HErm. We must now speak of the Soul and Body, O Son; after what manner the Soul is Immortall; and what operation that is, which constitutes the Body, and dissolves it.
2. But in one of these is Death, for it is a conception of a name, which is either an empty word, or else it is wrongly called Death, (〈non-Latin alphabet〉) by the p. 232 taking away the first letter, instead of Immortal (〈non-Latin alphabet〉)
3. For Death is destruction, but there is nothing in the whole World that is destroyed.
4. For if the World be a second God, and an Immortall living Wight, it is impossible that any part of an Immortall living Wight should die.
5. But all things that are in the World, are members of the World; especially Man, the reasonable living Wight.
6. For the first of all is God, the Eternall, and Unmade, and the Workman of all things.
7. The second is the World, made by him, after his own Image, and by him holden together, and nourished, and immortalized; and as from its own Father, ever living.
8. So that as Immortall, it p. 233 is ever living, and ever immortall.
9. For that which is ever living, differs from that which is eternall.
10. For the Eternall was not begotten or made, by another; and if it were begotten or made, yet it was made by it self, not by any other, but it is always made.
11. For the Eternall, as it is Eternall, is the Universe.
12. For the Father himself, is Eternall of himself; but the world was made by the Father, ever living, and immortal.
13. And as much Matter as there was laid up by him, the Father made it all into a Body, and swelling it, made it round like a Sphere; endued it with Quality, being it self immortal, and having Eternal Materiality.
14. The Father being full p. 234 of Ideas, sowed Qualities in the Sphere, and shut them up, as in a Circle, deliberating to beautifie with every Quality, that which should afterwards be made.
15. Then cloathing the Universall Body with Immortality, lest the Matter, if it would depart from this Composition, should be dissolved into its own disorder.
16. For when the matter was incorporeal, O Son, it was disordered, and it hath here the same confusion daily revolved about other little things, endued with Qualities, in point of Augmentation, and Diminution, which men call Death; being indeed a disorder happening about earthly living wights.
17. For the Bodies of Heavenly things, have one order, p. 235 which they have received from the Father at the Beginning, and is by the instauration of each of them, kept indissolveable.
18. But the instauration of earthly Bodies, is their consistence; and their dissolution restores them into indissoluble, that is, Immortall.
19. And so there is made a privation of Sense, but not a destruction of Bodies.
20. Now the third living wight is Man, made after the Image of the World; and having by the Will of the Father, a Minde above other earthly wights.
21. And he hath not onely a sympathy with the second God, but also an understanding of the first.
22. For the second God, he apprehends as a Body; but the p. 236 first, he understands as Incorporeal, and the Mind of the Good.
23. Tat. And doth not this living wight perish?
24. Herm. Speak advisedly, O Son, and learn what God is, what the World, what an Immortall Wight, and what a dissolveable One is.
25. And understand that the World is of God, and in God; but Man of the World, and in the World.
26. The Beginning, and End, and Consistence of all, is God.
The End of the sixteenth Book.