Kabbalism, Secret Societies, And Masonry.

reason of the Fall he acquired one ; or rather , that the Fall was that" The eternal Lord God decreed that he . should descend down to be an inhabitant of the earth , and that ho should not there indulge to himself the pleasures of the body without the conomitants of pain and sorrow , and that his Feminine parthis affectionsshoidd be under

, , the chastisement and correction of his reason At last the plastic poxcev being fully awakened , Adam ' s soul descended into the prepared matter of the earth , and in due processe of time Adam appeared clothed in the skin of beasts ; that is , he became a down-right terrestrial animal , and a mortal creature noon earth . "—¦ P . 49 .

In this temptation the devil is a real person , who addresses himself to the "feminized Adam , " and this"Feminine part in Adam was so tickled with this doctrine of the old deceiver that the concupiscible began to be so immoderate , as to resolve to do any thing that may promote pleasure and experience in things , and snatch'd away with it Adojm ' s will and reason by his heedlessnesse and inadvertency . "—P . 46 .

"We shall now give the same history as it appears in the "Moral Cabbala . " After giving a mystical interpretation to the work of the six days' Creation , we come to paradise : — " Hitherto I have showed unto you how niankinde is raised up from one dogree of Spiritual Light and

Eighteousnesse unto another , till wo come at last to that full command aud Perfection in the Divine Life , that a man may be said in some sort thus to have attained to the Kingdom of Heaven , or found a Paradise upon Earth . The narration that follows shall instruct you ancl forewarn you of those evil courses , whereby man loses that measure of paradisiacal happinesse God estates him in ,

even while ho is in this world . I say , therefore , that the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden , and there he put the man whom he had made ; that is , man Irvine ; under the intellectual rayes of the Spirit , and being guided by the morning- light of the Sun of Righteousness , is led into a very pleasant and sweet contentment of of niindeancl the testimony of a good conscience is his

, great delight . " And that the sundry Germinations and springings up of the works of righteousnesse in him is a delectable Paradise to him , pleasing both the sight and taste of that measure of divine Life that is manifested in him : But of

all the plants that grow in him , there is none of so soveraign virtue as that in the midst of this garden ; to wit , the Tree of Life , which is a sincere obedience to the mill of God : nor any that bears so lethiferous and poisonous fruit , as the Tree of thc knoivledge of good and evil , which is disobedience to the wiU of God , as it is ' manifested in man . For the pleasureof the Soul consists

In conforming herself faithfully to what she is persuaded in her own conscience is the will of God , whatever others would insinuate to the contrary . " And all the fruit-bearing trees of righteousnesse are watered by these four rivers , which winde along this Garden of Pleasure , which indeed are the four Cardinal

virtues " But withall he [ God ] bade him have special care how he relisht his own will or power in anything , but that he should be obedient to the manifest will of God in things gz'eat and small , or else he would assuredly lose the life he now lived , and become dead to all righteousnese ancl truth

" But the wisdom of God saw that it was not good for the soul of man that the masculine powers thereof should thus operate alone , but that all the faculties of life should be set afloat , that the whole humane nature might lie accompli slit with the divine " Wherefore divine Providence brought it so to passe ,

Kabbalism, Secret Societies, And Masonry.

for the good of the man , and that he might more vigorously and fully be enrich'd with delight , that the operations of the masculine faculties of tho soul were , for a while , slaked and consopited ; during which time the faculties themselves were something lessened or weakened , yet in such a due measure and proportion , than considering the future advantage that was expected ,

that was not missed that was taken away , but are as handsome ancl compleat as before . "For what was thus abated in the masculine faculties was compensated abundantly in exhibiting to the man the grateful sense of the feminine ; for there is no way but this to create the v : oman , which is to elicite that kindlflmccring joyor harmless delihtof the natural

y , g , life , mid liealtli of the body .- which , once exhibited and joyned with simplicity and innocency of spirit , is the greatest part of that Paradise a man is cajiable of upon earth " But so it came to passe that the life of the body being thus invigorated in man straightway the slyest and subtilest of all the Animal Figurations , the Serpent ,

which is the inordinate desire of pleasure , craftily insinuated itself into the feminine part of Adam , -viz : the km-dh ) jeij of the body , and thus assaulting man , whispered such suggestions as these unto him : What a rigid and severe thing is this businesse of religion , and the law of God , as they call it , that deprives a man of all manner of pleasure , and cuts him short of all the contentments of life ?

" But the Serpent , which is the inordinate desire of pleasure , befooled Adam through the frailty of his u-omanish faculties , and made him believe that he should not die ; but with safety might serve the free dictates of pleasure , or his own will and the will of God that flesh and spirit might both rule in him , and be no such prejudice the one to the other . " —I bid . pp . 64—71 . *

As the fall was but tlie lower faculties gaining a mystery over the higher , so voice of the Lord God is nothing more than awakened conscience ; and Eedemption is the subduing the earthl y to the heavenly faculties in man . f "We need not go further into this subject than to

point out hoiv much of German neology is a legitimate following up of the principles of Kabbalistie interpretation of Scripture , only that the former have applied to the Kew Testament the like principles Avhich guided the latter in the Old . Perhaps the mystic school of Jacob Boehme has no small share in

this matter . "We may add , that no one can doubt from whence came the reveries of Emmanuel Swedenborg , and the principles of the strange sect which bears his name . In this system the literal disappears altogether , ancl nothing but the allegory remains ; this spiritual senseor rather fantasticalis set before

, , us as the only one ivorthy of notice , the literal being merely the casket that contains it . His notion of the allegorical nature of tbe history of the Creation and of Paradise , is very similar to that of Dr . More , just quoted ; in both cases Adam is not one individual , but