Epistle 123

Dear Friends,--My love is to you all in the everlasting seed of God, <118> that never changes nor falls, nor gives itself to that which doth change, which is not of this world, but is over it, and was before the world was; in which is the steadfastness, and stayedness, and life eternal. Which reigns over all the airy spirits [Eph 2:2], (and that which doth change,) and remains, and is as the winter fruit,and stands when all the untimely figs [Rev 6:13] are gone. Mark, and the seed is not as the corn that grows upon the house top, that withers [Psa 129:6]; for the leaves that this seed brings forth, never fade [Ezek 47:12] nor fall; for the leaves thereof heal the nations [Rev 22:2] which are wounded. . . .

For the seed, in which the blessing is, is felt, and the life, and the light, and the righteousness, and the truth, that answers the witness of God in all men and women [Col 4:6/1 Jn 5:9], whether they will hear or forbear [Ezek 2:5]. And so, all that are in Adam in the fall, both men and women, and there remaining in the fall, they never are in rest nor peace, but are in travails, wars, strife, fightings; the lusts being the ground of all this [James 4:1]. And whimsies and imaginations, fancies, false visions, false dreams, arrogancy, pride, ambition, swellings, puffed-upness, that brings shame and covers them with shame; which they possess that are in the fall, out of Christ, the second Adam, that never fell.

For in Adam in the fall is all the (inward) foul weather, storms, tempests, winds, strifes, the whole family of it in confusion, being all gone from the spirit and the witness of God in themselves, and the power and the light; in which power, light, and spirit is the fellowship with God and one with another, through which they come out of Adam in the fall, into the second Adam that never fell, the quickener [1 Cor 15:45/1 Pet 2:22], who awakens old Adam's children in the fall out of their sleep of sin, and brings them out of his ways up unto himself, the way, Christ that never fell nor changed, and out of and from his teachers, and priests, and shepherds, &c. that change and fall, to the priest, shepherd, and prophet, that never fell nor ever changed, nor ever will fall or change, nor leave the flock [Zech 11:17] in the cold weather, nor in the winter, nor storms, nor tempests; nor doth the voice of the wolf frighten him from his flock.

For the light, the power, the truth, the righteousness, did it ever leave you in any weather,or in any storms or tempests? And so his sheep know his voice and follow him [John 10:4], who gives them life eternal <119> abundantly; who saith to all that are dead in Adam [1 Cor 5:22], 'I am come,' mark, I am come,'that ye (dead in Adam) might have life [John 10:10].' . . .

G. F.