Letters.  
The Prophets, & Moses, & Christ, and his apostles, whose words seem to be contrary to the Prophets, what they have written of the Temple, the Sacrifice, Circumcision, and of the vision of God.  
Moreover, the true word of God hath been from all eternity; yea even before any scripture was, (as I have said before) & it will be hereafter when the scriptures are perished. Therefore the word is improperly in the Letter and flesh, and therefore it is improperly called flesh or the Letter; For my word (saith Christ) is Spirit and Life.  
Therefore the word cannot be that word which is flesh or dead letter; wherefore though the word truly and indeed is only in spirit, as in which it only liveth, yet it is also in the flesh, but yet weak if there it be alone without the Spirit and Life.  
It is also in the Letter, but altogether dead, unless the Spirit do quicken it, as the soul doth the body; and it is in both, and yet not truly, and if truly, yet not all, and only, and lively.  
Now, although the word is in the Spirit lively and true, yet after a more peculiar & excellent manner it is in the flesh then in the Letter, although the Spirit be present with the Letter, and lend a hand, it teacheth nothing, but when the spirit dwelleth with the flesh, it not only teacheth, but also maketh alive, and bursteth out into works.  
So the letter of the Law brings men to no perfection, although it be the word of God, as also the Scriptures spoken by the mouth of God, and written by his finger; For the word of the Law did teach the knowledge of the precept, but did not give man a will and strength to fulfil the same, but the word which is made flesh giveth life to believers.  
Hence it cometh to pass, that the flesh inspired with the word and spirit of God, wills and doth keep the commandment of God.  
Therefore the word in the flesh doth only give an Example of life, when on the contrary it leaveth in the letter all things idle and sleepy.  
But in the Spirit it truly stirs up the heart and affections towards the Law, for the Spirit is the life and soul of the word, and therefore the word itself; but the flesh is a certain imitation of the word, the letters a certain printed picture and copy of the word. Wherefore the written word is not the true word, but a certain image thereof; yea the Scriptures pronounced in words are not the true word of God, but only a testimony thereof: For the Scriptures had beginning in time by occasion, but the word was from all eternity. Add to which the Scriptures do lead men into error, except the interpreter, viz. the Spirit be present.  
And they are a sealed book, and a perplexed labyrinth, unless the Spirit be present, as the Treede of Theseus', to guide us, and as the Key of David to open unto us.  
Hence it comes to pass, that many men seeing see not, and hearing hear not, and as who know the Scriptures, and yet neither know nor understand.  
Therefore we confess that the letters are a certain image and figure of the word, yet they are not truly the very word, because they are but only an image & figure thereof.  
This is the reason wherefore we admit no other word but what is answerable to this Image or Example of the Scriptures, and to the true and spiritual sense.  
Therefore the Scriptures are as the Index or golden Scales of the word, so they be understood not according to the dead letter, but according to the mind of Christ and will of the Spirit.  
Therefore we reject not what is agreeable to the true meaning of the Scriptures, so we do not deny what is not contrary unto them; For whosoever is not against us is of us.  
Therefore we deny not the exterior word, written or spoken, so do we confirm the interior or living, so it is we grant the mastery and unction of the Spirit, and do not deny the gift of prophecy and interpretation of the Scriptures.  
For the word hath something to come and something obscure & difficult to the flesh. That which is to come, the Spirit taketh it of the word, and declareth it unto us, that which is obscure & hard to be understood, it daily teacheth unto us, and leadeth us into all truth. Therefore under the name of the word of God, the Letters are not only understood, but all prophecies, visions, dreams, unctions, inward speakings, doctrines of the Spirit & revelations if they be from God; also whatsoever holy men by the instinct of the spirit have either spoken or done.  
Therefore no man must adhere peremptorily to the only letter; where the Holy Ghost is, there is liberty, and the free word is bound to none. Moreover, the Holy Ghost suffereth no rule or limit to be prefixed to it in its own; therefore to nothing it is tied but to itself, that is, be not contrary and disagreeing to itself, as therefore many things come and are spoken from God; all which (nay not the thousand part) are written in the scriptures; So many things at this day happen & are spoken by God, which are not written; And yet nevertheless they are the word of God, and wrought by him.  
Add to which that many things there are not written, nor expressed in words, which we yet receive for the word of God, and only by hand as it were, have received them from our Forefathers, of which kind are the abrogation of the precepts of the first counsel, renewed after by the Holy Ghost to the Church; So as the Church was freed from the same; Of which things we notwithstanding have no written or express word.  
Christ himself taught all in word, and writ nothing, and commanded his Apostles to preach, not to write.  
And the Church is begotten rather by word then by writing.  
Moreover, the Doctors & preachers of the new Covenant were called and indeed are the Ministers of the Spirit, not of the Letter.  
By all these it is manifest, that the free and swift Spirit is not tied unto letters, nor the Doctrine of the Spirit can be included into the jail, prison and corner of the Scriptures.  
Therefore although there be many books of the Law, something sometimes may change to come in handling of which there is no express Canon or Law to be found, but it is to be excogitated and ruled by reason.  
So oftentimes such a rare thing happeneth, the letters do universal forsake a man, that they cannot teach, comfort, guide, or appease him; but a man must necessarily repair unto God, and consult with the peculiar word of the Spirit by prayer, to comfort and strengthen his weakened conscience; For it is not sufficient to have the common call and word, except a man have special, proper, and inward call, which yet is not contrary unto the common.  
And although the word of God is altogether one, and undivided, yet how much thereof a man hath received by faith, so much of it is his; and this is his word; His issue the Word of God is, as God himself, must be made every one's by faith.  
No otherwise than whereas the Light of the sun is common; yet as much as every one is enlightened thereby, so much is the sun his, and no more; So as much as every one hath of God and his word, so far is he his God, and so far hath he God and his word, which are common to all, peculiar to himself.  
Therefore the letters are far weaker than to satisfy a troubled conscience in the offences thereof, and to make quiet again; the lively word of God must do this, and this honour hath God reserved only to himself, neither will he permit it to the letters, or any Creatures whatsoever. Moreover, the Holy Ghost will not be bound or captivated in those that are his, nor be subject to the mastery of any one, nor suffer that it should be taught by any writing or mouth of man, but will itself be the light, the Doctor, master, captain, and in a word all in all things.  
Moreover, he who useth the Scriptures for a testimony of that work & spirit, so he do it according to the mind of Christ; not interpreting them according to the interpretation of the Scribes and Puarisees, doth only use the Scriptures aright, according to the will of God, according as he ought; all others are mere abuses, and the worship of images, as the whole world busies itself in the Scriptures, and esteem them to be their Apollo, as if the Holy Ghost & God were no longer to be consulted with, concerning any affairs, but only the letters.  
In a word, here they inquire and have all things; here with the Pharisees they think to have life; neither will they grow by an others man's harm, nor will they see how blind, impious, ignorant, and dead they ever have been in all ages, in divine things, and in the word of God, who have been the most Learned, and could all the Bible at their finger's ends, having for all that need to hear and learn the truth from Christ; So dark and deadly are the Letters, which they make their Idols.  
Paul calleth the Letters death, but they life; but indeed they are eternal darkness, death, aenigma, allegory, and a sealed book.  
Unless thou have the living word of God unto the Light, and in them rely upon the Holy Ghost; For thy teacher, inspirer, interpreter, guide, and master; and yet many of them dare make the book to be open when as yet they cannot agree in the exposition of it. And from thence do as many Sects and Heresies arise, as Readers and Heads do attempt to read it.  
But know thou, and have it as a thing most true, that they are clean only to the clean, spiritual to the spiritual, the Word of God to them who are of God, and Religiously study them by the direction and guidance of the Holy Ghost, whom they carry always with them, and put as a Light into this, otherwise dark lantern; so as by the the doctrine of the Spirit & direction of it they bring more light unto them; then they receive therfrom; what they receive therefrom is nothing else or no other but a certain testimony of the Spirit of them and all Doctrine.  
The Bereans used the Scriptures as Christ would have them to be used: (Acts 17.) Search the Scriptures, (saith he,) in which ye think ye have eternal life, Ioh. 5. But he thinks otherwise; For it follows, they are they which testify of me, that I am the Life and Word which speaketh unto you, John 8.  
As therefore we grant that the Scriptures are the rule of the word & judge of spiritual things; So in no wise will we remove out of the Church, the word of God, and unction of the Spirit.  
For even as we defend the majesty and authority of the word of God against the dead Letter, so will we maintain the mastery of the Spirit against the executioner of the Letter.  
And so do we grant the fulfilling of the swift and short word, as in the only precept of love all is contained, both the Law and Prophets be comprehended therein, we ingenuously confess.  
Wherefore as we do not take away the word of the Law, but confirm it: So we do think that something is yet daily to be opened in the Church, by the unction of the Doctors thereof; the sign and earnest not of that which is necessary to salvation, but to the gift of prophesying, and the hidden interpretation of the Scriptures.  
Since Christ never forsaketh his Spouse, but is always present with her unto the end, Math. 28. and being ever in the midst of her, doth guide & direct her, 2 Cor. 9  
This is the reason wherefore we do not force or include the majesty of the word of God within the narrow prison of the Letters.  
FINIS.