The Household of God
Volume 1
The early history of mankind
- Chapter 68 -
ADAM SPEAKS TO HIS OWN AND TO THE CHILDREN OF THE MIDDAY
Having heard this Adam rejoiced and said: O children, rejoice with me for I have truly found the real Paradise. I have passed nine hundred years in dumbness when I no longer understood the animal species, but now I have with enjoyment once more understood the acute meaning of the beast, and I am exceedingly glad of it.
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O Enoch, you fortunate, you immortal one! Great is your light and great the love within you! Therefore, praise, thanks and glory to the Lord forever for having through you shown such great mercy to us!
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"What would all of us be without it? Nothing but semi-rational, mobile machines which eventually would have been consumed by their own delusion; and the lord of nature would have become a deplorable gnat-like slave whom the sight of a frog would have scared and caused to flee like a lamb at the sight of a ferocious wolf, since he would not know what is inherent in the one or the other, least of all that his own soul is an ultimate and fully developed immortal soul, a soul within which the souls of all creatures are combined. And since, as three-quarter dead, he could not possibly ever have known it out of himself, how could he have comprehended his inner life, his love, his spirit and the latter's purely divine origin?
4
"O Enoch, O children! The marvelously comprehensible strong word of the tiger will have truly shaken you and even more so the guilty children of this midday region, but me it has made happy. For once I was at the head of not only this race but of all creatures from the biggest to the smallest, as well as from the strongest to the weakest. Indeed, all the elements were subject to my word and the sun, moon and stars did not ignore my word and wish.
5
"However, it is not important that I am no longer capable of this and I do not ever again want to regret it or ask the Lord to restore this to me. But it is of the greatest importance that we know how to love the Lord above all. For therein lies all life as did in the former might and marvelous abilities all temptation and with it the Fall.
6
"To be a lord means to be great, wise and mighty. But when man, who is meant to be humble, becomes a lord, then he will truly find it very hard to be humble. However, once man has surrendered all dominance to the Lord has instead chosen love and made himself very small before the Lord, to such person humility will be no problem.
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"Or what else is he to give to the Lord who through his humility and love has made himself the property of the Lord? Once we belong to the Lord in our love, we no longer need any dominance.
8
"Does not the power of the Lord surpass everything anyway? If we are the Lord's in love, we will surely be also the Lord's in might and power. Thus the weakest will in the Lord be stronger than the strongest out of himself, even if all the elements were subject to him.
9
"What did such might from God do for me once? Abel's weakness in the Lord outweighed all my might. O Lord, now I no longer ask You for might and power, but I ask only for weakness so that I might be able to love You above all in the most humble self-abandonment. For if I only have seized You in my heart the whole world and its might and power is to me like an evaporated dewdrop, which was and now no longer is.
10
O children, look, this is the reason why the word of the beast has gladdened me; not because I thought the Lord had restored my former might and worldly glory. Oh no, only because in my humble weakness I have become a new possession of the Lord's love. For my weakness hesitated to touch the beast's tongue, but the Lord's mighty word strengthened the tip of my finger which then loosened the tongue of the animal to speak the words of wisdom. O children, this is endlessly more than to understand the nature of all creation; the first is only human, but the second purely divine and cannot be compared to anything.
11
"And now listen, children! Finally there shall still be a word directed to you. To comply with the wise admonition of the beast, let all the children come closer to us and hear a word from me, then a word from Seth and finally also one from Enoch. Then Enos and Kenan shall proclaim to them the coming day and as soon as today the sun will incline towards evening, they shall rest from all work
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"However, before we leave this region also Asmahael, seated on his carrier, shall say something about it, comparing it with the lowland so that the children might receive a living proof of their folly; then a small refreshment, blessing and departure. Amen."
13
Then Enoch went to the crowd, encouraged them and they, the children of the midday, came closer awaiting with fear and trembling what would happen to them,
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When they had all properly arranged themselves in front of Adam according to age and rank, the latter rose and addressed the following memorable speech to them, saying:
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"Children, you who are dwelling in the region above which, seen from my dwelling, the sun stands at midday, tell me or confirm it to me, the original Progenitor of progenitors, whether you have well understood the sincere word from the mouth of the un-spoilt nature of the otherwise dumb beasts."
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The children affirmed it and confessed their guilt with many tears of remorse, and Adam continued, saying:
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"Good for you that you regret your offence, for the Lord takes things seriously with His people. You could have been judged and your shoulders would have been burdened with calamity if you had not repented what this beast prevented you from doing.
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"Do you think that your disobedience has now ceased to be disobedience and your sin to be such because you have returned? Oh no, say I, for it was not fear of the Lord and even less love for Him that kept you from carrying out your sinful plan, no, it was fear of this strong beast which is witnessing against you.
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"And so to your great shame you were judged by the Lord through this beast, for the Lord took your glory away from you and instead filled your hearts with great alarm and fear of that which should have fled from you and whose masters you were meant to be.
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"Oh see what slaves your disobedience has made of you!
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Truly, if you had not properly regretted your sin this beast would have been a cruel judge to you.
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"However, it is not enough that you regret your deed because of the great shame with which the Lord has struck you, or that you regret it because the Lord has withdrawn from you a great part of His grace and has placed you on the borderline of His mercy, or because the Lord has set this beast, your judge, for a witness and has now miraculously awakened it to speak against you. If you truly regret your deed or your intention, then thank the Lord with a joyful heart that He has still kept you in the judgment and weep for having even for a moment been able to forget His endless, most holy fatherly love when daily the sun is calling to you aloud from the sky: 'Children, your good and holy Father has created me for you; do recognize His great love!' - and the moon calls to you: 'Children, listen, your most loving, good and holy Father created me for your sake to be a faithful guardian and constant companion of the earth and a permanent witness to His endless love!' And all the stars are calling: O children, our number is great and endless; we are mostly suns of distant worlds all of which partly correspond to your nature, for every atom individually, and in their multiplicity endlessly. Behold, we have been made for you and so has all infinity! Oh see and recognize how mighty, great, loving, good and holy your Father is!'
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"And the entire earth is calling to you: O children, listen, I and everything I carry is for you! I must carry you like a tender mother through endless spaces, must let you daily suck on my always open breasts; I must turn and rotate that you may have day and night and, like playing children, may rest after your activity. O children, who could count the numerous tasks I have to perform for your sake within Me and without. Behold, all this your good and holy Father has arranged in this way because of His immense love for you!'
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O children, ask the water and it will tell you the same; ask the valleys and the mountains, they will also tell you the same. Ask all the grass, the plants, the bushes, the trees and all the animals, and you will be told the same everywhere. Yes, every dewdrop will proclaim it to you clearly and each mote whisper it to you that the Lord God Jehovah is the most loving, holy Father of all of us and has set us for our full education among all the loving and beneficial wonders of His fatherly heart that we may in our love for Him become capable of receiving ever greater and greater blessings and beatitudes and finally the indescribable one: Life eternal in Him!
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"O children, look how good our holy Father is! How could you forget Him for even a moment, and that because of such an unimportant thing!
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"And now if you want to truly repent of your disobedience, there it is, seek in it and recognize the true cause of your repentance, for all else is idle and useless.
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"All of us have issued from eternal Love and are, therefore, children of one and the same holy Father Who dwells forever in His eternal glory and holiness and in His love with us and we with Him. Therefore, His love must mean everything to us. For only in and through love are we His children, only through love can we praise Him worthily as God and Lord; only through love can we recognize Him and approach Him, and through and in the love live and find and attain life eternal.
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"God is inaccessible in His holiness, inscrutable in His wisdom, boundless in His mercy, terrible in His might and forever invincible in His strength His light is a Light of all light and His fire a Fire of all fires. And thus He is in all this an inviolable and to us alien God Who does not want us and keeps forever repelling us. But this same God is also Supreme Love Itself. This love appeases the Deity so much that He does care about us. If we love Him His divine essence overflows through the love for us; He makes us His children and reveals Himself to us as the best, most loving, holy Father in everything we see, to love and enjoy Him more and more and finally in the free, eternal life to fully behold Him as such.
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"So bear in mind, children, Who and What God is and Who and What our most holy Father is and act accordingly and faithfully! Amen."