Three Principles of the Divine Essence Chap. 8-16 - meuser

and the Spirit [must] be dissolved, which here has had such
Lust [or Longing.]
34. But now this Lust [or Longing] must be thus, or else no
good Creature could be, and this World would be a mere Hell
and Wrathfulness. And now seeing the Virgin stands in the
second Principle, so that the Spirit of this World cannot possibly
reach to her, and yet that the Virgin does continually behold
herself [or appear] in the Spirit of this World, to [satisfy]
the Lust and Longing in the Fruit and Growing of every Thing,
therefore m he is so very longing, and seeks the Virgin continually.
He exalts many a Creature in great Skill and cunning
Subtlety, and he brings it into the highest Degree that he can;
and continually supposes that so the Virgin shall again be generated
for him, which he saw in Adam before his Fall; which also
brought Adam to fall, in that m he would dwell in his Virgin, and
with his great Lust so n pressed Adam, that he fell asleep; that
is, he set himself by Force in Adam’s Tincture close to the Virgin,
and would fain have qualified in her, and [mingled] with her,
and so live eternally, whereby the Tincture grew weary, and the
Virgin withdrew.
35. And then Adam fell, and was feeble, which is called Sleep:
This was the o Tree of Temptation, [to try] whether it was possible
1 Corruption.
m The Spirit of the great World.
n See more of this Strife in Chap. 12. v. 39–47.
o Adam’s inward Tree of Temptation.
for Adam to live eternally in the Virgin, and to generate the
Virgin again out of himself, and so generate an angelical
Kingdom.
36. But seeing it could not so be (because of the Spirit of this
World) therefore was the outward Temptation first taken in
Hand by the Tree of the Fruit of this World. And there Adam
became p perfectly a Man of this World, and did eat and drink of
the earthly Essences, and infected [or mingled] himself with the
Spirit of this World, and became that [Spirit’s] own, as we now
see by woeful Experience, how that [Spirit] possesses a Child in
the Mother’s Body in the Incarnation: For he knows not any
where else to seek the Virgin, but in Man, where he first of all
espied her.
37. Therefore he wrestles in many a Man (that is of a strong
Complexion, in whom the Virgin does often behold herself) so
very hard, continually supposing he shall get the Virgin, and that
she shall be generated for him: And the more the Soul resists
him, and draws near to the Heart of God, and pants to yield itself
over thereto (where the amiable Virgin not only freely looks upon
it, but dares even for a long Time even to sit in its Nest, [mgr. in]